Curating an Authentic Past. by Ben Hayes

CURATING AN AUTHENTIC PAST: THE CASE OF KIZHI ISLAND

BEN HAYES THESIS

ABSTRACT

The concept of the open-air museum was formed from the desire to preserve architectural heritage and aestheticise the past. This aesthetic approach to landscape grew out of the ideals of nationalism and romanticism. However, as shifting notions of culture and identity change, our understanding of landscape has shifted from the symbolic and scenographic, to the lived and dialogic. As a result, the role of the openair museum in the future is uncertain. In this context, this thesis examines Kizhi State Open-air museum in Northern Russia. It explores how itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s symbolic image has been formed, idealised and commodified, and discusses how this aesthetic image has disconnected the museum from surroundings. This thesis challenges the existing model used by the museum to represent the past, and reconsiders the role of the curator, to explore its place in the future.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am indebted to Tim Waterman for his advice and guidance whilst writing this thesis. In addition, I would like to thank Richard Davies for sharing his knowledge on the subject.

Kizhi Island, Republic of Karelia, Russia.

CONTENTS

1. Introduction p. 1 2. The Open-air Movement and the Aestheticisation of the Past p. 9 3. The â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Log Jerusalemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;; Kizhi Island Past and Present p. 39 4. The National Aesthetic and Collective Memory p. 63 5. Curating an Authentic Past p. 95 6. Conclusion: The Cultural Institution. p. 137 7. Bibliography. p. 147 8. Illustrated Credits. p. 158 9. Appendix. p. 159

1 Introduction

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“The idea that there are any landscapes where time stood still, history has ended, is very strange. No landscape is relict: it is all continuing and ongoing.”1

1 Graham Fairclough, Europe’s cultural landscape, (Brussels: Europae Archaeologiae Consilium, 2002) p.37

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I.I.Levitan Above Eternal Peace. 1894 Oil on Canvas. Isaac Levitan’s landscape paintings advanced the genre of the sublime ‘mood landscape’. This painting ‘Above Eternal Peace’ (fig.1) was seen as a profound response to the endless scale of the Russian landscape and the symbols of the human presence that occupies it and survives it. Like many of the famous landscape paintings at this time, their composition were both aesthetically affective and symbolically effective. These paintings were the “culmination of a century-long search for images of the Russian land that the Russian public, poets, prose authors, and artists could embrace as essential statements of a positive national identity.”2 2 Christopher Ely, This Meager Nature. Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia. (Illinois: Northern Illinois

INTRODUCTION

Fig. 1

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INTRODUCTION

The role of the open-air museum in the future is an uncertain one. The

scenographic approach to landscape is an idea that has changed radically in recent years, and landscape space can now be understood as a dialogic relationship between people and their environment. The arrangements and collections of buildings types were formed on ideas of romanticism and nationalism, but as shifting notions of culture and identity change, the types of knowledge and experiences these museums construct today are put into question.

The idea of the open-air museum developed out of the desire to aestheticise

the past. Architectural artefacts were relocated to construct ‘ideal’ representations of picturesque landscapes. This new type of museum developed at the end of the 19th century in Scandinavia, shortly after the artistic, literary and intellectual movement of romanticism. The idea popularised national history and became a method used to propagate nationalism through the aesthetic arrangement of architectural representation. Over the 20th century this museum type was soon adopted by many nations in Europe, North American and Russia. As modernisation brought upon the industrialisation of tourism, historic architecture now functions as a prime cultural medium. National history and curatorship have been ubiquitously linked as historical monuments are aestheticised and commodified. However, in Western Europe as “the grip of nationalism over perceptions of the past has weakened in the past 10-20 years[,] a key element at the basis of the ‘natural’ role of the museum in a political and ideological sense has vanished.”3 Whereas, in contemporary Russia, “questions University Press, 2002) p. 10 3 Henrik Zipsane, The Open Air Museum and its new role as a museum of many cultures. European Association of Open Air Museums (Scotland, 2003) p. 1

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of national self-identity permeate Russian cultural self-expression.”4 The role of the open-air museum on both sides of the continent is uncertain, however, while many open-air museums in the West have attempted to change with shifting notions of culture and identity, This thesis argues Russia’s open-air museums play the role of ‘romantic escapism’ and maintain strong ties with nationalism. Russian nationalism is complex, however it is used “formulate a critique of the present and a nostalgia of the past.”5

In this context, this thesis examines Kizhi State Open-air Museum. It sets

out a design problem of arranging an open-air museum in contemporary Russia against a very complicated backdrop. The museum is the largest of its kind in Russia, it comprises a multitude of wooden architectural artefacts that have been removed and reassembled on the island of Kizhi, from all over Northern Russia. The ideas for this thesis developed from my observations whilst visiting Kizhi island in November 2012. My initial interests in the phenomenon of curating an ‘authentic’ past through the assemblage of historical monuments, led me to question the methods used by the museum to construct memory and identity, and explore its particular depiction of the region’s history.

I have developed my research out of a dialogue with my own design work,

but intrinsic to the analysis in this thesis is the theoretical framework on the changing notions of landscape, “as an aesthetic object,”6 towards a ‘dialogic’ understanding of landscape “as a cultural form”.7 This thesis applies the idea that memory is formed through architecture and landscape, to explain how the emphasis of the experience 4 Simon Franklin and Emma Widdis, National Identity in Russian Culture: An Introduction (London: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2006) p. 11 5 Franklin and Widdis, p.12 6 Stephen C. Bourassa, The Aesthetics of Landscape, (New York: Belhaven Press, 1991) p. 1 7 Denis Cosgrove, Social formation and Symbolic Landscape, (Wisconsin: Wisconsin Univ. Press, 1998) p. xxii

INTRODUCTION

constructed at Kizhi Open-air museum, is put on the monument of the wooden architecture itself, rather than the ethnographic character of its site. The museum is re-orientated towards the recreation of the ‘aesthetic function’8 of the artefacts. To what extent do they reflect todays reflect current local knowledge and today’s aesthetic values, over those of the times when the monuments were originally built?

This thesis argues that the existing model of Kizhi State Open-air museum is

in need of change. The methods used by open-air museums to communicate history, has divided historians. The question most explored, is to what extent the museums are a stage for entertainment and reenactment, over the traditionally roles and functions of the conventional museum? An essential role of the museum is providing a perspective on the depiction of history and putting history into perspective. It could be argued that under the pressures of tourism and the recent appointment of a new museum director, that Kizhi is becoming more and more of a stage for fantasy. The thesis maintains, that as a National Open-air museum, Kizhi has a responsibility to democratise history and communicating Russia’s cultural heritage. It should not just provide a destination for tourists who are in search of the sublime, as represented in Isaac Levitan’s ‘Above in Eternal Peace’. (Fig.1)

There is little critical discourse on open-air museums and it is rare to find

correlating definitions of what one exactly is. Through textual and drawn analysis, the next chapter will explore particular cases where other open-air museums have reinvented the museum’s model and adapted over time. As a place that has been idealised and idolised over time, the third chapter explores the components that have formed its identity and symbolic image today. The following chapter will then examine how the particular aesthetic experience curated on Kizhi island, lacks historical perspective. It discusses the disconnect between the architectural representation. The 8 Mikhail Milchik, Afterword in Richard Davies and Matilda Moreton, Wooden Churches, (London: White Sea, 2006) p. 242

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fifth chapter discusses at the role of the curator and explores a dialogic approach to the museum’s curatorial practice,s through textual analysis, imagery and a sequence of drawings. The final and concluding chapter evaluates the analysis from the previous chapters to form suggestions and consider possible interventions that could implement change to the museum, in the “philosophical context within which decisions are to be made.”9

Written sources that critically examine the phenomenon of architectural

representation in open-air museums are scarce, and those that focus on Kizhi Island are even rarer still. Subsequently, the evidence for this thesis has been collected from a wide range of sources, including academic texts, UNESCO reports, historical maps, paintings, photographs, interviews and conversations with local people on Kizhi island and neighbouring cities of Petrozavosk and Murmansk that resulted from my field research visit. The imagery and drawn analysis can be found at the end of each chapter.

This discourse of this thesis locates itself the fields of architectural and

landscape heritage. It is driven through a historical research method and the theoretical analysis of the approaches unearthed from this. Most importantly this thesis is an earnest call for the protection of this most “fragile part of the cultural heritage of Russia”10

9 ICOMOS. Report on the Mission to Kizhi Pogost. (ICOMOS February 2011) p. 7

Milchik, p. 241

INTRODUCTION

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Kizhi Island. The island of Kizhi is situated in the heart of Lake Onega, in the Republic of Karelia in Northern Russia. The whole island is an openair museum that was established in 1951 and currently contains 87 wooden constructions. The most famous of them is the Kizhi Pogost, included in the UNESCO World Heritage list in 1990.

