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This paper investigates developments in Russian cultural policy following the country’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. It analyses shifts in cultural legislation and official discourse on culture within the context of war. The study addresses two research questions: (1) What are the primary directions and strategies of cultural policy since 2022; and (2) How do various actors in the cultural sector exploit these trends to secure economic benefits and influence during this exceptional wartime period? To illustrate the effects and outcomes of these policy shifts, the paper explores two distinct cultural initiatives. The first, the Historical Parks Project, originates from the business management offices of the Skolkovo Innovation Centre and the educational efforts of both the State and the Russian Orthodox Church. The second, the Cultural Front of Russia, is a recently emerged grassroots public movement. The authors argue that these projects exemplify both top-down and bottom-up dynamics of empowerment within the wartime patriotic framework. Despite differing leadership structures, they share significant similarities in their methods and ideological alignment with Russia’s authoritarian regime. The research draws on an analysis of official discourses in the Russian Parliament and the Presidential Administration, alongside recent amendments to cultural legislation. To study the practical implementation of cultural policy, i.e., the operations of the selected projects, the authors analyse the Parliament’s and Presidential Administration’s official Telegram channels and media coverage of their activities.

Artikeln undersöker museernas förändrade roll och funktioner i den globala samtiden, med fokus på museiaktivism, bevarandekompetens och museernas politiska och ideologiska natur. Den bygger på de epistemologiska premisserna för museologi som forskningsfält och argumenterar för vikten av denna disciplin för att förstå de globala processerna inom kulturarvspraktiker. Författaren diskuterar de intensiva debatterna om museidefinition, särskilt den inom ICOM 2016–2020, och hur dessa speglar museernas motsägelsefulla natur. Artikeln belyser också den svenska museidebatten och hur politiska och ekonomiska faktorer påverkar museernas verksamhet. Författaren argumenterar för behovet av en radikal förändring av museernas institutionella strukturer för att de ska kunna överleva och vara relevanta i dagens samhälle. Reflexivitet och erkännande av asymmetriska maktrelationer inom museerna lyfts fram som viktiga aspekter för framtiden.

This article examines the evolving role and functions of museums in the contemporary global context, focusing on museum activism, preservation expertise, and the political and ideological nature of museums. It draws on the epistemological premises of museology as a field of study and argues for the importance of this discipline when it comes to understanding the global processes in cultural heritage practices. The author discusses the intense debates surrounding definitions of the museum, particularly the ICOM debate in the second half of the 2010s, and how these discussions reflect the contradictory nature of museums. The concepts of “museum activism” and “preservation drive” are introduced as two important discourses in the world of museums. The article also highlights the Swedish museum debate and how political and economic factors influence how museums operate. The author argues for the need to radically transform institutional museum structures to ensure that they survive and remain relevant in today’s society. Reflexivity and recognizing asymmetric power relations within museums are emphasized as crucial aspects for the future.

This chapter offers an imaginary archaeology of Moscow’s central district of Zaryadye located close to the Kremlin. It examines how three consecutive regimes – Tsarist Russia, the Soviet Union, and the present-day Russian state – used this site for their own history politics. In the nineteenth century, the imperial legacy of the district was rediscovered by the restoration of a historical palace of the founder of the Romanov dynasty. Because of the proximity to the Kremlin, the Soviet Union used the main part of the quarter as a construction site for buildings representing the new regime. In 2006, the empty space left after the Soviet grand projects was turned into a park that was to bring Moscow in line with other global cities. With each step, the original district turned from a residential area with an individual character into a non-place, which serves only passers-by. The chapter shows how imperial cities such as Moscow are being transformed in a long-term process, which is responsible for the palimpsestic nature of their heritage, and how the imperial heritages are (de)constructed and (re)used in the capital’s cityscape.

This dissertation examines the institutional ontology of museums: how it is being changed and which issues and actors are calling for such change.  

A museum project that started from scratch in the mid-2010s – the Museum of Movements in Malmö, Sweden – is used as a lens to examine how the global processes of (re)imagining the museum are unfolding in the local Swedish context. The research questions addressed in the dissertation consider the use of politics in the process of museum making (and unmaking); framing of “difficult issues” which cultural institutions are dealing with in both the global and the Swedish museum context; and constituting socially relevant and sustainable museum practices based on agonistic memory framework and museum activism.  

