‘Being’, ‘Becoming’ and ‘Challenging’ European: Subject Positions in the European Heritage Label

Abstract

This article scrutinises the subject positions of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European in the context of the European Heritage Label (EHL), a flagship cultural heritage action of the European Union. While the positions are widely used in academia to analyse the relationship between the Central and East European (CEE) countries and the EU/Europe, the setting of the current research shows how the power dynamics between CEE countries and the EU contribute to forming ‘European heritage’ and contribute to the EHL as EU-level authorised heritage discourse in the making. Simultaneously, the transformative potential of heritage makes these subject positions visible and opens them up for changes.

This article focuses on the forming of European cultural heritage from the perspective of the multifaceted relationship between the Central and East European (CEE) countries and the EU/Europe.¹ The relationship is illuminated in scholarly discussion on the basis of three subject positions: the initial two are the positions of ‘being’ European and ‘becoming’ European that indicate identification, and the third is ‘challenging’ European, which is critical towards the EU and its policies. While these three subject positions are not unique to CEE, they have been extensively used and elaborated both in academic and public discourse in the framework of the common communist past and the exceptionally broad EU accession process. These analyses form a valuable background context for the current article.

This article offers a novel perspective on the topic by making visible how these subject positions endure and are actualised in the sphere of European cultural heritage. First, the research design enables me to analyse the subject positions adopted in relation to the CEE countries as part of the process of ‘doing’ European heritage in the EU. Second, I scrutinise how the transformative potential of heritage (Harrison 2013) makes these subject positions visible and possibly opens them up for changes.

Since the 1970s, the policy documents of the EU and its precursor organisations have discussed heritage in detail, and it has become highly topical in recent decades. The quantity of EU documents that mention and/or elaborate on ‘heritage’ has increased in particular since the 1990s (Lähdesmäki et al. 2019) when the EU sought to construct and use a supposed European heritage to form common identity narratives. The most recent example of this is the European Heritage Label (EHL), a flagship heritage action of the European Commission (EC). This action was launched in 2011 and 25 EU member states are currently participating. According to the Commission’s webpage, the objective of the EHL is to use cultural heritage to bring to life a European narrative of identity and belonging upon which people could build their European identity. By 2018, 38 heritage sites with ‘European significance’—as framed in EHL terminology—were awarded the EHL. The sites are expected to promote their European dimension and to bring to life a European narrative (European Commission 2010, p. 2; 2017; European Parliament 2011, p. 3).²

Temporally, the designated sites range from the Krapina Neanderthal Site (Croatia) and ancient Athens (Greece) to the collapse of the Soviet bloc (the Historic Gdańsk Shipyard, Poland; the Pan-European Picnic Memorial Park, Sopron, Hungary). Spatially, 15 of the 38 EHL sites are located in CEE countries: Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Croatia, Romania, Lithuania and Estonia. In the framework of the EHL, a spatially, temporally and thematically very broad range of sites form a system of meanings about what comprises ‘European’ heritage and simultaneously designate the term ‘Europe’ as synonymous with the EU (Kaasik-Krogerus 2019). Hence, the EHL can be scrutinised as a discourse, that is, simultaneously a system of meanings and a political and social practice of meaning-giving (Fairclough 1995, p. 2; Raik 2003, pp. 27–8; Harrison 2013).³ The EHL sites are situated in EU member countries, whereas ‘European heritage’ as a system of meanings and the transformation of sites into ‘European heritage’ takes place in interactions between European, national and local scales (Kaasik-Krogerus 2019).⁴ Other than EU-level actors such as the EC, the EHL site practitioners, visitors and stakeholders also contribute to the diversity of this discourse and its controversies, that is, by taking subject positions (Lähdesmäki 2014).

The empirical data of this article consist of interview material from two EHL sites: the Historic Gdańsk Shipyard (the European Solidarity Centre (ESC), Poland) and the Great Guild Hall (GGH, in Tallinn, Estonia). Both sites are well-known tourist destinations in their respective cities. Their extensive permanent exhibitions emphasise the struggle against (supposedly non-European) oppression and offer a fruitful starting point for analysing subject positions. Spatially, the narratives of both exhibitions focus on and deal with ‘Europe’, whereas the time scales of the exhibitions are rather different (11,000 years in the GGH compared to the post-World War II period in the ESC). I scrutinise expert and visitor interviews, which were conducted at the GGH and the ESC in the framework of the wider ethnographic fieldwork at the EHL sites to analyse how the subject positions of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European are expressed in the framework of, and simultaneously form, the EHL as the European heritage discourse.⁵ The study asks how the sites’ practitioners relate to and use subject positions and how visitors engage with these, either by identifying themselves with the positions or by connecting the positions to the sites/countries.

I start by elaborating the positions of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European in the framework of critical heritage studies—a critical approach to studying heritage as a discourse—and, specifically, the concept of ‘authorised heritage discourse’ (AHD) coined by Laurajane Smith (2006). This framework is combined with an overview of CEE–EU relations with a special focus on Estonia and Poland and the period of EU eastern enlargement (1995–2004), when the questions of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ were highly topical in scholarly debates. This section is followed by data and research methods. The article continues with an empirical analysis and ends with a discussion and conclusions.

Subject positions of EU heritage discourse in the making

This article is based on a constructionist understanding of heritage as a process where selective past artefacts, landscapes, memories and traditions ‘become cultural, political and economic resources for the present’ (Graham & Howard 2008, p. 2). Heritage is a modern practice that selectively defines past practices and products to prevent them from disappearing (Welz 2012, p. 361). To open up critical heritage studies, I focus on two analytically distinguished perspectives that have special relevance in the context of the current article: temporal relations and dissonance.