INTRODUCTION

Medvezhyegorsk

Kondopoga Kizhi Island

Petrozavodsk

Lake Onega

Fig. 2

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2 The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

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The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

The open-air museum was in many ways a reaction against elitist social

and political norms of the ‘age of enlightenment and a reaction against the scientific rationalisation of nature.’11 While most landscape history focused on elite culture, the open-air museum set out to provide access to all classes and provide a more engaging popular version of history compared to the model of the conventional museum. Today, the forms the open-air museum has taken are diverse, and precisely naming and defining these sites can be difficult. From ‘living history museums,’ ‘archeological open air museums’, ‘outdoor ethnographic museums’, ‘eco-museums’, ‘historic building museums’, ‘open-air ethnographic museums’ and ‘museum-parks,’ the list continues. Carl Theodore Sorenson considers the open-air museum as another form of public space and subsequently another “form of the open-air type.”12

Of the many forms of this ‘open-air type’, there have been different approaches

taken in representing history through architectural form, from the ‘artificial’ to the ‘authentic’. There is much debate on what the role of the open-air museum should be. One question that remains, concerns their balance between being a stage for fantasy over their historical accuracy. One way of distinguishing an open-air museum from a ‘theme park’ is that while you might have a ‘historical’ theme park with a didactic intent, it seems to be that there is a tendency for ‘open-air museums’ to be defined by their deployment of genuine artefacts to create an ‘air of authenticity’. Spatially, these museums can be constructed in different forms; either a new site is located and

11 Casey, Christopher, “Grecian Grandeurs and the Rude Wasting of Old Time: Britain, the Elgin Marbles, and Post-Revolutionary Hellenism”. Foundations. v. 3 n. 1, (June 2009) p. 2 12 Ken Worpole, Here Comes the Sun: Architecture and Public Space in Twentieth-century European Culture (London: Reaktion Books, 2000) p. 89

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a curated collections of buildings are then moved onto it, or museums where whole villages and groupings of buildings preserved in situ, or the combination of both.

The uncertain future many open-air museums are facing creates a need to

evaluate their role and look for ways they can adapt to survive. This chapter will not seek to comprehensively cover a history of the development of the open-air museum, but examine how particular arrangements and uses of architectural artefacts in a selection of museums has changed.

To move and rebuild old buildings was not a new phenomenon which

appeared in the latter half of the 19th century. However, it was new that selected buildings were moved to museums in order “to be preserved for posterity with the aim of displaying the pre-industrial culture of rural populations.”13 The first evidence of moving buildings for this purpose comes from King Oscar’s collections of five buildings at Bygdøy in Oslo, in 1888 (figs.3,4). Nevertheless, it is Skansen (figs5,6) in Sweden which is considered the earliest open-air ‘museum’ founded in the late 19th century. Many of the earliest open-air museums were established in Scandinavia because of the ease of moving wooden buildings, and the method in which they are constructed. The idea was a development of the well-established indoor museum type, but in order to collect and display whole buildings, the museums type would have to be larger and exhibited outdoors. Skansen was the brainchild of Artur Hazelius, a Swedish teacher, scholar and folklorist who had the belief that the most powerful method of experiencing history was doing it through all our senses, and that the interaction of culture and nature was paramount to this. Skansen immediately became part of the emergence of Swedish national romanticism and a source of strength to it.14 The museum now has more than 150 reconstructed buildings, all of

13 Adriaan De Jofzg and Mette Skougaard, Early open-air museums: traditions of museums about traditions’ Museum, v. XW, n. 3, (UNESCO, Paris, 1992) p. 151 14 Sten Rentzhog, Open-air Museums: The History and Future of a Visionary Idea, (Carlssons Jamtli, 2007) p. 21

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

which have been removed from their original locations and relocated to the museum. The open-air museums of Scandinavia soon became something of an international phenomenon and in the early 20th century the idea spread to Finland, Northern Germany and the Netherlands and later throughout Europe, North America and Russia.

An important tool for investigation, when examining the open-air museum

is to study it in plan form. The development of the plan has become more diverse and complex over time. The original form of Bygdøy open-air museum in Norway (fig.4), is an example of the museum in its most basic form; an orthogonal arrangement of eight buildings from different time periods and regions. The open-air museum of Skansen, in Sweden later began to exhibit much larger groupings of artefacts from all over the surrounding region. The main intent of the museum was to form a collection of building types from the nation to arouse patriotism. The idea was an instant success, the concept spread and neighbouring regions and countries began to use this new type of museum to construct their own ‘ideal’ image, symbolic of all town or village life in that region.

To create an ‘ideal’ aesthetic, the theme of ‘typicality’ became one of the most

popular modes of representation. This was achieved through a mediated selection of a range of type of buildings from different locations. They were positioned in a group at the museum in what the founders considered a emblematic arrangement at the time. What was soon realised, however, was that with this type of arrangement lacked ethnographic context in which each artefact originally came from. In response to this, other museums focussed on disassembling whole groups of buildings and relocating them in the same original arrangement from their previous site.

The idea that memory and identity could be formed and constructed

through the assemblage of architectural objects and landscape led to a further

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development of museum arrangements. The use of landscape started to become more widely used, an example for this can be seen in the plans of the Bokrijk Open-air museum, in Belgium and in Kommern Open-air museum, Germany. (figs.7,8) The ‘new’ landscape was used to dictate the spatial planning of the museum and a series of reconstructed villages were arranged by the separation of ‘screens’ of vegetation. The object of the landscape and museum were to form a ‘total experience’;15 a construct of buildings, landscape and nature.

As the form of the open-air museum began to establish itself over

time, a set of principles began to concrete themselves within the museum ‘scene.’ The arrangements I have just discussed became considered good practice and consequently existing models saw little change. In addition to this, due to the nature of the size and immobility of some of the artefacts that had been relocated, the pace of the development of curatorial practice was much slower in open-air museums compared to conventional museums. As a result, some open-air museums have not changed or adapted since the date they opened, to some extent they become ‘relict’. The Netherlands Open-air museum at Arnhem (figs.7,8) is a prime example of this. The plan was originally agreed upon in 1912, and today the plan and arrangement has seen little changed since.

In contrast to these ‘relict’ museums previously discussed, there are examples

where open-air museums have attempted change, the Norsk Folkemuseum in Oslo (figs.11,14) challenged the accepted model and began arranging its architectural heritage chronologically. Houses and flats were arranged from their earliest to the most recent, ranging from 1875 to the present, and then adding on to it as time passed; in a sense, physically ‘building knowledge.’ However, this something that does not come easily to the open-air museum. The curatorial practice of Maihaugen 15

Rentzhog, p.160

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

open-air museum (fig.15,17) was considered ‘bad taste’ and regarded as ugly by many visitors and locals, after their inclusion of prefabricated housing from the 1980s and 1990s. This controversy was met with further protest when the museum planned to add a ‘house of the future’ in an attempt to reconnect the museum with society.

As picturesque arrangements of buildings and landscape are commodified,

their scenographic qualities can become idealised and any attempt to change this image will be met by some as “destroying the aesthetic of the museum with the inclusion of unaesthetic architecture.”16 There is a pressure for the curator to conform to this aesthetic. This is evident in the curatorial approach to Kizhi open-museum and will be discussed further in chapter 4.

Another symptom of the romantic and nationalistic ideologies found in the

open-air museums, was the idea that illusion and theatre were considered by some of the original founders of the open-air museum, as essential lubricant in presenting history. They suggested it to be a useful technique that could be used to discover more about historical peoples, and how they interact with the landscapes in which they live. The idea of ‘living history’ is a powerful one, and the concept phenomenology “has provoked considerable discussion within the discipline”17, receiving considerable criticism from the archaeological community who deem it to be “unscientific” and “subjective”.18 The balance between theatre and maintaining historical accuracy in the open-air museum is one that is disputable and can be disreputable in its presentation. The artefacts become actors and the methods in which the artefacts are orientated and positioned have an enormous impact on the visitors experience, whilst they navigate 16 Rentzhog, p. 332 17 Joanna Brück, Experiencing the past? The development of a phenomenological archaeology in British prehistory in Archaeological Dialogues v. 12 n. 1 (Cambridge University Press 2005.) p. 45–72 18 Sue Hamilton, Phenomenology in Practice: Towards a methodology for a ‘subjective’ approach in European Journal of Archaeology, v. 9, p.31 (2006) p. 31-32

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themselves through the museum. Therefore, the types of building arrangements and their orientations are essential to the type of experience and identity constructed.

