Learning to be Austrian: A Meso-ethnographic Museum and National Identity Analysis

Year 2012, Volume: 3 Issue: 2, 31 - 48, 01.06.2012

Martina Riedler

Abstract

Keywords

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References

• long complex history and commonly appraised rich culture of the now small country. Some visitors to the
• Belvedere thought that the display of Austria’s former glory compensates in some way for its contemporary
• position as a relatively small country. Besides Austria’s baroque heroic past, the prestigious golden age of fin
• de-siècle culture is what the Belvedere (willingly or unwillingly) associates with Austria itself. Though many
• of the special exhibitions are scrupulously researched and displayed, exhibitions about the nation’s treasures
• are what one visitor expressed with concern “almost a blatant, self-admitted form of propaganda.” The
• seemingly cash-strapped Belvedere, it appears, is reluctant to resist the allure of well-endowed crowd-pleasers,
• even when they verge on exploitation of the museum’s intellectual resources and professional integrity.
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