Authors

Discussion

It has been over three decades since states across Central and Eastern Europe transitioned to democracy, striving to move beyond their recent Communist pasts to present themselves in the post-1989 world order as “democratic, pluralist, capitalist and largely Westward-looking” (Light 2000: 158). The success of these efforts has been the subject of much debate, giving rise to a plurality of perspectives of how Communism and the transition to democracy are to be remembered. This presentation addresses these discussions through the lens of the museum, highlighting its role in the CEE’s transition away from authoritarian rule. Indeed, the musealization of Communism over the years has played a large part in this process, at once reflecting and reinforcing the states’ democratic ambitions through their preferred representations of the era. I look specifically at the oft-overlooked narrative of victimhood presented at the Museum of Communism, in Prague, Czechia, and argue that this institution – long criticized as a private enterprise promoting Communist nostalgia – is instead a valuable institution which represents the Communist era as one of oppression and the Czechoslovak people as victims of a totalitarian system. I demonstrate the nation-building tropes employed by the museum to draw a boundary around its past, and discuss the continued need for such an action amidst the backdrop of today’s geopolitical uncertainties. That is, at a time of heightened uncertainty about Russia’s influence in the region, I contend that the Museum of Communism uses a narrative of victimhood to reinforce Czechia’s identity as a successfully democratic nation, fully separate from its totalitarian past.