In this context, Colonial Williamsburg (Figs.22,24) has stirred much

criticism. The open-air museum represents the historic district of the city of Williamsburg, Virginia, USA. It includes architectural artefacts dating from 1699 to 1780, and is the product of the ideologies of its creator, W. A. R. Goodwin. The result shows how ardent nationalism can affect historical representation and preservation. The reconstruction of a decidedly nationalistic and patriotic past was criticised for its imbalance of historical accuracy and it’s architectural representation was considered to be too much of a ‘manicured aesthetic.’

Though the museum become a hugely successful attraction, it was argued

it presents a very polarised experience of the history and heritage it was supposedly representing. Architecture critic, Ada Louise Huxtable, wrote in 1965: “Williamsburg is an extraordinary, conscientious and expensive exercise in historical playacting in which real and imitation treasures and modern copies are carelessly confused in everyone’s mind. Partly because it is so well done, the end effect has been to devalue authenticity and denigrate the genuine heritage of less picturesque periods to which an era and a people gave life.”19 In conjunction with Huxtable, Richard Wilson, argues that the architectural representation of its unauthentic “tree-lined streets of colonial revival houses and segregated commerce” are not only symbolic of the American suburb in the 1930s but had criticized the museum for also neglecting the role of free African-Americans in Colonial life.20

The design of a conventional museum has nearly always been to house

and exhibit a collection of permanent, and temporary artefacts. Traditionally, the museum dictates the location of the artefacts and some of these arrangements are free 19 20

Ada Louise Huxtable, wrote in 1965 , cited in Metropolis Magazine - (Jan 1998) Wilson, Richard, Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, (New York, 2004).

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

to change as multiple readings of history are curated over time. In contrast to this, the artefacts assembled in the open-air museum have ‘traditionally’ remain fixed. This permanence in the arrangements of relocated artefacts and monuments in open-air museums makes them problematic especially if they are built on outdated ideals and notions of nationalism and romanticism.

The following conclusions can be taken from the given historical analysis

and from the proceeding drawn analysis. While it is clear that it is important that open-air museums adopt change, to shifting notions of culture and identity, many open-air museums today struggle to reinvent themselves because of the permanence of their arrangements. In response, there is a need for museums to define a sustainable strategy that can allow for growth and change. The more diverse the museum collections are, the less likely they are to form a ‘picturesque’ aesthetic and loose historical perspective. Building is a natural way for these museums to renew themselves, and this will allow the artefacts to be reinterpreted over time. Finally building arrangements other than the recreation of the ‘ideal’ and ‘typical’ should be explored further by the curator, as certain arrangements of artefacts, at particular points in time, can be far more powerful in constructing multiple readings of history, and therefore construct a diverse historical perspective.

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Drawn Analysis The following drawn analysis and imagery reveal the different spatial forms of nine open-air museums over different periods of time. The drawings are accurate, but are not to scale.

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Fig. 3 King Oscar II’s Open-air Museum, 1888. Bygdøy. Norway.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

Fig. 4 Bygdøy. Open-air Museum building arrangement. The world’s first open-air museum was King Oscar II’s collection near Oslo in Norway which opened in 1881. The original plans comprised eight or ten buildings intended to show the evolution of traditional Norwegian building types since the Middle Ages. Only five were realised.

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Fig. 5 Skansen Open-air Museum. 1891 Skansen was considered by some as the first museum of its kind. It set out to preserve architectural heritage and was used as a tool for national propaganda.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

1920

Entrance

2013 Animal Enclosure Bell Tower Farm Cluster Amusements and Rides Church Stage, Dancefloor, Aquarium Entrance Fig. 6 Skansen open-air museum building arrangement. The museum is situated in the heart of Stockholm and over time its collection has grown. As the site is restricted for space, this had caused the original spatial layout to change dramatically. The museums cast collection has been criticised as a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;mania for completeness.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The result is a paradox of dense urban-like plan of rural artefacts.

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Fig. Rhenish Open-air

Fig. 7 Rhenish Open-air Museum, Kommen, Germany.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

Landscaping or screens of vegetation.

Building Clusters

Fig. 8 Rhenish Open-air Museum building and landscape arrangement. The planning and growth of the museum successfully integrates a balance of nature and buildings and objects and nature and culture, the objective is to construct a â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;total experience.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;

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Fig. 9 Netherlands Open-air museums, Arnhem. est 1918. This image shows an example of artefacts re-orientated towards the recreation of the aesthetic over authentic function. (Note the incorrect positioning and directions of the windmills.)

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

1930

Entrance

2013

Entrance

Fig. 10 Netherlands Open-air museum building arrangement. The plan is almost as it was from the date it opened. In contrast to Skansen Museum, the original spatial arrangement remains visible. However, this lack of change in the landscape has become to some extent become relict.

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Fig. 11

Fig. 12

Fig. 13 Norsk Folkemuseum, Norway. est 1894. The images illustrate the development of regional housing. In a section of the museum, a chronological arrangement has been curated to representing an historical perspective on the evolution of this regional building type.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

Residential area arranged chronologically.

Entrance Later extension. Naval Museum

Modern Museum building.

Fig. 14 Norsk Folkemuseum building arrangement.

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Fig. 15

Fig. 16 Maihaugen Open-air Museum. Norway. est. 1900. Maihaugen, with close to 200 buildings, is one of Northern Europeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest open air museums.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

Residential Zone

Rural Zone

Entrance

Town Zone

Modern Museum Zone The museum relocated and reconfigured whole clusters of buildings from one location as well as individual buildings arranged in isolation.

Fig. 17 Maihaugen Open-air Museum building arrangement. Over time the museum has split into a residential, a rural and a town section covering nearly two centuries.

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Fig. 18 Cloppenburg open-air museum. est. 1934 The Museum Village was originally laid out in 1934 to look like a ‘real’ village.’ However, due to the expansion and inclusion of more buildings, the image of the village today is difficult to see. The problem these open-air museums face is how the expansion of their collections impact on the existing relationship of their buildings and landscape.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

Entrance 1934

Extensions Extensions

Extensions

2013

Entrance Fig. 19 Cloppenburg open-air museum building arrangement over time.

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Fig. 20 Old World Wisconsin Open-air Museum. Wisconsin, USA. Est. 1976. Collage of building types.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

African-American

German Yankee

Entrance Finnish Polish

Danish

Norwegian Fig. 21 Old World Wisconsin building arrangement. The architectural artefacts in this museum are arranged in â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;clustersâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; of each nationality that colonised the State, to celebrate the itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural heterogeneity. The plan arrangement followed the contemporary European model that began to integrate and separate clusters of buildings amid landscape features.

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Fig. 22

Fig. 23 Colonial Williamsburg Open-air Museum. est 1930.

The open-air movement and the aestheticisation of the past

Modern Buildings

Postcolonial Buildings

Modern Buildings

Colonial Buildings

Postcolonial Buildings

Fig. 24 Colonial Williamsburg Open-air Museum building arrangement The museum is set out to reconstruct the historic city district. Artefacts from different locations and time periods are integrated together.

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3 Kizhi island past and present

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The log Jerusalemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;21

21 A. Opolovnikov and E. Opolovnikov, Log Jerusalem: Russian wooden churches and chapels (Moscow, Opole, 2007) p. 1

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Fig. 25 Kizhi Pogost. Constructed in 1862, the two churches and bell tower are the only original constructions on Kizhi island.

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Kizhi past and present

On return from my visit to Kizhi Island, my initial thoughts focussed on it’s

strangeness of place. The island is peculiarly timeless. As one building leads to the next, each of monumental stature, the experience is one of fantasy and false naturalism. From its very beginning the island of Kizhi has been idolised and idealised. This chapter sets out to critically trace how it’s iconic image has been formed, and to understand the pressure the open-air museum faces conform to this aesthetic today.