Temporal relations play a key role in critical heritage studies, since heritage ‘from the past’ is formed on the basis of contemporary needs and understandings with the objective of influencing future imaginaries (Harrison 2013, p. 4). In this process, the past is used to valorise the present (Delanty 2017, p. 4). Since authorised heritage discourse (AHD) is defined as expert-led dominant heritage discourse with the aim to ‘conserve and preserve’ heritage for future generations (Smith 2006), it offers a good example of entangled past, present and future. Similarly entangled temporal relations constitute the CEE positions of ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ European. ‘Being’ European stems from past experience, sometimes explicitly communicated by referring to, for example, a common heritage and/or the ‘Middle Ages’ as the starting point of this belonging (Kuus 2002a, p. 97).

Indeed, in various academic texts published during the EU accession process, the relationship between the CEE and ‘Europe’ is based on the understanding that the candidates are ‘being’ European countries. The approach is confirmed by metaphors such as a ‘return to Europe’ and ‘family reunion’, argued by appealing to common history, culture and heritage,⁶ and used to legitimise the EU’s eastern enlargement (Petersson & Hellström 2003; Kølvraa 2017, p. 13; Visvizi & Tokarski 2018, p. 114).⁷ ‘Being’ European is seen as a holistic state of order including geographic, cultural, economic and political aspects (Berg & Oras 2002, p. 30) and is based on an implicit or explicit assumption that the EU, Europe and even the West form a coherent whole. For instance, Estonia is depicted as a part of the West due to common cultural values and ideas such as individualism, liberalism, the rule of law, constitutionalism, free markets and separation of church and state (Kirch & Kirch 2001, p. 129).⁸ One aspect of ‘being’ European emphasised by scholars is citizens’ identification with Europe in both Estonia and Poland (Vihalemm 1997; Kirch & Kirch 2001; Góra & Mach 2017, p. 57; Melchior 2017, p. 122).

During the accession process these references were made in the present to influence the future: the aim of this process was to secure the CEE countries’ access to and future in the EU. The EU was valued because it was seen to promote ‘national interests’ by, for example, contributing to the countries’ security and development (Raik 2003, pp. 196–99).⁹ ‘Becoming’ European stood for membership, as a final goal of the accession process and the candidate countries’ ‘official’ future imaginary. There is broad scholarly discussion about how the CEE countries, including Estonia and Poland, were positioned in this process as ‘not European’ or only ‘partly European’. This is part of a wider paradox of simultaneous inclusion and exclusion of the CEE as Europe but not Europe (Mälksoo 2006, p. 276).¹⁰ This notion arose in the eighteenth century, when Eastern Europe became one of the generalised ‘Others’ necessary for Europe’s self-image (Wolff 1994, p. 7; Neumann 1999, pp. 143–60). From this perspective, the EU’s enlargement has been depicted as a manifestation of this dual framing of CEE countries (Kuus 2004; Mälksoo 2004, 2006, p. 276; Zarycki 2011, pp. 89–90).¹¹ To map this condition, scholars such as Maria Mälksoo (2006, 2009) have used Victor Turner’s concept of liminality as an ambiguous borderline condition, a state of being ‘neither here nor there’ but ‘betwixt and between’ (Turner 1991, p. 95).

Both ‘being European’ and ‘becoming European’ have de-temporalised connotations. De-temporalised ‘being’ European means a static and stable condition that is not supposed to change in time. According to this logic, the candidate countries had culturally and historically ‘always’, or at least ‘since the Middle Ages’, been ‘part of Europe’ (Lauristin 1997, p. 29; Pfoser 2017, p. 27).¹² For instance, the Baltic states were culturally ‘European’ during the Soviet period (Lauristin & Vihalemm 1997). This understanding is confronted by the de-temporalisation of ‘becoming’, where instead of ‘graduating’ to Europe, ‘becoming’ remains a continuous and fixed phase (Jakniūnaitė 2009, p. 131; Mälksoo 2009, p. 69). Indeed, while the passage of the ritual subject is supposedly temporary, it has been noted that constructing CEE countries as ‘liminal Europeans’ continued beyond their EU accession (Mälksoo 2006, 2009; Velikonja 2011, pp. 43–4; Ballinger 2017, p. 52; Komska 2018, pp. 8–10),¹³ although the division is perceived to exist in a more sophisticated and latent form (Törnquist-Plewa & Stala 2011, pp. 8–10). While criticism in the CEE countries was, and is, expressed towards being constructed as ‘liminal Europeans’, this subject position is widely self-ascribed and used, for example, in public discussion.¹⁴

These ambiguities are actualised in the current discussion about European cultural heritage. While during the accession process ‘common historical and cultural heritage’ was a generally stable and unchallenged argument used in relation to ‘being’ European, the CEE countries within the EU have had difficulties ‘fitting in’ in cultural terms. As scholars put it, after the latest accessions, ‘the store of collective memories has broadened enormously’ (Checkel & Katzenstein 2009, p. 3) as a result of Central and East European countries’ aspiration to ‘pluralise the ways of being European’ (Mälksoo 2009, p. 656; Pakier & Wawrzyniak 2016, pp. 7, 10).¹⁵ Hence, instead of status quo relations, ‘being’ includes expectations that it is now the EU’s turn to adjust to the increasing plurality of ‘being’ European.

This leads us to the second point: the dissonance of heritage and the related subject position, ‘challenging’ European. Critical heritage studies enable us to understand heritage as an inherently dissonant process created and shaped by various actors according to political, economic and social interests. Hence, it is both a source and a result of social conflict, inclusion and exclusion.¹⁶ Dissonance is crucial to both dominant, authorised heritage discourse and other, competing discourses, such as those representing heritages of different communities (Smith 2006).¹⁷ However, the dissonance of AHD, expert knowledge-related nationally accepted discourse remains hidden. As the dominant discourse and therefore a part of social reality that is taken for granted, AHD diminishes dissonance and makes it imperceptible (Kaasik-Krogerus 2019).

