Meanings of the “Museum Boom” in Contemporary Poland and Elsewhere

Abstract

The “museum boom” is a global phenomenon with various local manifestations and wide-ranging antecedents. The recent museum boom in Poland, in which a number of national museum complexes have either opened or undergone significant remodeling, is related to changing evidential discourses about collective identity. These discourses are part of the national narratives surrounding the Polish state. This essay asks what can be learned from the Polish museum boom. Notably, museums and museum-like institutions within Poland serve as a space for education and dialogue that both complements and contrasts with history education in schools and written history books. Through comparative case studies, this essay addresses how the museum boom is rooted in the particularities of Poland’s history. Museums elsewhere are experiencing similar shifts, and we ask here what these changes can tell us about the transformations of history museums in Poland.