Kizhi State Open-air museum, is sited on an island in the heart of Lake

Onega. The island is six kilometres long and 500 meters wide. The open-air museum was officially formed in 1966, but its history traces much further back. The earliest records stretch back to a time where the island was a site for Pagan rituals. The name Kizhi, originates from Kizhat, meaning ‘social gatherings’ in the ancient Karelia dialect. The first churches recorded on the island dated to 1496. The original churches in the ‘Pogost’ (fig.25)had pyramidal roofs that were burnt by a fire caused by lightning. These were then replaced with three structures. Two of which were domed wooden churches and the other a bell tower, located to the south side of the island. The first church raised after the fire was the Church of the Intercession in 1694, it was reconstructed several times in 1720–1749 and in 1764 rebuilt into its present nine domed design. (Fig.25) In 1714, the 22 domed Transfiguration Church was constructed and soon after the bell tower was added, thereby completing the Kizhi Pogost and the bell tower was entirely rebuilt in 1862.

Most villages had disappeared from the island by 1940s and now only

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a few live there since it was converted into the State museum. In the late 1940s, dozens of historical wooden buildings were moved to the island from various parts of Karelia for preservation purposes, by Alexander Opolovnikov, a fanatical restorer. Today, 89 buildings have been fully restored to their ‘optimum state’22 on the island. Disassembling and reassembling buildings in Russia was not a new concept. Historically they would dismantle large-scale wooden fortifications when no longer needed and shipped them around the landscape, where they were reassembled for frontier duty. However, it was a new concept moving specific buildings to a museum for reasons of preservation and exhibition.

Since being recognised as a UNESCO world heritage site, Kizhi has seen a

large increase in tourism and is currently one of the most popular tourist attractions in Russia. The island’s designation as a world heritage site has had both positive and negative effects. The has seen an increase in the museums financial income. However, as a UNESCO site, it is under pressure to improve it’s services for visitors and has had to vastly improve its quality of maintenance works on the monuments to meet the demands of UNESCO’s criteria for methods of preservation. Politically, the State has been able to use the island’s museum as propaganda and as national export for foreign tourists, painting an idealised picture of social rest and ‘eternal peace’ (fig.1).

Cultural heritage historian, Myra Shackley argues that such world heritage

sites can be a “centre of nationalism through the enhancement of identity and such designation can also increase local people’s interest in their town, eventually, leading to an increase in local people’s pride in their culture.”23 However, it seems on Kizhi island, there is a paradox that lies in the relationship between the local communities and the cultural heritage being represented on the island. St Petersburg architectural 22 Milchik, p. 242 23 Shackley, M, Introduction,Visitor management: Case studies from world heritage sites, (Oxford: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998) p. 7

Kizhi past and present

historian, Mikhail Milchik, describes the â&#x20AC;&#x153;almost total indifference toward the fate of the national cultural heritage, that reigns in Russian society, from the top to the bottom.â&#x20AC;? Why is there such a socio-cultural disconnect between the Russian people and their architectural heritage? The next chapter will explore how this disconnect between this idealised version of the past and the collective memory throughout the region it represents. The drawings and imagery in the following pages explore the history of the island and its changing landscape.

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Kizhi past and present

Primary Buffer Zone

Kizhi Museum and Archeological

Secondary Buffer Zone

Landscape Protection

Kizhi Archipelago. Fig. 26

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Kizhi past and present

Kizhi Island Fig. 27

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Relocating Kizhiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s heritage. This drawing relocates the original sites of all the architectural artefacts that have been moved on to the island. Over 80 buildings have been disassembled and relocated for the purposes of preservation, however, this information is not communicated in the visitor experience. As a result, the curated experience on the island is misleading, as emphasis is put on the monument of the wooden architecture itself rather than the ethnographic character of its original site.

Kizhi past and present

E L

U S

Q R

Kizhi Island M

Lake Onega

Fig. 28

Original Sites A

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Kizhi past and present

Original Sites of Artefacts

Kizhi Island

Fig. 29

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‘Contrast, Merger and Reciprocity’ The history of architecture and landscape reveals three modes of relationship: “contrast, merger and reciprocity.”24 The act of removing a building from its landscape to another can change the way we think about a place and the object in its new context. As each building has been disassembled and relocated onto Kizhi island, the buildings undergoes a transformation. Most of them have evolved through a state of functional use to a more passive state of preservation. However, it should be understood, that the new buildings and landscape modify each other, each to some degree will be reflected in the other. Therefore, the arrangement and choice of artefacts is crucial in constructing the overall experience of the island. 24 Reuben Rainey, Architecture and Landsape: Three modes of places, in Places, v. 4, n. 4 (2010)

Kizhi past and present

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Kizhi past and present

Fig. 30. A church being disassembled to be transferred to an open-air museum. c1950 BEN HAYES

Kizhi past and present

Fig. 31

Fig 32 Kizhi island in itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s present form.

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4 Collective memory and the national aesthetic

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Memory and its representations touch very significantly upon questions of identity, of nationalism, of power and authority.â&#x20AC;&#x2122;25

25 Edward Said, Invention, Memory and Place, in W.J.T Mitchell. Landscape and Power, (Chicago: Chicago Univ. Press, 1994) p. 2

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Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Collective memory is considered to influence the national, social and

cultural identities. Landscape can be seen as a “cultural construct in which our sense of place and memories inhere.”26 Furthermore, “collective memory is influenced by the content of every dimension of identity, while its national dimension is constructed by the unification of a different versions of the past”27 As notions of nationalism and the approach to landscape change, the open-air museum should reflect this. What is problematic, is that Kizhi island has been displayed as a specifically scenographic and symbolic image of landscape, and therefore, the experience of visiting the island is limiting. The memory constructed on the island has become a polarised version of the past and unreflective of the present.

If we consider that “nationalism is not unlike a set of guises that reveals the

multitude of lived, social and cultural experiences in contemporary Russia,” then we might argue that as contemporary notions of landscape have changed, along with the collective identity of people in post-Soviet Russia, the dialogic relationship between people and their environment should be communicated in the museum.

In W.J.T Mitchell’s collection of essays, Landscape and power, a shift in the

understanding of landscape is described. It is argued that those studying the field of landscape, began to see it as something that was active rather than passive. Essays in the book describe the landscape, and its forms of representation, as important 26 Ken Taylor, Landscape and Memory, in, Cultural landscapes, intangible values, ICOMOS General Assembly and International Symposium: (Canada, 2008) p. 2 27 Pantouvaki Stratigoul, The role of collective Memory in National Identities shaping, ((Athens: EMUNI ReS 2009) p. 1

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documents for understanding the development of national identities.

In the case of Kizhi island, its symbolic image is saturated with ‘collective

nostalgia’; a manicured idea of ‘Mother Russia.’28 This chapter will examine how the island’s symbolic image has been formed, idealised and commodified, and discusses how this ‘iconic’ image is preventing further development of its operation as an openair museum. From the beginning, the open-air museum was loaded with a different set of ideals to a conventional museum. Skansen (fig.5) or the ‘Nordic Museum’ was a product of a period that was dominated by the dream of a ‘united Scandinavian state’. Since then the open-air museum was used by a number of nations and individuals to convey a political message. As previously discussed, Colonial Williamsburg, (fig.2224) among others, is a prime example of the use of architectural representation as symbols of nationalism.

Over time, Kizhi has located itself toward a thematic and mythological place

for ‘romantic escapism,’ and it’s idealised aesthetic, created through its architecture and landscape, has become detached from a diverse and collective historical perspective. The development of the island’s aesthetic has to some extent, been predominantly drawn from artistic and literary representations of the Russian landscape in the age Tolstoy and Pushkin. As the idea of landscape was supplemented and enriched when it became associated with landscape painting in Europe, it began to influence an array of painters in Russia.29 In the latter half of the 19th Century, at a time where the romantic movement was fully established. The ‘golden era’ of Russian artists, such as Isaac Levitan, Ivan Shishkin, Ivanov Kuindzhi, Alexei Kondratyevich Savrasov, the Peredvizniki (figs.33,35,36) began to capture and define a particular Russian identity in their work. The symbolism of these landscape paintings were exclusively concerned 28 The usage of the term ‘mother’ was referred to by Russian nations in the Soviet period that symbolised the “spirit of collectivity”. 29 Taylor, p. 2

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

with scenographic and picturesque qualities.

In the ‘Aesthetics of Landscape’, Stephen bourassa defines landscape as an

‘aesthetic object’ that is a complex mix of ‘art’, ‘artefact’ and ‘nature’30. He emphasizes that “once a landscape acquires meaning for a cultural group, that group will seek to perpetuate that symbolic landscape as a means of self-preservation.”31 Though much of the style, composition and choice of subject were borrowed from the west, the realist paintings constructed a utilitarian sentiment about the seemingly timeless and universal Russian landscape. One of the most iconic paintings of this time is Isaac levitan’s ‘Above Eternal Peace’ painted in 1894. (Fig.33) Levitan and his peers described an ‘absolute sense of space’ and presented the viewer with unforgettable picturesque reconstruction of the Russian landscape. However, in reality like many of the works of the time, the actual scene from the painting is highly constructed. The lake borrowed from one region, the church borrowed from another to create a representation of a scene that becomes totemic and sublime, while more generalised and homogenous at the same time. This ‘absolute’ approach to landscape space has in many ways dictated the museum’s treatment to the island.