As I have discussed elsewhere, the EHL carries some characteristics of AHD: the awarded sites are embedded in either or both local and national narratives of the EU member countries and various ‘heritage experts’ hold key positions in the process of awarding and managing the sites to promote, safeguard and preserve heritage. However, instead of merging as a taken-for-granted heritage where dissonance is hidden and invisible, a mixture of local, national and European scales, reflected in the three subject positions, makes the dissonance explicit (Kaasik-Krogerus 2019). The increasing plurality of ‘being’ European is one example of how national taken-for-granted heritage discourse is not automatically recognised as such on the European scale. While the continuous endeavour of the CEE countries to become European can be interpreted as a recurrent articulation of the desirability of the ‘unavailable’ EU, implicitly or explicitly connected to the hierarchical imbalance (Kølvraa 2017, p. 19), ‘challenging’ European contests this hierarchy and rejects EU superiority (Pfoser 2017, pp. 28–9, 37–9).¹⁸ This enables the subjects to confront either or both ‘being’ and ‘becoming’ European. Hence, in the case of the CEE countries, the question is not only about juxtaposing ‘European’ with ‘national’ but a reaction towards presumed European superiority and, thus, is a way of dealing with disappointment and feelings of inferiority as well as questioning EU superiority and authority. Simultaneously ‘challenging’ European was, and is, related to the countries’ internal cleavages, for instance, questioning the motives of political decision-makers in advancing EU accession and the policies countries conduct once they are in the EU.

At the end of the accession process, the position of ‘challenging’ European was taken in accession referendums by those citizens who voted against the EU membership of their countries. In 2003, the greatest ‘challenge’ was posed in Estonia and Latvia, where 33% of the electorate voted against membership. Voter turnout in Estonia was 64% and in Latvia, 73%. Voter turnout in Poland was 59% and the percentage of no-votes 23% (Marczewska-Rytko 2015; Visvizi & Tokarski 2018, p. 114). As developments since then show, the positions are far from static. In 2012, for the first time since the country’s EU accession, the percentage of Poles who claimed not to trust the EU (46%) was higher than the percentage of those who claimed to trust the union (41%) (Stefanova 2018, p. 86). In a recent Eurobarometer, 34% of Polish respondents, more than the EU average of 30%, answered that their country would have better prospects outside the EU (European Commission 2017). In Estonia, the percentage was 19% (European Commission 2017). Indeed, Tomasz Zarycki, writing about the Polish experience, identifies a ‘second stage of transformation’, after the EU accession process, when the idealised picture of the EU started to crack and critical images of the union gained ground. As part of the same process, regional and national history and heritage were (re)discovered as an important context or a useful resource in further developments (Zarycki 2011, pp. 92–5).

Furthermore, current political controversies and heated debates in different EU countries may challenge national-scale AHD. It is no longer entirely clear what is ‘taken for granted’ on a national scale, since events and developments might be opened up for ‘corrections’ and ‘revisions’. In Poland, the struggle over a display at the World War II museum, located in Gdańsk, offers a good example of how the ‘too universal’ narrative offered by the museum was ‘corrected’ under the supervision of the state authorities, who pressured the museum to put more emphasis on ‘Polish suffering’ in the permanent exhibition. Similarly, the key figure of Solidarity (Solidarność), Lech Wałęsa, who holds a significant position in the display of the ESC’s permanent exhibition, does not enjoy the unquestioned status of a ‘national hero’ in Polish society; the current government is ‘revising’ his role in the history of the 1980s in Poland.¹⁹ This raises questions about AHD as a concept: who are the ‘experts’, what is and what is not taken for granted, and how does authorising heritage on the EU scale take place in parallel with de-authorising it on a national scale? In this context, the EHL can be understood as an authorisation process, an authorised heritage discourse in the making (Smith 2006, p. 100; Kaasik-Krogerus 2019). Simultaneously, the dissonance inherent to heritage discourse is entangled with the dissonance of subject positions; for example, rather than ‘becoming’ part of European-scale AHD, the question raised is about being European in a sense of participating in and forming the EHL.

In sum, the positions of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European were extensively formed and used in public discussion during the EU accession process of the CEE countries. At the time, the accession process was seen to take place between the relatively stable EU and the CEE countries, which were going through a ‘transformation’. In this framework, ‘being’ European indicated a rather static Europe of which the CEE countries were a part, at least to a certain extent. In ‘becoming’ European, the EU was an ‘end goal’ and the candidate countries were expected to ‘transform’ to achieve this goal. ‘Challenging’ European meant a static refusal to go through this transformation. As the subject positions of heritage discourse, ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European are influenced by heritage dissonance. The EHL as heritage discourse is not a static entity but rather a dynamic process ‘under construction’. Hence, ‘being’ European supposedly means taking part in the construction process, ‘becoming’ indicates a (temporary or continuous) outsider/observer position, and ‘challenging’ means questioning the EHL, its settings and relations in the making process. This makes the dissonance of heritage discourse explicit.

