Slovene Ethnographic Museum - A New Member of AEMI in 2002

Transcription

1 Slovene Ethnographic Museum - A New Member of AEMI in 2002 Daša Hribar This article presents the Slovene Ethnographic Museum which joined AEMI in 2002 It deals with the history and operation of the museum, with special emphasis on its museum activities related to emigration material We see our membership in AEMI as a recognition of our past activities in the field of migration themes and as an encouragement for our future work Basic information about the Slovene Ethnographic Museum The Slovene Ethnographic Museum is the central, national ethnographic museum of Slovenia, located in the capital Ljubljana It was founded as an independent museum in 1923 The collections of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum go back further in time as they were started in 1821, within the then central museum of Slovenia which was called the Carniolan Provincial Museum During this long and fruitful period of operation the Slovene Ethnographic Museum has acquired precious and invaluable collections, which now contain over 30,000 objects from the Slovene ethnic territory, and 10,000 objects from non-european countries The Slovene collections bear witness to the way of living, economy, social relations, and arts of the population in the Slovene ethnic territory in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, in particular of the population in the rural areas The collections of emigration material are incorporated in the museum s collections, because emigration from the Slovene ethnic territory was the predominant social phenomenon in the 19th and 20th centuries in this area Further rich collections, which bear witness to non-european ethnic groups, are connected with Slovene emigrants in a specific way, because they were donated to the museum by the very first Slovene emigrants, who were missionaries in the first half of the 19th century In the recent history of the Slovene Ethnographic Museum the year 1997 was an important landmark The museum then moved from the premises it shared with the National Museum of Slovenia to a new location in Ljubljana The Slovene Ethnographic Museum thus finally became a completely independent institution also in terms of having its own premises, and determined its objectives concerning the renovation of the two buildings it had acquired In 2004 the museum s new Exhibition Palace

2 2 AEMI JOURNAL 2003 will be completely renovated The emigration material in the care of Slovene Ethnographic Museum will occupy a prominent place in the permanent exhibition in this building Basic information on emigration from the Slovene ethnic territory The emigration waves which characterised Europe in the second half of the 19th century left a distinct mark on the Slovene ethnic territory The reason why we keep referring to the Slovene ethnic territory (instead of to Slovenia ) is that the Slovenes lived in three different states in the 19th and 20th centuries (Austria-Hungary, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, and the SFR Yugoslavia); they established their own nation state, the Republic of Slovenia, only in 1991 After the First World War about 150,000 autochthonous Slovenes remained in three neighbouring countries - Italy, Austria, Hungary The research of emigration in our museum therefore takes into account two major facts: 1 The research of the emigration of Slovenes cannot be limited to emigration from Slovenia, but its field work must also include the Slovene ethnic territory as defined above This is the only approach which can provide us with relevant specialist and historical data on the emigration of Slovenes to the rest of the world The museum s field work is therefore carried out also in Italy, Austria and Hungary, when we investigate the causes of emigration and its consequences 2 The second major fact to be observed is that the Slovene ethnic territory was not inhabited exclusively by Slovenes, but also by members of other nationalities and ethnicities And not only Slovenes emigrated from Slovenia, but also members of other nations Their emigration largely resulted from economic pressures, but at times it was also a political necessity, due to historical conditions It is commonly accepted that emigration was the social phenomenon which left the deepest mark on the Slovene ethnic territory in the 19th and 20th centuries In a relatively short period, from 1880 to 1975, about half a million people emigrated from the area Most of them were from the territory of the present Slovenia, and the majority were Slovenes To get a clear idea of the emigration s dimensions, the number of emigrants should be compared with the total population, which in the mentioned period consisted of 1,200,000 to 1,900,000 inhabitants This percentage of emigrants puts Slovenia among the countries most affected by emigration Basic information on the collections of emigration material in the Slovene Ethnographic Museum The emigration material is incorporated in the museum s rich collections Emigration affected the territory to a degree that there is hardly a family which did not have (or does not have today) at least one relative living abroad Most families therefore keep a wealth of objects, documents, letters, and photographs in memory of their emigrated relatives It is true that for many decades the Slovene Ethnographic Museum did not have a department or curator to systematically collect emigration material, but the impact of emigration on various fields of life was so strong that all