The scenographic approach to landscape that Kizhi’s museum was built

on nearly 50 years ago, has seen little change. This aesthetic approach to landscape, described by Bourassa only goes as far as experiencing the landscape through the image. Denis Cosgrove’s application of an art historical method of iconography to read the landscape, would suggest that as more and more buildings were sited on the island, it was seen as a cultural product. A definition which he uses to understand the capacity of the landscape to act as both source and resource. Cosgrove suggests that ideologies are embedded in the landscape or place as metaphors for different aspirations. The problem with Kizhi is that it has become increasing ‘decontextualised’ 30

Bourassa, p. 10 Bourassa, p. 109 BEN HAYES

from its surroundings, the symbolism ‘embedded’ in its landscape is dominated by commodified, architectural iconography.

In the ‘Golden Age’ of Tolstoy and Pushkin, it was conceived that “landscape

plays a central role in the Russian imagination.”32 Is this still true? This assertive expression of Russian nationalism, has been criticised by art historians as “a reflection of our perception of Russian geopolitical impotence that these works can be looked at with such indulgence on the darker aspects of its recent past.”33 If we attempt to ‘recontextualise’ the island into its surrounding environment we might explore the richness of landscape.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union the grip of nationalism over perceptions of

the past has changed. If we examine the current context that surrounds Kizhi Openair museum and throughout Russia, it is evident that perceptions of the Russian landscape are very different. At the time Levitan and his peers were painting in 1850, 95 per cent of Russian people lived in the countryside. Today the region is experiencing widespread deruralisation. Many chapters in the regions history are underrepresented at Kizhi; from the Finnish occupation, the 1921 peaseant rebellion, 1920s Soviet Union industrialisation transforming the region into a logging production line and then extent of forced collectivisation between 1929-1933, all having a devastating effect to rural life. All farming life was run by State farms where 90 per cent of the peasants were relocated. The region had many labour camps known as ‘gulags,’ which eventually saw mass agricultural redundancy.

The collective identity of the region had changed, and its landscape is

littered with physical traces of memory. After the Soviet Union collapsed, so too 32 Christopher Riopelle, Curator of the exhibition Russian Landscape in the Age of Tolstoy, National gallery. Cited from gallery excerpt. 2004 33 Barinder Smedly. Not-so-easy steppes: Russian Landscape in the Age of Tolstoy at the National Gallery, fugitiveink.wordpress.com, 2004.

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

did the majority of the collective farms and thousands of villages died out. The reasons for this depopulation are complex, but the main factors are the consequences of collectivisation, State neglect of rural communities and agricultural policy and the growing trends of urbanisation. The preferred Russian term is ‘опорожнения деревни’

(‘emptying villages’), (Figs.38,45) to describe the total desertion of areas

of rural Russia. “11,000 villages and 290 cities have disappeared from the map of the Russian Federation; 13,000 villages remain on the map,  but have no inhabitants; and 35,000 of Russia’s 155,000 villages have fewer than ten inhabitants.”34 The villages are built predominantly of wood, and today, their “rotting carapaces are sinking slowly back into the earth.”35 Olga Isupova, a senior demographic researcher at the Higher School of Economics in Moscow warns “there’s a risk that in the most negative situation, Russia will stop existing as a state.”

The relationship between the Russian people and the rural landscape has

undergone extensive change over the last century and is rapidly transforming today. As a result, Kizhi’s lack of change has widened the disconnect between what is represented on the island and the multitude of collective lived social and cultural experiences now found in contemporary Russia.

The history of the wooden church on the island is also misrepresented.

Arguably, the Orthodox church was one of the greatest victims the Russian Revolution and it’s policy of State atheism. The wooden church was a symbolic ‘landmark’ that situated and situates. Its spires and copulas penetrated the hills and forest canopies throughout Northern Russia. The State ordered the destruction of churches, where many were burnt, vandalised or converted with their crosses pulled down so that they remain a physical symbol of Soviet atheism.(Fig.38-41) According to soviet historian Dimitry Pospielovsky, before the revolution, there were close to 55000 churches, 1,500 34 35

Pow, Tom, Three villages of the Damned - (v. 5, n. 3, 2009) p. 3 Pow, p. 3

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monasteries. “By 1920, a total of 673 monasteries had been dissolved, the resident monks and nuns executed en mass.... By 1941 only 500 churches remained open and 80 per cent of wooden churches had vanished”.36

The massive rural depopulation has continue to prove destructive as the

current state of the wooden architectural heritage in the Russian North is close to total extinction. Architectural historian Mikhail Milchik writes, “Towards the end of the last century the demise of monuments of wooden architecture took on landslide proportions, although the process had begun much earlier. The reasons for this are numerous and possibly the most important, is the almost total indifference toward the fate of the national cultural heritage, that reigns in Russian society, from the top to the bottom.”37 (Fig. 44)

The role of a cultural institution is to support and protect cultural heritage.

The indifference towards this cultural heritage can be linked to State control over Russian cultural institutions. Museums and galleries have a long history of censorship on political and religious grounds. At the time Kizhi was established, Soviet repression crippled the museum for most of the 20th century. Today the existing framework situates the power in the hands of the Ministry of Culture of the Russian Federation, these are directly controlled and fully financed by the ministry which also nominates the directors.38 This allows the State to still govern the curation of the museums.

With the recent appointment of the new director of Kizhi museum from the

Ministry of Culture in February 2013, optimism for a positive change is low. Kizhi museum is in danger of becoming increasingly a stage for fantasy. (Fig.37)As a ‘State museum’ its should be run as a culturally diverse institution, not merely a idealised 36 Dimitry Pospielovsky, A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, (St Martin’s Press, New York 1987) p. 27 37 Milchik, p. 242 38 Renard, p. 110

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

version of the past and itself.

Its architectural heritage stands passively in a complimentary arrangement to

an aesthetic that bares little relationship to it’s collective memory that surrounds it. The paradox lies between what is being presented and what is actually being represented. Although the museum has begun to stage some events on the island with actors and exhibitions, in the spirit of ‘living history,’ the experience is highly manicured and one dimensional. It’s dialogue with the surrounding rural landscape, and the rich history that has sculpted, remains unseen. The island once named ‘Kizhat’, meaning a place for gathering was once a ‘landmark’; an administrative centre, a connection between communities from other regions. Today it is increasingly becoming a ‘Noah’s ark.’ It will cease to engage with the landscape, and become “relict”,39 where history has ended. It should not be just as simply looked on as “a pretty picture or as a static text: rather it is the expression of landscape as an authentic cultural process.”40

39 40

Fairclough, p.37 Robertson and Richards, Studying Cultural Landscapes, (London: Arnold, 2003) p. 45

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The ‘Aesthetic’ and ‘Authentic’. Further examination of Levitan’s ‘Above Eternal Peace’ against the actual site, reveals the reality against the irreality of Levitan’s idealised scene. The picture is supposedly constructed from the depictions of two scenes, as well as the artist licence of the painter to create this sublime landscape.

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 33

Fig. 34

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Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 35 Alexey Savrasov. The Rooks Have Come. 1871.

Fig. 36 Isaac Levitan, The Silent Monastry, 1880

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Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 37 Reenactment at Kizhi Museum.

Fig. 38 A view of one of many abandoned villages in Northern Russia.

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Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 37b Kizhi State Open-air museum present day.

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The Church and State. The Soviet Union was the first State to have an ideological objective to eliminate religion. As symbols and physical manifestations of the Orthodox Church, the Communist regime confiscated church property, cathedrals, churches and chapels. “National monuments typically serve as aesthetic manifestations of dominant visions of history and collective identity, but they can also generate a contestation of the past they are intended to cement.”41 These images are a clear demonstration of the complex relationship between church and state. They depict the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow from it’s construction under Tsars, destruction under Stalin and its conversion into a public swimming pool and then it’s post Communist reconstruction. 41 Haskins, Ekaterina, Russia’s Postcommunist Past: The Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Reimagining of National Identity. History & Memory. v. 21, n. 1, (Spring/ Summer 2009) p. 10

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 38b Photographed in 1931.

Fig. 39 Photographed in 1860.