Data end methods

The Great Guild Hall (GGH) in the UNESCO-listed Tallinn Old Town, which is framed in the EHL website as ‘one of the most distinguished societal buildings’, was awarded the EHL in 2014. Dating back to 1410, the building is an example of Hanseatic architecture from the Middle Ages. In the EHL Panel Report, the building’s medieval history and the idea of continuity created on that basis are used to argue the ‘European significance’ of the site. Since 1952 the Estonian History Museum has been housed in the hall, which was completely renovated in 2010–2011. The webpage and the flyer of the GGH present the exhibitions on the first floor as the core displays of the museum. The permanent exhibition, ‘Spirit of Survival’, opened in 2011 in the great guildhall and focuses on Estonian history as ‘the story of Estonians’ during the past 11,000 years. As well as temporary exhibitions in the small guildhall, there are smaller displays spread across the other rooms of the building. According to the GGH website, the exhibition tells stories about Estonia’s history and helps to understand the extraordinariness of the people who have lived in the country.²⁰ Artefacts as well as interpretative texts in Estonian and English are used. The texts combine facts and figures with sayings, jokes and humorous interactive multiple-choice questions (Kaasik-Krogerus 2019).

The European Solidarity Centre (ESC) is part of the Historic Gdańsk Shipyard, which was awarded the EHL in 2015. Besides the ESC, the shipyard consists of the hall in which negotiations took place (the BHP Hall), the historic Gate No. 2, and the Memorial to the Fallen Shipyard Workers of 1970 together with the Commemorative Wall in Solidarity Square. The site was awarded the EHL in recognition of the fundamental influence of the events organised by Solidarność in the 1980s on the political struggles in Central and East European (CEE) countries that culminated in the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the end of the Cold War (European Commission 2014).²¹ The current building of the centre was opened in 2014. The complex hosts several exhibitions as well as a library, an archive, a media centre and a conference hall. According to a practitioner, the ESC forms a public space, an agora, where people can get together and which facilitates societal dialogue.²² Located across seven themed rooms, the permanent exhibition starts by contextualising the conditions at the Gdańsk shipyard during the communist period in Poland and explains the spread of the Solidarność movement throughout the country. One of the rooms is dedicated to the establishment of martial law from December 1981 to July 1983. This is followed by rooms that relate to the emergence of round-table negotiations between the communist authorities and the Solidarność movement and the first partly free elections in the Soviet bloc in 1989. The narrative is finalised with the collapse of the Soviet bloc. The last room of the exhibition, ‘A Culture of Peaceful Change’, is dedicated to the contribution of the peaceful negotiations to great societal changes (Čeginskas & Kaasik-Krogerus 2020).

The empirical data consist of semi-structured interviews conducted at these two EHL sites in September 2017 as part of broader ethnographic field work. Altogether seven site practitioners and 47 visitors were interviewed at these two sites. All practitioner interviews were conducted individually, whereas the visitor interviews were conducted either individually or in pairs of visitors. To guarantee the anonymity of the practitioners, no further details about them are given. While the visitor interviews in the ESC (N = 25) were conducted with both Poles (nine) and visiting foreigners (United Kingdom (six), Germany (five), Belgium (two), Singapore (two), New Zealand (one)), all the GGH visitor interviewees (N = 22) were foreigners (United States (eight), Australia (three), Finland (three), Canada (two), the Netherlands (two), Russia (one), Spain (one), Luxembourg (one), United Kingdom (one)). The interviews were transcribed; interviews conducted in Polish were translated into English. To analyse the transcriptions, I started by selecting relevant parts of the interviews by using the keywords related to the EU, Europe and the EHL such as ‘EU’, ‘Euro(pe)(an)’, ‘EHL’, ‘label’ and ‘Brussels’. In the Estonian language practitioner interviews, the keywords ‘euro’ ‘märgis’, ‘EU’ ‘EL’ and ‘Brüssel’ were used.

Selected parts of the interviews are analysed with close reading to categorise the text on the basis of the three subject positions, ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European. In the next phase of the analysis, I focus on static and dynamic aspects in each of the three positions. This means, for example, talking about either or both Europe/the EU and its heritage as either fixed entities or ongoing processes that can be affected by various actors, including practitioners or ‘the people’. By interpreting the interview data from the perspective of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European, I explore how the practitioners and visitors take, form and negotiate these subject positions as either static or processual. I also scrutinise how ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European contribute to the EHL as AHD in the making on the EU level. Since the article focuses on the qualitative variety of the data, I do not make any quantitative calculations about the subject positions.

Since the article analyses the sites in the context of the EU’s attempts to form a common European heritage, I do not conduct a systematic comparison between these two sites on a national scale. However, I point out in the analysis section if a phenomenon was characteristic of only one of the sites. The interview data are treated as one entity without systematically comparing the answers given by the practitioners and the visitors, in order to protect the anonymity of the practitioners. In addition, I avoid the creation of asymmetric settings constituted by systematically juxtaposing the answers of ‘the professionals’ and ‘the people’. My aim is not to draw conclusions about the interviewees and their viewpoints but to analyse how the subject positions are taken in discussing the CEE, the EU and the EHL and what kind of meanings and understandings the subject positions enable. It is important to note that these positions are related neither to single actors nor to the sites. None of the interviewees can be categorised as purely ‘being’, ‘becoming’ or ‘challenging’ European; all interviews comprise a mixture of positions.

‘Being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European

‘Being’ European

During the EU accession process, ‘being’ European was used to show the communist past as a rupture in the candidate countries’ centuries-long continuity of ‘belonging to Europe’. ‘Being’ strengthened the idea of a common European heritage and the CEE countries as part of it (Lähdesmäki et al. 2019). Substantially, ‘being’ European was formed by combining supposed static ‘European’ characteristics, such as a common history and culture. A similar, static approach was communicated in the research interviews. ‘Being’ European was understood by having achieved a certain status, for example, a country’s EU membership or an EHL awarded to a site as a sign of quality to be proud of. Various characteristics were additionally used to denote ‘being’ European: strength, solidarity, freedom and independence, openness, dialogue, democracy, equality, diversity, mixture of cultures, and human rights, as well as cultural and common historical experiences, including negative and controversial aspects. Indeed, controversies such as those related to Nazism and the communist regimes were seen as something people in Europe should be able to live with. Various interviewees elaborated these characteristics in the context of heritage, values and identity without opening them up.²³ These characteristics were signified as strong pillars or common sources of contemporary Europe, while less attention was paid to their meanings, for example, what diversity means in practice or how the boundaries between equality and inequality are drawn.