3 the museum s curators inevitably encountered the theme In the past, emigrant material arrived in the museum as part of research work into the economy (the influence of emigrants on the introduction of novelties), interior furnishings (wall ornaments), social relations, family ties (letters, photographs, donation contracts), the preservation of traditions, and other subjects The collections which are today in the Slovene Ethnographic Museum are collections of emigrants suitcases, personal objects, letters, photographs, emigrant newspapers and magazines, books and textbooks, various documents (passports, donation contracts, certificates of domicile, etc), and donations The collections also feature tools belonging to the occupations the emigrants carried out, traditional artistic products etc The collections indeed relate to all spheres of the life of emigrants, and they were acquired in the territory of Slovenia as well as abroad, in the Slovene emigrant communities in Europe, USA, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, and Australia The foundation of the Migration Department: The Department for the Slovene emigrants, the Slovene ethnic minorities in the neighbouring countries, and foreign ethnic groups living in Slovenia The awareness that it was necessary to systematically collect, study, and present emigration material had grown for quite some time when, in 1999, the management decided to establish an independent department for the Slovene emigrants, the Slovene ethnic minorities in the neighbouring countries, and foreign ethnic groups living in Slovenia An independent curator was appointed for the department This was a pioneer move by Slovene Ethnographic Museum, because it is the only museum in Slovenia, which has a department for (e)migrants and an independent curator It has to be emphasised that Slovenia has no emigration museum yet and that Slovene Ethnographic Museum is the first museum to establish an independent museum department for the research into migration The emigration material already included in the museum collections was reevaluated, and the foundations were laid for further activities aimed at systematic collection, documentation, preservation, research, and presentation of emigration material in the Slovene Ethnographic Museum While researching emigration trends from Slovenia on the one hand, the museum also intends to systematically study and preserve material witnesses to immigration into Slovenia, which intensified from the early 1990s onwards The activities of the Migration Department in the period Between September 1999 (when the department started its operation) and December 2002 the Migration Department prepared five exhibitions, and cooperated in the preparation of a sixth one These exhibitions were : Faces of Life - a photographic exhibition on the life of the Slovenes in Italy in the 1950s (November 2000 March 2001); Easter eggs from Argentina - an exhibition of Easter Eggs donated by the emigrant Marko Bajuk from Mendoza, Argentina (March- April 2002); North and South of the Equator, an exhibition

4 4 AEMI JOURNAL 2003 of paintings by Nataša Škof, a Slovene emigrant living in Australia (April-May 2002); Donations of emigration material to the Slovene Ethnographic Museum in period (from July 2002); Honey and Salt - the exhibition about the emigrants and emigration from the north- east of Slovenia (October 2002; in co-operation with the Institute for Slovene Emigration Studies) Furthermore: Emigrants Life stories of Slovenes living around the world The exhibition, on view in the National Museum of Contemporary History (October October 2002), was prepared by the Institute for Slovene Emigration Studies, the National Museum of Contemporary History, and the Slovene Ethnographic Museum It was highly acclaimed by experts as well by the general public The principal tasks of the Migration Department, however, remain the emigration material in the museum s holdings, its preservation, research, and presentation to the public Another continuous task of the department is to acquire museum material in Slovenia and among the Slovene emigrants abroad Both tasks have been carried out with major success by the Department, and the museum has acquired legacies from emigrants who returned home, and donations from abroad Plans for the period The Slovene Ethnographic Museum envisages to finish the renovation of its Exhibition Palace by the end of 2004 The museum will then be able to present its Slovene and non-european collections on an area of 4,000 m2, and an important section will be dedicated to the emigration material The permanent exhibition will be installed in two phases, with the first to be concluded in 2004, and the second in 2006 The first phase will present an exhibition entitled Gallery of the Collections and the following contents related to the Slovene emigrants will be presented in this exhibition: basic data about the Slovene emigration; the principal occupations carried out by Slovene emigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries; the different forms of assistance provided by emigrants to their families as sources of income to the relatives who stayed in the homeland (assistance in money, food, clothes, in buying property, etc) ; the attitudes of emigrants to the homeland; the preservation of their Slovene cultural identity; their knowledge, values, and the different horizons they acquired as emigrants In the second section of the permanent exhibition, The Exhibition s Story (to be finished in 2006), the emphasis will be on the individual life stories of emigrants, the specific character of individual emigration communities in different countries around the world, the contribution of emigrants to the culture and economy of their new countries, individual differences between the different generations of emigrants, etc We also want to start with systematic work on immigration material, especially with collecting objects of ethnic minorities groups who live in Slovenia and who exceed 10% of the total population in Slovenia We consider this very important for the presentation of life in Slovenia The project will start in 2005 There is no doubt that the permanent exhibition in the Slovene Ethnographic

5 Museum will be the most comprehensive museum presentation about the Slovene emigrants to date, and that there is no match for it in any other museum on Slovenia For all those involved in the preparations for these exhibition, this means a feeling of additional responsibility All our endeavours are therefore aimed at high-quality solutions for the two projects, that is collecting missing material, investigating acquired collections, consultations with domestic and foreign experts in migration studies, and museum presentation of emigration material Membership in AEMI enables our museum to share important professional experiences in the field On the other hand, we wish to contribute our share to the efforts made by migration research institutions round Europe We are very happy to be a member of AEMI and look forward to co-operate with the other members