Fig. 40 Photographed in 1992.

Fig. 41 Photographed in 2000.

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A Contradiction of Ideology. The symbol of the wooden orthodox church is distinctly related to the human form and the top of the church has been said to symbolise God as the head. During the soviet campaign against religion thousands of churches were destroyed, however some, including the Pogost on Kizhi (Fig.43) were left because of their â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;architectural meritsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; Others were converted for alternate uses but their cupolas were cut off for symbolic purposes.(Fig.42)

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 42

Fig. 43 Kizhi Pogost, c.1930.

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Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 44 Chapel, Kalintka, 19th Century, Lake Lacha, Kargopol district, Archangel region, 2006.

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The Death of the Russian Village. The demise of villages has been taking place throughout the whole vastness of the former Soviet Union for decades. However, recently the situation has escalated further. If Russiaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s cultural institutions do not respond to this a large period of Russian culture will disappear.

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 45 North Karelia, Russia. 2000

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‘An Idealised Past.’ This ‘street art’ is an State initiative to reconnect the Russian public with national art. All the artworks are pre Soviet landscape paintings from the late 18th and early 19th century.

Collective memory and the national aesthetic

Fig. 46

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Revisiting Levitanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Work. In parallel to my research, I have been investigating the idea of projecting a particular aesthetic onto a landscape. The drawing and later physical model explores the relationship between early 19th century Russian landscape painting and itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s influence on perceptions of identity of the Russian landscape.

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Projected textures and tones from original painting

Overlay of modelled terrain with the Landscape depicted in Levitanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Painting.

New meshed terrain ready to be unfolded, laser cut and re-assembled out of paper.

Fig. 47 BEN HAYES

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5 Curating an Authentic Past

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;As the world around museums change, so should the museums themselvesâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;42

42 John Falk and Beverly Sheppard, Thriving in the Knowledge Age: New Models for Museums And Other Cultural Institutions, (Lanham,: Altamira Press, 2006) p.190

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It was Jean-Claude Duclos and Jean-Yves Veillard who initiated the debate surrounding the open-air museum, arguing it should be a forum for public discussion and therefore, a political arena. If the open-air museum is a way of democratising knowledge, then the role of the curator is crucial in facilitating it. This chapter will discuss how a change in Kizhi’s curatorial practice could break the museum’s aesthetic, of cloying sentimentalism and false naturalism, and adopt a dialogic approach in it’s representation of history. How do you achieve lived experience in a vernacular landscape in an open-air museum? What type of strategy of building arrangements can Kizhi adopt to communicate multiple readings of history, to the visitor from home and abroad? Are there mechanisms that allow the public to take part in the curatorial process? In curatorial practice, the reorganising of history has existed within the context of the museum since the inception of the institution. It is the role of curators to create different readings of history. However, historically change is not what happens naturally in the open-air museum, especially in Russia. Kizhi’s model has seen little change for over 40 years. This chapter will examine the existing arrangement and selection of buildings, the museum’s philosophical approach to restoration over other methods of preservation, and explore new models and ideas that can implement change in it’s curatorial practice, to construct a dialogic relationship between museum and society. The current arrangement of heritage buildings found on Kizhi, is composed of the following types; church, bell tower, chapel, barn, house, granary and bathhouse.

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They have all been restored to what is considered their ‘optimum state,’ and arranged by ‘sector’ or ‘region’ (Fig.48) with the exception of the Pogost. The sectors on the island are said to represent large regional zones in this Northern part of Russia. The ‘Sectors.’43 “Russian Zaonezhja” “Vepsians” “Kizhi Necklace” “Kondopozhskiy” “Pryazhinsky” “Pudozhsky” “North Karelia” However, the existing classification and categorisation of architectural artefacts is unclear. In most cases, each ‘sector’ contains artefacts from a different village, over a large ‘undefined’ area. There was “no hint of a draft plan”44 for the arrangement of buildings when the artefacts were transported and originally placed on the island. They were positioned “without typological or ethnic”45 consideration and there has been little change since then. The Kizhi museum catalogue states, that all the buildings are arranged by these ‘sectors’, however, when inspecting their actual arrangement they do not all conform to this to this rule. For example, it is stated that architectural artefacts were collected from over 20 villages in Medvezhyegorsky District, in the Republic of Karelia.46 However, buildings from this region can actually be found in many areas of the island. (Fig.48) In another example, in the ‘Kondopoga 43 p. 6 44 45 46

I.V.Melnikov, Kizhi Museum at 40 years.(Copenhagen: Scandinavia Publishing 2006) Melnikov, p. 6 Melnikov, p. 16 Kizhi State Open-air museum, www.kizhi.karelia.ru

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Sector’, found towards the northern peninsular of the island, we find a cluster of two small barns and a chapel. However, what the visitor is observing, are two barns that are not actually from Kondopoga, only the chapel is.(Fig.48) The barns and the chapel were also constructed in different centuries. There are other cases where new artefacts are mixed with older buildings from other regions.(Fig.48) This is not communicated clearly to the visitor. It is hard not to conclude from my experience as a visitor and in light of my research and analysis that the overall ‘curatorial strategy’ has been guided by an informal arrangement of buildings; some regional, some typological, composed by its founders as what was deemed as a picturesque, romanticised composition. In my evaluation from chapter 2, it was clear if the building arrangements in museums are formed from an aesthetic understanding of their landscapes they will loose historical perspective and limit a dialogue between the visitor and the subject. If Kizhi is to construct a diverse range and depth of experience for its visitors, it must articulate a multitude of perspectives so that its collections can be perceived in disparate ways. If it is excepted that almost all the artefacts on the island have already been decontextualised, (fig.28.) and the majority are unused, then the notion of rearranging its collection should not be overlooked. In order to explore different arrangements of artefacts, we might examine further the use of typology as a tool for curation. (Figs.49-52) Within this methodical framework, the artefacts on the island could be rearranged; chronologically, regionally, by materiality, by buildings type, by village type, in states of repair, between those that have been restored and those that have been conserved. The provision of a depth and diverse experience of visiting the island could be achieved through different groupings on different areas of the island. Each is curated to show something completely different, reveal a different facet of history and thus producing a wider range of knowledge. The exercise of typological classification of Kizhi’s artefacts, (fig.50) as a

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means to historicise and classify, reveals the lack of historical diversity represented on the island. Evidence and representations of the full cultural history of the region that was discussed in the previous chapter, remains unseen. In this case, the use of typology can challenge why some of the artefacts are exhibited in the museum in place of others in the surrounding region. Arguably the most ‘authentic’ form of arrangement is one that communicates with the visitor and acknowledges its subjectivity. No arrangement can be looked at objectively. The museum should not be limited to its own viewpoints, and should recognise interpretations differing from its own. The existing model constructs a sense of ‘false naturalism,’ that is one directional, misleading and unclear. The island should be treated as a ‘site for investigation’, and through diverse approach to arranging building types, it can educate without docents and didacticism. The visitor should be allowed to challenge the particular arrangement of buildings on “contested terrain.”47 If we consider a group of churches or houses that are arranged chronologically, (Fig.53) similar to the example in chapter 2, of in the Norsk Folkmuseum (Fig.14). While the arrangement might appear ‘unnatural’, it will reduce the mediation of a solely ‘aesthetic experience.’ Instead the architecture can invite discussion of the development of it’s style and it’s language might reveal a better understanding of the history of craftsmanship throughout a century. The visitor is invited to question what he is observing; how are the artefacts different? What might account for these differences? Alternatively, if artefacts were grouped in clusters of a particular time, an understanding of the changing rural life in Russian north would be revealed. From a place of Pagan worship, an industrialised region, a collectivised State and so on. The interrelationship between each artefact should be considered more carefully, new meanings and relationships can be facilitated through different arrangements and a process of re-signification of each artefact can take place in the 47

Lynda Schneekloth, Placemaking: The Art and Practice of Building Communities, (NewYork: Wiley, 1995) p. 121