Addressing these research questions, the text moves constantly between analyses of theories and empirical material. Each chapter also discusses existing research in the relevant field, be it museum politics, memory studies or the concept of “difficult issues”. The study relies on the ethnographic fieldwork conducted in the process of the Museum of Movements’ making and unmaking (2018-2020) and brings in theoretical frameworks to connect museology and memory studies in order to explain museum- and memory politics and museums as processes. 

Avhandlingen undersöker med ett kritiskt perspektiv förändringar i museivärlden, både i Sverige och globalt. Med utgångspunkt i Rörelsernas museum, ett statligt demokrati- och migrationsmuseiprojekt med inriktning på migration, mänskliga rättigheter, folkrörelser och civilsamhällesbaserad aktivism, som var aktivt i form av en försöksverksamhet mellan 2017 och 2020 i Malmö, tar avhandlingen upp museernas institutionella ontologier och vilka förändringar de genomgår i samtiden.  

I fokus för analysen står vilka förutsättningar som finns för att skapa ett demokratiskt och samhällsrelevant museum i samtiden samt vilka faktorer som påverkar den utvecklingen. Avhandlingen kretsar kring följande forskningsfrågor: Vilka politiska processer var avgörande för Rörelsernas museums skapande och upphävande? Hur förhåller sig en samtida minneskultur till kontroversiella och svåra ämnen? Vilken form kan ett museum som ska ta upp svåra ämnen ta?  

Analysen utgår från deltagande observationer och intervjuer samt tidningsmaterial och offentliga dokument. Med det empiriska materialet diskuteras politik och maktutövande i museivärlden samt olika former och praktiker för hållbar och samhällsrelevant museiverksamhet. Analysen drivs av begrepp och teorier från museologi och kulturella minnesstudier. Avhandlingen resonerar kring de skillnader som skapas mellan närliggande minnen och svåra ämnen som historiserats. Den argumenterar för att agonistisk minnesteori kan stödja museer att hantera både samtida och historiskt svåra och kontroversiella ämnen. Undersökningen resonerar kring svåra ämnens politik samt hur detta kan studeras och förstås genom de tvärdisciplinära fälten minnesstudier och museologi.   

The Art of the Americas exhibition (March – July 2018) at the Max Chambers Library, University of Central Oklahoma (UCO), USA, questioned the practices of assigning cultural objects to different academic disciplines and separate museums. The exhibition brought together diverse cultural objects from North, Central and South America. Using the exhibition as a threshold and a lens, this paper opens a broader conversation on decolonising museums that challenge the knowledge-building system in academic institutions. First, Shikoh Shiraiwa, curator, revisits Art of the Americas to re-examine his motives and positionality. Secondly, Olga Zabalueva dwells on the theoretical implications and importance of constantly re-assessing decolonial efforts. Third, we both explore how ingrained racial hierarchies have crystalised in certain academic disciplines. As a result, we further elaborate on the criticality of challenging institutionalised scholarship, concluding with theoretical pursuit of cultural and socially sustainable museum practice for the future.

This article focuses on the 2013–2016 exhibitions in Moscow Manege which were later transformed into a network of entertainment centres (“historical parks”) Russia–my (hi)story. The exhibitions are built on multimedia technologies and include no authentic artefacts/museum objects. There is a growing network of such centres all over Russia, all organized in a similar manner, appealing to the visitor’s emotions and creating a relation of affect through the unravelling of a nationalistic historical narrative. Claimed to present “the objective picture of the Russian history”, the exhibitions are following the recent developments in Russian cultural policies and history curricula. By analysing narratives presented at the “historical park” exhibitions, in policy documents and in media, this article follows the changes in public attitude towards history, which heritage is perceived as ‘difficult’ and ‘contested’ and how the digital representations influence these perceptions. Based on this analysis I argue that the reduction of the museum mechanism to only digital and multimedia form can bring along very serious issues in different political contexts. Russian historical parks enterprise, which combines the methods of fostering patriotism by the means of historical narrative templates both from the 19th and the 20th centuries, enhanced with the 21st-century technology in a form of “multimedia museums,” is only one of such examples.