Abstract:

Historically, the question of Austrian identity has been a tricky one. The elements of national cultures displayed in museums as cultural artifacts can influence collective memory and result in a particular sense of national identity. That is, visitors make value judgments about the selection, interpretation, and representation of the past based on what they encounter in a museum. However, there is a lack of scholarly research on the role of Austrian museums in the formation and representation of national identity despite the long complex history and commonly appraised rich culture of the now small country. This void may be attributed to the rather difficult relationship that today’s Austrians have with that history, whether the multinational history of the Habsburg monarchy or the 1938-1945 occupation by and complicity with Hitler’s Third Reich. By using a meso-ethnographic research methodology, this study aims to demonstrate and deconstruct the role of the Austrian Gallery Belvedere in the social processes of citizenship and the construction and representation of Austria’s national identity.

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