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core of the material culture. The arrangements on the islands should not be considered permanent. From the cases discussed in chapter 2, some museums struggled reinvent themselves because of the permanence of their arrangements that were based old ideas, Kizhi should adopt a long term plan to allow for growth and change. To avoid the passivity found on the island today, there must an understanding that as the museum, like the landscape around it should be in a constant state of becoming, is constantly transforming as perceptions of history change. In this context the inclusion of new buildings onto Kizhi island is arguably imperative to its success as a museum and as method of action against the current cessation of its surrounding architectural heritage. The desire for ‘typicality’ in architectural representation was a method used by many open-air museums to display the history of a particular building type, or period of time, through one or a set of buildings. Museums like Detmold, in Germany took an approach of selecting buildings that were “as typical as possible for the period.”48 While a typical arrangement of ‘typical’ buildings is one method of representation, as the only method of representation it is problematic, as it negates individuality. In creating a collective aesthetic that is representative of a whole region or particular period in time, information and essential detail become generalised and misrepresented. It is important to display those that are unique in their architectural form as well. In the case of Kizhi, the choice of buildings that are reassembled on the island, is limited to a particular ‘aesthetic,’ so the buildings merge into a homogenous image of the island.(Fig.49)) In 1950, the artefacts were to be “restore[d]... to their original artistic image”49 and the carpenters were told to erase any unwanted “distortions”50 since the 19th century. As previously discussed in chapter 2, ‘building is a natural way of a open48 49 50

Rentzhog p. 170 Melnikov, p.18 Melnikov,. p.23

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air museum to renew itself.’ The inclusion of architectural heritage found elsewhere in the Russian North, would help reconnect the island with what surrounds it. New building types should also be considered. Artefacts from collective farms (fig.63) and state saw mills, and other housing types (fig.64) still stand in this landscape and if not protected will soon vanish. These new artefacts do not necessarily have to be new types of buildings. The inclusion of ‘un-restored’ wooden churches could be far more reflective of contemporary Russia today. There are many churches that have undergone modification and bear physical traces of their complex past. During collectivisation the Soviets put the churches to their own use, many were converted into Soviet ‘Klubs,’ (fig.56) where party meetings, dances, performances and film shows would take place. In fact there is a whole history of this architectural heritage being reused and reappropriated as youth clubs, village cinemas, storage, warehouses, workshops (fig.55)and so on. As for collective memory, the wooden church is a symbol for many things and each different for every generation. In this context it is important to discuss the museum’s problematic philosophy of ‘restoration’ and ‘historical erasure’. The term conservation, is defined by UNESCO as “the aim of conservation is to maintain the physical and cultural characteristics of the object to ensure that its historical value is not diminished”51 whereas ‘restoration’ can be defined as the “aim to re-establish the physical and functional integrity of a work by remedying the alterations which it may have undergone”52 Kizhi’s outmoded understanding of the ‘optimal state’53 as a criterion for deciding to dismantle an artefact or modify it for the sake of restoration could be considered immoral. The memory of landscape is not always associated with pleasure and can be also associated with loss, pain, social fracture. As a museum it should not censor history and begin to realise that the more recent layers, are also historically 51 52 53

The concept of conservation and ethical principles, www.unesco.org The concept of restoration and ethical principles, www.unesco.org Milchik, p. 239

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valid, and therefore should be preserved. Milchik argues the artefacts should be restored to their â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;original state,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; but this thesis would argue a case that the full history of this architectural heritage should be represented, to display the synthesis of its original parts and later additions. The curatorial practice of Kizhi Open-air museum should embody a conscious process aimed at participants to accept, reject, propose, or renegotiate the re-signified artefact.

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Kizhi State Open-air Museum Existing Building Arrangement.

North Karelia Sector

Kondopozhskiy Sector Vepsians Sector

Sector Pudozhsky Sector

Yamka Sector

Vasilyevo Sector

Pryazhinsky Sector

Medvezhiegorsk District Muezerskii District Olonetsky District Pryazhinsky District Pudozhsky area District

Kizhi Pogost Russian Zaonezhja Sector

Constructed on Kizhi Island

Fig. 48

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Fig. 49 Typological Classification. Spherical Gas Tanks. Bernd and Hilla Becher.

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A Taxonomy of Building Types. The drawing opposite rearranges the artefacts on the island typologically. The viewer is presented with a taxonomy of architectural heritage. Different arrangements can be curated to define and exhibit different readings of history, (Russian Empire, Soviet Union, Post Soviet Russia, the present.)

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Belfry Tower

Church / Monastery

House / Dwelling

Windmill

Barn / Granary

Worship Cross

Bath House

Fig. 50

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Fig. 51

Sectional Study of Northern Russia’s dying churches

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Fig. 52

sehcrtuhc eht lla fo yalrevO lanoitceS 57:1

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Fig. 53 A drawing Exploring the Typological Arrangement of Kizhiâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Chapels.

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Fig. 54 A study of material homogeneity if the existing artefacts.

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Wooden Church Modifications. The church of the Prophet Elijah is an example of the change undergone of the wooden church during the Soviet Union. It was turned into a grain store and then converted into a workshop in 1943, before being restored to back to a church.

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Fig. 55

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The Winter Church of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin. (1793) Vorzogory, Onega district, Archangel Region. This church is one of many in Russia that were modified by the Soviet Union. During collectivisation the Soviets put the churches to their own use, in the North the churches were converted into â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Klubs,â&#x20AC;&#x2122; where party meetings, dances, performances and film shows would take places. It is decorated and painted symbolic of the Soviet style with a red pelmet above the stage. Walls were modified to accommodate for projectors to play communist movies. The building is still being used as village hall today. The inclusion of buildings like this would help the visitor better understand contemporary Russia, in representing the complex historical relationship between Church and State.

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Fig. 56

Fig. 57

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Fig. 58 Church of the Prophet Elijia 1677, Usachavo, Kargopol district, Archangel region.

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Fig. 59 Church of St George. 1665. Permogore, Krasnoborsk, Archangel Region.

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Fig. 60

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‘The Final Hour’ Peter Brookes In the Afterword to the recently published book ‘Wooden Churches’ Mikhail Milchik writes about the states “the fate of the national cultural heritage, that reigns in Russian society, from top to bottom.”54 The cartoon is a contemporary take on Viktor Deni’s political propagandist cartoon, the final hour’ in 1920. In Deni’s image, the victim is Capitalism, the hour hand threat is Communism. In Brookes’s image the victim is wooden architecture and the threat indifference. 54 Milchik, p. 241

CURATING AN AUTHENTIC PAST 137

Fig. 61

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â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;The Karelian Dacha.â&#x20AC;&#x2122; The Dachaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s place in the museum along with other contemporary building types are arguably more important than some of the existing artefacts exhibited. The dacha has been in existence since the times of Peter the Great but boomed in popularity in 1980s. To identify and communicate with contemporary culture, the museum should represent and maintain a dialogue with lived social and cultural experiences in contemporary Russia.

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Fig. 62

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New building types. The images are suggestions for other buildings to be included in the museum. Artefacts from collective farms, saw mills, housing and the vast selection of buildings types constructed in Soviet Russia, post Soviet Russia and now in contemporary Russia.

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Fig. 63

Fig. 64

Fig. 65

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CURATING AN AUTHENTIC PAST 143

An Example Strategy of Curation.

Exhibtion zone

Artefact Storage Integration of landscape features with paths and zones

Site for new museum

Exhibtion zone Sustainable Zoning for the Museum’s expansion Exhibtion zone Exhibtion zone Sustainable Zoning for the Museum’s expansion The island is divided up into exhibiton zones and landscape zones. Each Exhibtion zones holds a temporary of permenant collection of artefacts, arranged by a range of curators from ‘top to bottom.’

Fig. 66

Kizhi Pogost

Exhibtion zone

500m BEN HAYES

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6 CONCLUSION: THE CULTURAL INSTITUTION

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This thesis does not aim to provide an answer of how to arrange an open-air

museum in contemporary Russia, but considers a range of ideas and suggestions the open-air museum can adopt, to operate to its full potential as a ‘cultural institution’ and engage with its surroundings. Kizhi has been shown to become a destination for ‘romantic escapism,’ and that it’s role as a museum in communicating the diverse cultural heritage of it’s region, is questionable. In recent years, contemporary notions of landscape, as an idea, have looked beyond a reading of it as an “aesthetic object.”55 However, a scenographic approach to Kizhi island is still favoured by the museum and in consequence inhibits it’s ability to engage fully with contemporary Russian culture. The island has slowly transformed from a landmark; a place that situated and that situates within it’s surrounding society and region, towards an iconic, ‘non-place’; detached from its environment.

Whilst in recent years, the “natural role of the [European] museum in

political and ideological sense has nearly vanished.”56 In Russia, for so many, it is easier to look back to this idealised past, with nostalgia, than confront the present. In this context, the analysis in thesis aims to resurface a complex historical narrative that dominates the region’s collective identity, and attempts to recontextualise the island, to form an understanding of the richness of the Russian landscape as a cultural form and its architectural heritage. A dialogic relationship between the local community and their environment, should be reflective in Kizhi’s landscape. Furthermore, this understanding of landscape should be articulated so that it can be seen through a 55 56

Bourassa, p. 109 Zipsane, p. 2

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multitude of perspectives, and perceived in disparate ways. The role of the open-air museum should be operate as a democratic forum, as a space that will provoke as many questions as it would provide answers, and therefore encourage response and dialogue.

