Le Musée de la culture juive de Bratislava et les implications postcommunistes de son développement institutionnel

Abstract

The central idea and the purported role which organize the work of a given Jewish museum clearly refer to the issues occupying its surrounding society with the greatest intensity or, alternatively, to the theme that could have the best chance of being digested by that society. Such issues may include the thematization of anti-Semitism or of the Holocaust, or may have a cultural mediating role. To what extent can we find a reflection of the Central-European Jewry’s multi-layered process of self-definition in the work of the Museum of Jewish Culture in Bratislava after 1989? Furthermore, to what extent does this process of self-definition follow the historical image conceived in the consciousness of the surrounding societies? What are the social conditions, the historical precursors and the future perspectives of these self-reflections? These are the questions to which I purport to find an answer in my article.