Verzamelingen voor verbondenheid

Collections for cohesion National history museums in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, ca. 1800-2008 ‘To stimulate the national identity’ and ‘to bring the nation together’ are arguments most frequently used to establish a museum about national history in a lot of Western countries today. European governments create expositions about ‘their history’ and use them as a tool to solve social issues, like the integration of minorities, and to foster historical consciousness. In the nineteenth century there were similar developments. National history museums were being built that often still exist today. The (governmental) interest in national history is common for the ‘diverse material and immaterial past relationships’ both nineteenth century and today, which in this study are referred to as ‘historical culture’.669 This historical culture is dynamic. Several persons, groups, societies and institutions articulate a different approach to the past in the form of material or immaterial culture, which can change over time.670 In this master thesis I therefore tried to relate the changes in this historical culture to the different arguments that were used in the debates about the establishment of national history museums. This study focuses on the discussions in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom. The central research question of this master thesis is: which debates were taking place about national history museums in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the ending of the twentieth century, what are the differences and what the similarities? And, can these differences and similarities be explained by the changing historical culture in both countries? The Netherlands had their first national history museum in The Hague in 1800. The Dutch Patriot Isaäc Gogel tried to bring the provinces of the Batavian Republic together with his ‘Nationale Kunstgalerij’ (‘National Art gallery’). With it Gogel attempted to unite the northern and southern regions of the Netherlands as a nation. Furthermore the ‘Nationale Kunstgalerij’ was meant to morally re-educate people, as well as to set an example for contemporary artists. To achieve these goals the museum presented a selective view on the nation’s past. The museum soon lost its primary function and was relocated and renamed several times. In 1838 the collection of the ‘Nationale Kunstgalerij’ was scattered over several museums, where it was displayed by object class. That is why in the second half of the nineteenth century several attempts were made to establish a new national history museum. The idea of the liberal Johan Rudolf Thorbecke - who was heavily criticized by several opinion makers on his laissez-fair policy in the art sector - to create such an institution in the Ridderzaal (‘Knights’ Hall’) of the Houses of Parliament was never realized. Also, the private initiative of a grand ‘Muzeüm Willem I’ (‘William I Museum’) in Amsterdam never got the necessary government funding. Private organisations like the artist society ‘Arti et Amicitiae’ and the ‘Koninklijk Oudheidkundig Genootschap’ (KOG) (‘Royal Antiquarian Society’) tried to fill the gap by organizing either temporary or permanent expositions on national history. Although widely praised on their attempts to visualize national history, ‘Arti et Amicitiae’ soon specialized in artexpositions, leaving the KOG behind. In the end the head of the governmental department of arts and sciences Victor de Stuers - famous for his fight against the Dutch neglect of monumental buildings - instigated the plans for a new national museum in Amsterdam that would host a collection of paintings, historical objects and coins and medals. The history department, which would also provide some historical paintings, was already opened in The Hague in 1875 as the ‘Nederlandsch Museum van Geschiedenis en Kunst’ (‘Dutch Museum of History and Art’). Ten years later this exhibition would be transferred to the new ‘Rijksmuseum’ (‘National Museum’) in Amsterdam. De Stuers’ decision-making reflected the new political climate in the Dutch Parliament, where the liberal approach to the art sector of Thorbecke was left behind. In 1929 the exhibition of the ‘Rijksmuseum’ was reorganized with art and history separated from each other. The famous historian Johan Huizinga - who was a member of a governmental commission on the museum sector at that time - disagreed with this decision because he thought you needed paintings of artistically good quality to experience ‘direct contact with the past’ (the so-called ‘historical sensation’). However, Huizinga never stopped the plans. In 1998 the ‘Rijksmuseum’ presented a ‘Masterplan’. They wanted to combine the different collections in one exposition. Because they would then loose their exhibition on the history of the Netherlands, the writers of the ‘Masterplan’ pleaded for the establishment of a new national history museum. Left-wing politician Jan Marijnissen revitalized this idea in 2003. He argued that such a museum was necessary because of a lack of historical consciousness amongst school children and adults in general. With it he also wanted to stop the fragmentation of society and to create a sense of ‘collectivity’. Not until 2006 conservative MP Maxime Verhagen supported Marijnissen’s idea. The Dutch parliament decided to create a national history museum to stimulate a national identity. Because this museum - which, as decided by minister Plasterk, is going to be built in Arnhem - is not going to have a collection of its own, it is going to use a lot of multimedia to visualize the past. Most professional historians held themselves aloof from the debate about this national history museum. Recently however