Apart from taken-for-granted characteristics, ‘being’ European was constituted by a variety of actions. As one interviewee put it, ‘being’ European means being part of a big machine, a big system that works when all its parts act together. This context was considered to facilitate and legitimise a variety of actions related to borders, the economy and taking responsibility for European development, as well as tackling global challenges and advancing European identity and belonging. Hence, the idea was no longer to adjust to a fixed and a ready-made system but the possibility of participating in its formation.

More concretely, the practitioners pointed to tackling conflicts and staying united with the help of the EHL action. The action was seen as a framework within which the sites participate to form understandings of ‘Europe’ and ‘European’, and hence deepen the notion of ‘being’ European. As some of the practitioners argued, the EHL offers the participants a platform for discussing and formulating common values of the label and making common sources of European culture visible to the wider public.²⁴ Last but not least, the EHL was seen to enable actors to ‘upgrade’ national narratives to the European level.

In some interviews, the role of ‘Eastern Europe’ in Europe/the EU was explicitly elaborated. On the one hand, one visitor to the European Solidarity Centre told me in the interview that the centre’s location, Gdańsk, was not a ‘famous city’ in Europe.²⁵ There were other similar interviewees, who understood the centre as informing visitors about ‘Eastern bloc countries’ that had been ‘robbed by Russia’ and therefore ‘used to be outside of Europe’.²⁶ Consequently, now being ‘inside’ Europe, these countries were still struggling with the side effects of past developments, including economic hardships, such as their industry ‘dying on its feet in this part of the world’.²⁷ On the other hand, the impact of Solidarność was seen to transcend Polish borders: it was recognised ‘all over the world’ as an example of ‘universal history for humanity’, hence not just ‘being’ European but being one of the central actors on the European and world scales.²⁸ According to one practitioner, European integration was much more than just the Treaty of Rome and Western European consolidation after World War II; therefore it was important to make visible the ‘European significance’ of the developments in the CEE countries. The Historic Gdańsk Shipyard, in particular, was characterised by practitioners as a site that had contributed to European integration and the development of the EU by representing the same values that the EU tries to export, such as freedom and peace.²⁹ In this framework, the dimensions and meanings of ‘being’ European are opened up for scrutiny: ‘being’ is no more a state of order but a dynamic and controversial process.

Museums and other similar (memory) institutions were seen to have a key role in explaining and making visible the process of ‘being’ European by remembering and elaborating past ‘European’ experiences as well as showing their contemporary relevance. To exemplify that, both visitors and practitioners emphasised the need to pass on knowledge related to past events. This was pointed out especially in relation to ‘foreigners’ (foreign visitors)—who might not have any background knowledge about the displayed developments—as well as children and young people who did not have first-hand experience from ‘those times’ (the Soviet period). As some interviewees claimed, the past experience of getting help from different parts of Europe when needed could be used to highlight the importance of helping those who need help nowadays.³⁰ However, the significance of how knowledge is passed on also has to be emphasised: since the permanent exhibitions of both sites focused first and foremost on the national scale (‘Estonia’ and ‘Poland’), several visitors perceived the sites to deal with the Polish/Estonian past and therefore to be of particular importance to Poles and Estonians respectively.³¹

‘Being’ European was seen as part of the everyday. The mobility of Polish and Estonian people in the EU was mentioned as one example of ‘being’ European on a daily basis. In some cases, mundane ‘being’ was seen to include negative phenomena. As one practitioner told me, violence in public places was a problem on both national and European scales. This statement does not ‘upgrade’ local or national scales to a European scale but takes all these as complementary with no presumed ‘European quality’ to be achieved. Indeed, some interviewees also emphasised that it was important to preserve local and national variety by preventing their absorption into the European whole.³²

‘Becoming’ European

‘Becoming’ European manifested itself in the interviews in two ways. First, ‘becoming’ European was related to ‘us’ or some other people or countries. ‘Becoming’ related to ‘us’ focused largely on the EHL and its role in forming a common European scale. The idea of others ‘becoming’ European communicated pride in one’s own ‘Europeanness’ and an implicit assumption that ‘Europeanness’ is worth spreading. Although not reflecting a status quo situation, this assumption is nevertheless based on a taken-for-granted logic about the value and superiority of ‘Europe’. This valuation forms a solid basis for ‘becoming’ European as a process that does not question its aims and foundations.

The positions accorded ‘Estonia’ and ‘Poland’ in the interviews were no longer constituted by a need to ‘become’ European. Instead they were positioned as ‘being’ European and as helping not-yet-European actors. As one interviewee argued, some countries still ‘lagged behind’ in terms of non-existing democracy.³³ To improve the situation, it was proposed by the interviewee that the countries could learn from the past experiences of the countries exhibited at the EHL sites.³⁴ On the other hand, the interviewees talked about non-European people inside EU countries.³⁵ As some practitioners argued, it was crucial that people from other cultures would also be included in Europe. In this process, cultural heritage was seen as a good tool for integration that could be used to make ‘European culture a part of their culture’ and ‘introduce them to Europe instead of leaving them aside’.³⁶ As another part of this process, the interviewees emphasised the importance of explaining the situation to the local actors, such as movements and people who were wary of refugees in particular and/or immigration in general.³⁷