The concept of a ‘Noah’s ark,’ to protect architectural heritage still needs

revising, and through a more inclusively broad historical narrative of architecture, it can develop a better dialogue throughout the region’s, villages, towns, schools and universities to could be the impetus for the comprehensive study of the buildings and the amassing of data connected to them. As a ‘cultural institution,’ it should provide the facilities and framework to educate and address the urgent need to save the wooden architectural heritage.

The role of the curator should overt from arranging the architecture for

“aesthetic contemplation,”57 and invite the visitor to take an active role in the museum. The future role of the curator, is not necessarily a role for one individual, but one for a diverse sample, of many people, from all generations. The suggested building arrangements in chapter 5, aim to acknowledge their own subjectivity and reestablish the agency in the architecture. Furthermore it is clear that the inclusion of new types of buildings can reinvent the museum and challenge a particular aesthetic that has been projected on to it. This thesis argues that as cultures and cultural forms can, and must be “made, unmade and remade,”58 so too must the open-air museum. The island should be in a constant state of becoming: a museum that is always trying to redefine itself as a cultural apparatus through its collection, cultural production and its own image. 57 McLean 1999 58 James Clifford, Indigenous Articulation, in, The Contemporary Pacific, v. 13, n. 2, (Hawaii Press, 2000), p. 479

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Visitor Center

Visitors Arrival

Storage

Restoration Research

Data Collection

Off Site: Original Site of Artefact

Aerial Photography

Geophysical Survey

3D Scanning

Archeological Survey

Remote Censoring

On site Data Collection

Suggested Programmatic Layout the New Cultural Institute on Kizhi Island

Inspection and Categorisation

Documentation and Categorisa-

Open Storage

Loading (Materials)

Loading (Artefacts)

Material Storage

Transportation of New Materials

Temporary Preservation Structure as-

Transportation of Artefact

Disassembly of Building

(Authors own)

Transportation of Memorial

Erection of Memorial

Transportation of Artefact exported for external Artefact

Reassembly of

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Island Exhibition Space

Relocation of Artefacts

On Site: Preservation Institute

Visitor Center

Storage Open Storage

Documentation and Categorisa-

Maintenance of Artefacts

Exhibition

Deployment of Artefact on to Island

Restoration Research

Data Collection

Construction of Memorial

Removal of Artefact from Exhibition space

Deployment of Artefact to Institute

Workshop

Material Storage

Inspection and Categorisation

Conclusion: the cultural institution 151

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7 BIBLIOGRAPHy

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BOOKS.

Baron Nick, Soviet Karelia: Politics, Planning and Terror in Stalinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Russia, 1920â&#x20AC;&#x201C;1939, (London: Routledge, 2012) Baktin, Mikhail, The Dialogic Imagination: Four Essays, (Austin,:University of Texas, 1981) Bourassa, Stephen, The aesthetics of Landscape, (John Wiley & Sons, Feb 1992) Cosgrove, Denis, The Iconography of Landscape: Essays on the Symbolic Representation, (Cambridge University Press, 1988) Ely, Christopher, This Meager Nature. Landscape and National Identity in Imperial Russia. (Illinois University Press, 2002) Falk, John and Sheppard, Beverly, Thriving in the Knowledge Age: New Models for Museums And Other Cultural Institutions, (Altamira Press 2006) Franklin, Simon and Widdis, Emma, National Identity in Russian Culture: An Introduction (Cambridge University Press, 2006) Davies, Richard and Moreton, Matilda, Wooden Churches, Mitchell, W.J.T, Landscape and Power, (Chicago 1994) Opolovnikov, A. and Opolovnikov, E, Log Jerusalem: Russian wooden churches and chapels (Moscow, Opole, 2007) Schneekloth, Lynda, Placemaking: The Art and Practice of Building Communities, (Wiley, 1995) Rentzhog, Sten, Open-air Museums: The History and Future of a Visionary Idea, (Stholm: Carlssons Jamtli, 2007) Shackley, Myra, Introduction,Visitor management: Case studies from world heritage sites, (Butter-

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worth-Heinemann, Oxford, 1998) Wilson, Richard, Buildings of Virginia: Tidewater and Piedmont, (New York, 2004). Worpole, Ken, Here Comes the Sun: Architecture and Public Space in Twentieth-century European Culture (London: Reaktion Books, 2000) Zipsane, Henrik, The Open Air Museum and its new role as a museum of many cultures. European Association of Open Air Museums, (Glasgow: Press, 2005)

157

Journals / Articles

Brück, Joanna, Experiencing the past? The development of a phenomenological archaeology in British prehistory in Archaeological Dialogues v. 12 n. 1 (Cambridge University Press 2005.) p. 45–72 Christopher, Casey, “Grecian Grandeurs and the Rude Wasting of Old Time: Britain, the Elgin Marbles, and Post-Revolutionary Hellenism”. Foundations. v. 3 n. 1, (June 2009) p. 2 Clifford, James, Indigenous Articulation, in, The Contemporary Pacific, v. 13, n. 2, (Hawaii Press, 2000), p. 479 De Jofzg, Adriaan and Skougaard, Mette, Early open-air museums: traditions of museums about traditions’ Museum, v. XW, n. 3, (UNESCO, Paris, 1992) p. 151 Haskins, Ekaterina, Russia’s Postcommunist Past: The Cathedral of Christ the Savior and the Reimagining of National Identity. History & Memory. v. 21, n. 1, (Spring/Summer 2009) p. 1 Huxtable, Ada Louise, cited in Metropolis Magazine - (Jan 1998) Sue Hamilton, Phenomenology in Practice: Towards a methodology for a ‘subjective’ approach in European Journal of Archaeology, v. 9, p.31 (2006) p. 31-32 Mckay, Sara and Monteverde, Susana, Dialogic Looking: Beyond the Mediated Experience, Art Education v. 56, n. 1 (National Art Education Association Jan, 2003) p. 2 Fairclough, Graham, Europe’s cultural landscape, (Brussels 2002) p.37 Reuben Rainey, Architecture and Landsape: Three modes of places, in Places, v. 4, n. 4 (2010) Riopelle, Christopher, Curator of the exhibition Russian Landscape in the Age of Tolstoy, National gallery. Cited from gallery excerpt. 2004 Robertson and Richards, Studying Cultural Landscapes, (Arnold, London, 2003) p.45 Pow, Tom, Three villages of the Damned - (v. 5, n. 3, 2009)

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Dimitry Pospielovsky, A History of Soviet Atheism in Theory, and Practice, and the Believer, vol 1: A History of Marxist-Leninist Atheism and Soviet Anti-Religious Policies, (New York: St Martinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Press, 1987) p. 27 Ken Taylor, Landscape and Memory, in, Cultural landscapes, intangible values, ICOMOS General Assembly and International Symposium: (Canada, 2008) p. 1 ICOMOS. Report on the Mission to Kizhi Pogost. (February 2011) p. 7 Reports. Kizhi Museum at 40 years. Scandinavia Publishing 2006 p.6

WEBSITES Smedly, Barinder, Not-so-easy steppes: Russian Landscape in the Age of Tolstoy at the National Gallery, fugitiveink.wordpress.com 2004. Kizhi State Open-air museum, www.kizhi.karelia.ru UNESCO, www.unesco.org

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8 Illustrated credits

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Illustrated Credits

1. lj.rossia.org 3. www.norskfolkemuseum.no 4. Rentzhog, Sten, Open-air museums, 2006. 7. www.external.ak.fbcdn.net 9. wim.arnhem.net 11-13. www.norskfolkemuseum.no 15-16. www.maihaugen.no 18. smartregion.org 20. www.wisconsinhistory.org 21-22. www.achildgrows.com 25. www.kuriositas.com 26. www.brodyaga.com 31-32. www.russianpaintings.net 33. lj.rossia.org 34. Richard Davies 35-36. www.russianpaintings.net 37. www.russianpaintings.net 38. Tom Pow 38b-41. photos.streamphoto.ru 32,44, 55-61. Richard Davies 43. www.kuriositas.com 45. lj.rossia.org 49. Bernd and Hilla Becher. 62. www.ticrk.ru 63-65. weburbanist.com All other images are authorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s own.

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9 Appendix

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