several of them tried to get involved with the decision-making by organizing discussions on the subject. The discussion about a national history museum in the United Kingdom started about half a century later than in the Netherlands. Philip Stanhope introduced his idea of a ‘National Gallery of Portraits’ in the House of Commons in 1846 and 1852. Only in 1856 he was successful in promoting his idea in the House of Lords. Stanhope’s national history museum would be a gallery ‘of men who are most honourably commemorated in British History as Warriors or as Statesmen, or in Arts, in Literature, or in Science.’671 The gallery would set an example for contemporary men, who might attempt to achieve ‘great deeds’ when they could earn a spot in this National Portrait Gallery. Also, the museum would educate contemporary portrait painters. In this last sense the National Portrait Gallery matches the Dutch ‘Nationale Kunstgalerij’. However this cannot be said of the main goal. The National Portrait Gallery was there to stimulate a sense of patriotism but it did not function as an institution to bring different provinces together. The argumentation about stimulating national pride did resemble the goals of the Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations, the World Fair that was held in London in 1851. However, the fact that the National Portrait Gallery was soon moved from a small governmental building to the South Kensington Museum - a museum of art and industry which was loosely based on the Great Exhibition - has more to do with problems finding a better location than with the resemblance between these goals. The press warned potential visitors for the political influence in the making of the National Portrait Gallery, although the museum was never properly funded. After being temporarily re-located to what is now called the Bethnal Green Museum - due to potential fire hazard at the location in South Kensington - a private investor funded a new building. Since 1895 the National Portrait Gallery can therefore be visited at St. Martin’s Place in central London. Although the National Portrait Gallery still functions as a national history museum in Great Britain today, politicians decided in 2007 that a new ‘Museum of British History’ had to be built in London. The conservative Lord Kenneth Baker launched this idea in 1997 as a project for the celebration of the new millennium. His idea never got funded. Baker re-introduced his plan in 2007 and it received a positive response from prime minister Gordon Brown, because it fitted in his ‘Britishness’- campaign. Brown thought of visualizing Britain’s national history in order to tighten the bond between England, Scotland, Wales and North-Ireland. He saw the United Kingdom falling apart because of the growing independency of these regions. On top of that Brown wanted to include minorities in the national history of the United Kingdom. The private British Empire and Commonwealth Museum in Bristol actually had the same objective. This museum wanted to present a history of the British Empire and commonwealth in which both British natives and migrants would recognize themselves. Not only did they visualize this goal with promotional posters - which showed a young black British guy on the one hand and an old British lady on the other - but also it was recognizable in the exposition. The museum showed the history of the British Empire both from a western and a non-western-perspective. By ‘celebrating how hundreds of thousands of people from the former colonies enriched British culture’ they tried to stimulate social cohesion.672 The debates about national history museums in the Netherlands and the United Kingdom roughly reflected the changing historical culture in which they took place. The nineteenth century historical culture of both countries was characterized by a strong focus on national history. Historical fiction developed as a genre. Statues of famous people from national history were raised. There was a growing interest in folklore. And history education was solely national. But also in professional history writing the nation dominated. In fact it was seen as a synthesizing concept to write history. Modern historians on the contrary know that the nation-state is a political construction and therefore they are wary in contributing to the use of the past in constructing this nationstate. This could explain the different attitude of nineteenth century historians on the one hand and modern day historians on the other hand to the establishment of national history museums. A similar nationalisation of historical culture was taking place from the late twentieth century. More and more national history is seen as an instrument to solve social problems. Both the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have a national history curriculum to foster historical consciousness. Furthermore, the modern day national history museums in both countries are meant to stimulate social cohesion, in which they resemble the Dutch ‘Nationale Kunstgalerij’. The dynamics in the historical culture may however also cause a difference from the nineteenth century museums. The tendency these days is toward national inclusion instead of exclusion. Politicians would like to incorporate the different histories that exist in societies today into one national history instead of excluding nations from this national history, which was often the case in the nineteenth century. The national history museums all concurred to the visualization as a characteristic of the historical culture. In the nineteenth century this happened by displaying objects from the past, today it is achieved by multimedia. By visualizing national history they all try to be collections for cohesion.