In this context, specific features of the CEE countries were pointed out by some practitioners. Although there are far more people seeking refuge in the so-called Western members of the EU compared with the CEE countries, the interviewees anticipated that the situation was going to change. Therefore, some practitioners foresaw that increasing immigration to the CEE countries would contribute to their ‘becoming’ European. To be able to cope with these future developments and related controversies, some of them proposed that their countries should start learning best practices for handling the forthcoming challenges.³⁸ By pointing out the relative poverty as well as the social and economic problems in the ‘East’, a distinction between ‘Eastern Europe’ and ‘Europe’ (supposedly Western Europe) was made by some visitors.³⁹ Instead of voicing the ‘catching up’ rhetoric of ‘becoming’, they simply depicted the situation as the current state of order. This supports the idea of the liminality of the CEE countries as simultaneously being EU members (‘European’) and ‘lagging behind’, but also contributes to excluding the more conservative and often less affluent citizens of the CEE countries from supposedly liberal ‘Europeans’ (see also Zarycki 2011, p. 104).

Second, humour and irony were used by some interviewees in both sites to communicate ‘becoming’ European.⁴⁰ In general, irony is seen to add strength to arguments (Pettersson et al. 2016, p. 633). It also helps an individual regain dispossessed agency as an observer who reflects on things, as discussed in Kaasik-Krogerus (2019). With the help of humour, these interviewees brought ‘Europe’ ‘down to earth’. By carnivalising (Bakhtin 1984) the core idea of ‘becoming’ European, it was opened up to further critical scrutiny and interpretations. Humour and irony were especially characteristic of the GGH interviewees. Both the practitioners and some of the visitors who were relatively well informed about developments in Estonia made references to the ‘iconic’ slogans from the time of EU accession when ‘becoming’ European was a very topical part of public discussion. These interviewees referred to slogans such as ‘going to Europe’ while talking about Europe and/or the EU. For example, one visitor from the United States commented on the EHL slogan ‘Europe starts here’ in the context of ‘heading to the West’, as a typical notion from the EU accession process, with an imitation of a certain pathos in her voice.

While these ‘going to Europe’ slogans were used during the EU accession process to mediate its symbolic embedded meanings, in the site interviews ‘snapshots’ of these past processes were taken. As such, the claims no longer referred to an ongoing process but past (and maybe partly lost) endeavours. Irony and humour helped the interviewees make fun of the eagerness and desire to ‘become’ European during the EU accession process.⁴¹ It also enabled them to show a cleavage between (past) ideals and the current reality that was not always as bright as had been predicted in the rhetoric of the accession process. The current situation was addressed in the GGH interviews by claims such as, ‘we are already one with Europe (ha ha)’ or, ‘of course, it is very important for Estonians to belong to Europe’, which nicely exemplify a Bakhtinian carnivalistic attitude towards idealistic past aspirations (Bakhtin 1984).⁴²

‘Challenging’ European

Similar to the situation during the EU accession process, the position of ‘challenging’ European enabled the interviewees to criticise the EU as well as to express concerns about others’ criticality towards the EU. Interviewees at the Solidarity Centre were worried about the current government of Poland and its inward-looking politics, which turns Poland towards national direction.⁴³ Some practitioners were worried about criticism of the EU and Europe among the ‘people’ or ‘citizens’.⁴⁴ One interviewee used the term ‘non-Europeans’ to refer to people who focused on the uniqueness of the nation instead of identifying with Europe and the European context.⁴⁵ Some interviewees pointed out that criticism by this kind of ‘non-European’ actor was partly targeted at the European Solidarity Centre for being too pro-European. As one practitioner put it, if ‘national’ was prioritised over ‘European’ in different countries, ‘Maybe one day the people would throw away the European label and start to talk only about a national label’.⁴⁶ This claim foresees a situation where the European and national scales are no longer complementary but opposed to each other.

In addition to pointing out problems, solutions were proposed by pro-European interviewees. Interestingly, one potential solution was the Other, who would unite ‘us’. As one of the interviewees claimed, currently there was not a sufficiently strong and homogenous enough Other to form a common European identity.⁴⁷ Another solution offered was to educate citizens—especially young people—to help them ‘find a European identity’, understand that ‘our national or local heritage is a real part of European culture’ and realise that there is no need to be afraid of differences between different groups of people.⁴⁸ Attempts to reduce critical voices against Europe and the EU simultaneously advanced understanding of ‘the people’ as not European. Some interviewees understood the history, culture and environment around them as ‘European’, whereas some ‘people’ were seen as problematic.⁴⁹ Despite open borders and the possibility of travelling and seeing the world, some (young) people were seen by one interviewee as narrow-minded in their attitudes, exactly the sort of people who needed to catch up with the ‘European’ environment.⁵⁰

In addition to focusing on criticism of the EU, ‘challenging’ European was related in the interviews to the inflexible, slow and distant structures of the EU that, as such, were not useful for protecting a European cultural heritage. The practitioners pointed out a couple of problematic spheres, one being money and financing. Since the EHL does not come with financial support attached, several practitioners emphasised a lack of adequate financial resources.⁵¹

The great thematic variety among the awarded EHL sites was seen to weaken the action substantially. As examples of this vagueness, the broad temporal focus of the sites and the weak connections of some sites to contemporary issues faced by the EU were mentioned by some practitioners. Some interviewees claimed that especially from a citizen’s perspective, the slogans of the action—‘Europe starts here’ and ‘Europe starts with you’—did not ‘talk to’ people and therefore failed to communicate and elaborate the main idea of the EHL.⁵² Furthermore, as one of the interviewees summed up, ‘Europe starts here’ focuses first and foremost on the individual quality of the sites instead of showing how they were all connected.⁵³

