due to the definition of museum collections published in the Museum magazine. The definition read: “Any movable or unmovable object within the community’s perimeter is physiologically part of the museum. This introduces the idea of a kind of cultural property right which has nothing to do with legal ownership. Accordingly, it is not the function of the museum as such to make acquisitions, since everything existing within its geographical area is already at its disposal” (Varine-Bohan 1973:244). In addition to the different interpretation of museum collections and their acquisition policies, audiences of this museum were perceived differently as well. The museum implied that its audience is the whole community, or in other words, that all individuals who live within the defined territory of the museum are its active, everlasting users. In many of its characteristics the Museum of Man and Industry differed from most or nearly all museums, primarily with regards to the already mentioned relation to the collection/collections, then with regards to the territory and customers, but also in the relationships established inside the museum and its work organization which implied, as it is now called, the participatory approach. Summarizing the above, and taking into account that ecomuseums in their basic idea do not tend to be practically applicable prototypes that can be copied, but, if properly interpreted, they offer a model of thinking about the attitude towards heritage, we are inclined to believe that they have the capacity to adapt to and embrace the essence of every territory, of every heritage. In other words, they represent a model that is sufficiently conceptually adaptable to cultural diversity and to different perceptions of value and meaning implied by the idea of heritage (within different cultures) thus overcoming not only the form of the so-called traditional museums but also the existing forms of heritage management. 3.1. Defining eco-museums The word definition implies a concise, yet sufficiently clear and preferably as precise as possible description of the essence of a notion. It is not easy to define eco-museums in this manner, except perhaps through the idea that one should not necessarily define eco-museums but should rather simply experience them. Let us however underline in this context that the most significant three definitions of eco-museums were formulated by one of the main protagonists, Georges Henri Rivière, and that they also reflect the very development of eco-museums8. The first dates from 1973, and is composed of two main parts. In the first part eco-museum is defined as a ‘new genre
museum’ which is based on interdisciplinarity (ecology in particular), on organic connection to the community in which it operates and on the need for the community’s participation in its constitution and operation, while the second part defines the very formal structure of an ecomuseum. As a musée éclaté it consists of the primary (or coordinating) body and of secondary organs of the body, or the centre and branches or antennas. The aim of the museum is to interpret the natural and the social environment, in time and space. This definition was only slightly modified and supplemented in 1976 (the second definition). On 22 January 1980 G. H. Rivière proposed a third definition, one of the most important characteristics of which is the complete omitting of the word museum and then (indicatively, A/N) replacing it by words expression and interpretation. Phrases such as ‘Museum of Man and Nature’, ‘museum of time’ or ‘museum of space’ thus became ‘an expression of man and nature’, ‘expression of time’ or ‘interpretation of space’. Along with the evolving definition by G. H. Rivière, other protagonists of the mentioned museological movement offered interpretations of this concept trying to emphasize its main characteristics and accentuating certain parts that they thought particularly significant. We are citing here only several most important ones9. Canadian museologist Pierre Mayrand noted in 1982 that the: “the ecomuseum … is a collective, a workshop extending over a territory that a population has taken as its own… [it] is not an end to itself , it is defined as an objective to be met.”. Not intending that his interpretation is understood as a definition, Frenchman André Desvallées in 1987 suggested that if the definition by G. H. Rivière was to be accepted, eco-museums should actually be museums of identity because of the reference of time, space and mirrors, i.e. reflection, and museums of territory, whereby the prefix eco symbolizes the importance of the natural and social environment in which the eco-museum is located. In 1988 René Rivard compared traditional museums, in his opinion consisting of buildings, collections, professionals and the public, with ecomuseums, consisting of territory, heritage, memory and community/population. Peter Davis, primarily trying to fathom the basic indicators of eco-museums, concluded that: “...the one characteristic that appears to be common to all ecomuseums is pride in the place they represent. … ecomuseums seek to capture the sense of place - and in my opinion it would appear that this is what makes them special.” (Davis 1999: 238-239). More than three decades after the founding of the first eco-museum, at the workshop entitled “Long-term Net-
8 The definitions and the interpretations thereof stated here according to Hubert 1989: 151.
9 Definitions were taken from Davis (1999), except when other sources are quoted.
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