In defence of progress

I know technology can be scary (as some have expressed in our digital history class . . .). I too have been a bit wary of embracing new technology. In fact, I was one of the last people I knew to cave in and buy a cell phone and then an ipod. But here’s the thing: now that I have them, I can’t imagine living without them.

I have been looking at a lot of history websites lately, searching for the perfect one for our website review assignment for Public History. I happened upon the Virtual Museum of New France through the Canadian Museum of Civilization website. The thing about this website is, it was created in 1997 and hasn’t been updated since 2001. These are exactly the years that I was in high school, which doesn’t seem insanely long ago, and back then we thought technology was pretty good. But it’s amazing how far we’ve come. The site is difficult to navigate, barely interactive, and makes very poor use of the resources available to a national institution. I’m sure it was cutting edge back when I was in grade ten. But now it’s almost laughable.

The point? Someone looking for information on New France will have an enormously easier time now than they would have ten years ago when the website was launched. No matter how scary technology can be, and no matter how dizzyingly fast it changes, it seems to me that the more resources that are made available, and the easier they are to search and navigate, the better. It’s just too bad that the Virtual Museum of New France hasn’t kept up.

Historical song and dance?

What is truth? As public historians our job is a big one, and kind of a scary one. We are the ones who are actually getting it out there, whatever the historical truth may be. If we can decide on what it is. If such a thing even exists (the post-modernists among us would argue that it doesn’t). And the really big challenge is getting it out there in a way that people will actually digest, so that they will go away with something. How to distil whatever message, or truth, we have deemed important into a soundbyte that people will actually take with them? Is that even possible, or do we then just end up with parody?


Growing up in Winnipeg, one of my favourite summer events has always been Folklorama. For those of you unlucky enough never to have experienced this fine institution, it’s a two week festival where different cultural and ethnic groups in the city put on “pavilions” where they show off their culture and history through food, song and dance, displays of handicrafts and historical and cultural exhibits. Each community puts on their own pavilions, so they are all a little different in approach. But let me paint you a general picture: at the Brazilian pavilion, you drink Brahma and watch capoeira. At the Caribbean pavilion, you listen to the steel drum orchestra and drink rum punch. You drink Guinness and watch the Michael Flatley wannabes at the Irish pavilion. (You may be sensing a theme).


So what does all of this have to do with historical truth? I love Folklorama. But what I find so fascinating about it is the way in which different cultural communities in the city choose to present themselves. They all embrace the stereotypes, and in doing so, perpetuate them. But if you are hitting up two or three pavilions a night, can your brain really take in any more information? And if you are a tourist breezing through a museum or historic site with your three kids in tow are you really looking for a serious, thoughtful analysis or do you just want to be entertained?


As a historic interpreter I have certainly met many people who fall into both categories. We need to be able to identify the needs of the public and accept that some of them only want the Cole’s notes version of history. But I don’t think it’s about dumbing history down, or about pandering to the stereotypes people expect to see. It’s about figuring out a way to get your point across, whatever truth you believe is essential to pass on, and to get it across without losing your audience. And if that means sometimes you have to sing . . . so be it.

Beyond the Iron Curtain: re-imagining a Communist past for the tourist present

Call me crazy but I always had an idea that the Communist past of former Soviet Bloc countries was not entirely a laughing matter. Even in Hungary, where “goulash communism” made it one of the best places to be if you were unlucky enough as to be stuck behind the iron curtain, life was not a walk in the park. So the public historian in me had a field day last summer when I found myself behind said curtain. Turns out it was all a big joke.

Never mind the Museum of Communism in Prague whose cartoony mascot grimaces at you from every corner. I’m talking about a veritable communist Disneyland, the Communist statue park on the outskirts of Budapest (http://www.szoborpark.hu/index.php?Lang=en). The surprising thing was not that the government decided to keep this assortment of monoliths, which mostly depicted either Hungarian communist revolutionary Bela Kun or anonymous heroic youths striving for the glorious future. The surprising thing is how they approached it all. The giftshop is case in point. You could actually buy CDs entitled Best of Communism volumes 1 through 3. They had t-shirts and mugs with various slogans, including a satire of the three tenors (“the three terrors”), socks and pins bearing the hammer and sickle or the Hungarian communist party logo, and various other kitsch designed for the backpacker with a sense of homour. What they didn’t seem to have – at the giftshop or in the park itself – was anything that lent even the remotest sense of context to the statues we were seeing. Stalin was nowhere to be found. Lenin was being restored and was under a tarp. My travelmates and I had a blast there, despite the disappointment at having missed Joe and Vlad. But I have to ask: is this the responsible way to deal with a recent past that was truly devastating to a very large group of people? And it’s not just the statue park. Up on Castle Hill you can buy soviet era gas masks for the equivalent of $400 Cdn and pause for a photo op climbing over the very tanks that rolled through Budapest in 1956. And most Hungarians I met made constant jokes about their years behind the iron curtain.

Hungary is recovering from the economic wreckage of its half century under communist rule and is now welcoming tourists back in droves. Tourists bring money. Tourists want to be entertained. And so Hungary entertains. I still wonder though: is this more important than honestly coming to terms with an unpleasant past? And is it really appropriate to make light of a such a serious and recent piece of history?

I’m not pretending I’m not just as capable of laughing at the Soviets as the rest of you. And for the record I didn’t visit a single other museum while in Hungary, so for all I know there could be thoughtful and balanced exhibits of life under Communist rule all over the place. But the question of how to balance economic revival and very serious issues of national identity is an intriguing one. I don’t have any answers – but I would recommend checking out the park if you ever find yourself in Budapest. Just make sure to leave time for the Turkish baths . . .

Taking the plunge

Here it is. My first ever blog post. Shouldn't really be so intimidating, should it? But for someone whose academic career up to this point has consisted entirely of submitting papers which were most likely only ever seen by one person, the idea that anyone at all can read this is somewhat disconcerting.


But then again this is Public History, isn't it. And what we are trying to do, after all, is communicate with people outside our sheltered little academic world, a world in which people already understand the importance of what we are trying to do without being convinced.


This is in fact what I have been doing for some years, although never on the internet, a medium with which I have never felt entirely comfortable. I have spent a good part of the past five years on the front lines of this effort to bring something of our past to the general public, as a tour guide and costumed interpreter, and this has led to a lot of thinking about exactly why it is we do it. Is it truly possible to justify the money and effort spent? Who exactly is benefitting? And does it really make a difference? There have been days when I wondered if the little reconstruction of a furtrading fort on the banks of the Red River where I spent my days was nothing more than a playground for re-enactors or a pretty backdrop for wedding photos. I'm not suggesting that it is -- places like that mean a lot to me. But sometimes I wonder whether the lives of the people who visited us there were really improved by talking to me. And if they weren't, shouldn't I be doing something else with my time?


I'm only just beginning to figure out what public history is all about. I have a feeling the coming months will bring more questions than they do answers. But I'm pretty sure, even if I can't articulate yet exactly why, that what I want to do -- as vaguely definied as it currently is -- is actually pretty important. Here's hoping.