Some interviewees also juxtaposed the political and cultural dimensions of Europe. On one hand, as one interviewee pointed out, the sites that were significant and useful from the political perspective were not necessarily exceptional as cultural heritage and therefore had little apparent appeal in terms of contributing to European identity narratives and advancing a sense of belonging to the EU.⁵⁴ On the other hand, the selection principles of the political sites were discussed in the interviews. As one interviewee put it, developments in CEE countries in the past decades were as important milestones of European integration as the treaties and developments of the post-World War II period.⁵⁵ I understood this to refer to the sites related to the ‘Founding Fathers’ of the EU, namely, de Gasperi House in Italy and Robert Schuman’s house in France. In sum, despite the EHL’s endeavours to contribute to a common sense of belonging, some interviewees were concerned that, as a rather vague action, it could unintentionally have the opposite effect.⁵⁶

Discussion and conclusions

The empirical analysis shows the practitioners and visitors engage with contradictory subject positions and relate the sites as well as ‘Estonia’ and ‘Poland’ more generally to these positions. The positions of ‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European are easily applicable to the interview data and therefore clearly have broader relevance than simply the EU accession process. East–West power relations as a constitutive aspect of the positions were bound up in the interviews with issues such as cultural and political dynamics and relations between (often critical) citizens and (often pro-European) elites. In what follows, I discuss the generally similar results of both sites in the context of European heritage discourse and leave aside the Estonian and Polish national contexts and the pro- or anti-EU attitudes of state authorities.

By engaging with and performing in these three subject positions in the interviews, the interviewees contribute both implicitly and explicitly to the EHL as AHD in the making. Explicit contribution refers to conscious attempts to advance the EHL and form a European heritage. As the data show, these attempts include debates over both the meanings related to ‘European heritage’ and the key concepts of the EHL (‘being’ European). Simultaneously explicit contribution includes criticism of the weaknesses and problems of the action (‘challenging’ European) and the carnivalisation of ‘true Europeanness’ (‘becoming’ European). Empirical analysis shows that the different subject positions—‘being’, ‘becoming’ and ‘challenging’ European—are interrelated. ‘Being’ European enables actors to have a substantial discussion about how to form a European heritage; the site exhibitions can be used to reflect the same questions. ‘Challenging’ European relates to the shortcomings of the EU’s heritage policies, and especially the EHL action, which might unintentionally weaken the sense of agency in this ‘European’ process and, as a result, could harm the whole process. ‘Becoming’ European offers a good example of ‘taking agency back’ with the help of humour and irony. However, instead of ‘doing’ European heritage together, this agency is targeted towards questioning top-down ‘doing’ as a process that actors from scales other than the EU scale find difficult or unnecessary to identify with.

Implicit contribution refers to understandings and characteristics that are, sometimes indirectly, related to and unproblematically used in the context of European heritage discourse. Hence, they form a context for the explicit contribution above. Empirical analysis shows that the context is formed from threefold perspectives. First is the interplay between ‘something old and something new’. The EHL as the most recent heritage action enables actors to debate substantial questions, meanings and related controversies in the framework of European heritage. In this process heritage is ‘done’ by opening it up to various interpretations. However, as the data showed, in parallel to this process, heritage is dealt with as an entity based on well-established characteristics whose meanings are not problematised. Consequently, the implicit contribution of ‘being’ European to the EHL is based on accepting and being accepted as part of a ready-made European ‘heritage package’.

Second, making a distinction between the East (or non-Europeans) and the West, and assuming that the East lags behind in one way or the other, forms a generally fixed context when dealing with problematic issues. In visitor interviews, the economic differences between the East and West of the EU were pointed out. This context provided a frame for interpreting other problematic issues, such as expressing concern and anxiety about populist and/or radical sentiments in Eastern Europe. What went unremarked by interviewees is that the context itself is problematic, since it enables us to map countries with rather different policies and practices as part of the same ‘East’ and simultaneously assume that they are different from ‘the West’.

The third context was formed by framing ‘the people’ as a challenge/the ones who challenge Europe. During Estonia’s EU accession process ‘citizens’ constituted a ‘worry’ for the authorities, since, according to public opinion polls at the time, support for EU membership was continuously low. As extensive media analysis from that time period shows, one of the key questions in the public discussion over the EU was how to turn people ‘pro-European’ (Kaasik-Krogerus 2016). Namely, knowledge, realism and rationality were called for in public discussion to solve the situation. The ideal citizen was characterised as properly informed, rational and sufficiently realistic to understand the necessity of joining the EU and to behave accordingly (Kaasik-Krogerus 2016). Although the accession referendums were not ‘ruined’ by a ‘no’ outcome in any of the candidate countries, EU-minded politicians’ dissatisfaction with not enough of either or both ‘European’ and ‘open-minded’ citizens remains firmly in the background of CEE–EU relations and erupts every so often, for instance in critical comments.

Especially in the current formative stage of the EHL it matters how much the dynamic processes of forming a heritage are affected by generally fixed contexts and related understandings. Different scholars have written about the transformative potential of heritage that contributes to debates over controversies and therefore facilitates societal changes (Harrison 2013; Turunen 2019). One criticism concerning AHD is its homogenising attempt: although it promotes common views and consensus, the ideas and concepts of heritage are not problematised (Lähdesmäki 2019). Taking the EHL as AHD in the making, its potential lies in opening contexts of CEE–EU relations and making rigid ambiguities visible instead of adjusting to the existing contextual framework. It makes a difference if and how much the European heritage is constituted by substantial and critical debate vis-à-vis taken-for-granted ‘truths’ that are combined into one entity. At its best, the EHL can contribute to making these ‘background’ issues of CEE–EU relations explicit and open to debate by raising them from taken-for-granted status quo positions into the sphere of action. It also makes a difference who is expected to take responsibility over the problems described above: obviously, it is more fruitful to discuss what the EU’s cultural policy, and more specifically the actors related to the EHL, could do to sharpen and clarify the action instead of expecting citizens to be more ‘open-minded’ and ‘European’.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the European Research Council (ERC) under the EU’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under Grant 636177 (EUROHERIT) and by the Academy of Finland Grant 330620 EU Heritage Diplomacy and the Dynamics of Inter-Heritage Dialogue. The research was conducted at the University of Jyväskylä.

