Detabuizacja historii w przestrzeni muzeum lokalnego

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss the activities related to exhibitions, research, and education of the Centre of Documentation of Upper Silesians Deportation to the Soviet Union in 1945. This local museum is an institution focused on filling the “blank spots” in historiography, retrieving the knowledge about the past, and breaking the taboo which has led to the state of collective oblivion under the influence of strong ideologisation of the knowledge about the past taking place in the time of the Polish People’s Republic. The activity of the institution is oriented at the processes of retrieving the memory that so far has functioned only in communication - that is, in private and unofficial - messages; it aims at retrieving this memory and transforming it into a collective, cultural one. The article endeavours to answer the questions concerning the very tabooed history and the cultural contexts of detabooisation that is performed by means of particular communicational strategies characteristic of contemporary museum activity.