Museums and Agriculture in Cold War Europe: The establishment of the Association Internationale de Musées d’Agriculture

• Thesis title in Czech: Muzea a zemědělství v Evropě v období studené války: Založení Association Internationale de Musées d’Agriculture
• Thesis title in English: Museums and Agriculture in Cold War Europe: The establishment of the Association Internationale de Musées d’Agriculture
• Key words: AIMA|dějiny muzejnictví|dějiny zemědělství|historie mezinárodních nevládních organizací|studená válka
• English key words: AIMA|museum history|agricultural history|International NGO history|Cold War
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2018/2019
• Thesis type: diploma thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Institute of General History (21-USD)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Jiří Janáč, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 15.05.2019
• Date of assignment: 16.05.2019
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 28.05.2019
• Date and time of defence: 15.06.2020 10:00
• Date of electronic submission: 15.05.2020
• Date of proceeded defence: 15.06.2020
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. Doubravka Olšáková, Ph.D.

Guidelines

This research focus on the emergence and development of agricultural museology in twentieth-century Europe, with special attention to the establishment of knowledge transfer networks between different transnational actors; contributing to the identification of theoretical changes and methodological trends in the development of this museological field.
The Skansen Open-Air Museum in Stockholm, a folklore museum, and the Hungarian Agriculture Museum in Budapest, a national museum with a markedly technical character, both founded in the 1890s, were the two pioneer institutions of this kind, acting as role-models for later initiatives around Europe and beyond. This bipolar ancestry reflects the variety of approaches possible, still today, in the realm of agricultural museology: one can find agriculture-related museums focused on technical matters, food and nutrition, folklore, specific industries or sectors, etc. Furthermore, the museographic approaches and curatorial options of these institutions can vary considerably from re-enactment of traditional practices to the science-centre-inspired display of environmental matters.
At a time when environmental, agricultural, and food related matters gain increasing importance in museums, it stands as essential to know the history and development of these intuitions. Methodologically, using tools from the digital humanities’ field, we intend to establish a historical geography of this phenomenon, identifying and mapping transnational trends and key networks, with special attention devoted to the developed of the Association Internationale de Musées d’Agriculture (AIMA), founded in 1966 in Czechoslovakia and involving institutions in both sides of the Iron Curtain. The Acta Musearum Agriculturae (1966-1989), the journal of this organisation, constitutes an essential source for this research, allowing for a better understating of the main theoretical debates within the agricultural museological milieu, in a particularly constrained political context. Other sources, produced by international organisations (like the UNESCO or the FAO) or national institutions complement our research.

References

Selected sources

Acta Museorum Agriculturae, 22 volumes between 1966 and 1989. Published by the Czech National Museum of Agriculture for the AIMA.
Browne, C.A.“A National Museum of Agriculture; The Story of a Lost Endeavour.” Agricultural History 3, nº 3 (1939): 137-148.
CIMA Proceedings (Congres Internationale de Musées d’Agriculture), 10 volumes between 1992 and 2017. Published by several different institutions for the AIMA.
Museum International, annual journal published by the ICOM/UNESCO starting in 1948.
Reich, Edvard, Jan Frič. “Zemědělské Musejnictví v Československu. “ Časové Otázky Zemědělské 64 (1937).

Indicative bibliography

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Bäckström, Mattias. ‘Reading the Official and the Unofficial: On the Practice of a Historical Investigation of the “Folk-Memory” at the Scandinavian folk Museums and Open-Air Museums during the Late 19th Century.’ Comparing: National Museums, Territories, Nation-Building and Change, edited by Peter Aronsson and Andreas Nyblom, 167-174. Linköping: Linköping Electronic Conference Proceedings, 2008.
Bennett, Tony. The Birth of the Museum – history, theory, politics. London and New York: Routledge, 2009.
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