Notes on contributors

Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus

Sigrid Kaasik-Krogerus, Department of Finnish, Finno-Ugrian and Scandinavian Studies, P.O. Box 24, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland. Email: [email protected]

Notes

1 In public discussion the EU is widely communicated as a ‘materialisation’ or a concrete phenomenon of Europe.

2 ‘European Heritage Label’, European Commission, available at: https://ec.europa.eu/programmes/creative-europe/actions/heritage-label_en, accessed 9 October 2020.

3 See also Kaasik-Krogerus (2016, p. 16; 2020).

4 See also Welz (2012, p. 367).

5 The fieldwork was conducted by the researchers of the project ‘EUROHERIT: Legitimation of European Cultural Heritage and the Dynamics of Identity Politics in the EU’, from August 2017 until February 2018, at 11 EHL sites located in ten EU countries. As well as Estonia and Poland, fieldwork was conducted at sites in Germany, France, Austria, the Netherlands, Belgium, Italy, Hungary and Portugal.

6 See, for example, Feldman (2001), Szczerbiak (2001, p. 109), Góra and Mach (2017, p. 56).

7 See also Velikonja (2011, pp. 25–6), Kaasik-Krogerus (2019).

8 See also Kuus (2002b, p. 307), Kaasik-Krogerus (2016, p. 86).

9 See also Góra and Mach (2017, p. 57).

10 See also Wolff (1994, p. 7), Moisio (2002, pp. 98–9), Velikonja (2011, pp. 27–8).

11 See also Kaasik-Krogerus (2016, pp. 44–5).

12 See also Kuus (2002a, p. 97).

13 See also Stefanova (2018, pp. 88–9).

14 See, for example, Kaasik-Krogerus (2016), Ballinger (2017, pp. 54–5); see also Todorova (2009, pp. 2–61).

15 See also Jones and Subotić (2011, p. 554), Kaasik-Krogerus (2019).

16 For example, Smith (2006), Harrison (2013), Kisić (2017).

17 See also Waterton and Smith (2009).

18 See also Zarycki (2011, p. 94).

19 For example, Moskwa and Bartyzel (2016).

20 Great Guild Hall, Permanent Exhibitions, available at: https://www.ajaloomuuseum.ee/exhibitions/permanent-exhibitions/opituba-asja-armastajad-vanad-manguasjad, accessed 2 February 2021.

21 See also Čeginskas and Kaasik-Krogerus (2020).

22 Interview with Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

23 For example, interviews with: Visitor 8, ESC, 26 September 2017; Visitor 20, ESC, 27 September 2017; Visitor 22, ESC, 27 September 2017.

24 Interviews with: Practitioner 1, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 2, GGH, 7 September 2017.

25 Interview with Visitor 7, ESC, 26 September 2017.

26 Interviews with: Visitor 5, ESC, 26 September 2017; Visitor 23, ESC, 27 September 2017; Visitor 18, ESC, 27 September 2017.

27 Interview with Visitor 6, ESC, 26 September 2017.

28 Interviews with: Visitor 8, ESC, 26 September 2017; Visitor 9, ESC, 26 September 2017.

29 Interviews with: Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017; see also Góra and Mach (2017, pp. 76–7).

30 For example, interviews with: Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 3, ESC, 26 September 2017.

31 Interviews with: Visitor 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Visitor 11, ESC, 26 September 2017; Visitor 12, ESC, 27 September 2017; Visitor 13, ESC, 27 September 2017; Visitor 3, GGH, 6 September 2017; Visitor 4, GGH, 6 September 2017; Visitor 5, GGH, 6 September 2017.

32 For example, interviews with: Practitioner 1, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 3, GGH, 7 September 2017.

33 Interview with Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017.

34 Interview with Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; see also Zarycki (2018), Lyubashenko (2018, pp. 75–6).

35 Interview with Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017.

36 Interviews with: Practitioner 1, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 2, GGH, 7 September 2017.

37 Interviews with: Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 2, GGH, 7 September 2017.

38 For example, interviews with: Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 1, GGH, 7 September 2017.

39 Interviews with: Visitor 5, ESC, 26 September 2017; Visitor 18, ESC, 27 September 2017; Visitor 20, ESC, 27 September 2017.

40 For example, interviews with: Visitor 1, GGH, 6 September 2017; Practitioner 1, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 2, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

41 See also Velikonja (2011, pp. 18–9).

42 Interviews with: Practitioner 1, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 2, GGH, 7 September 2017.

43 For example, interviews with: Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

44 Interviews with: Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

45 Interview with Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

46 Interview with Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017.

47 Interview with Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

48 Interviews with: Practitioner 1, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017; Practitioner 3, ESC, 26 September 2017.

49 Interviews with: Practitioner 2, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 3, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

50 Interview with Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

51 Interviews with: Practitioner 1, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 2, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 3, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 2, ESC, 26 September 2017.

52 Interviews with: Practitioner 1, GGH, 7 September 2017; Practitioner 1, ESC, 26 September 2017.

53 Interview with Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

54 Interview with Practitioner 3, GGH, 7 September 2017.

55 Interview with Practitioner 4, ESC, 27 September 2017.

56 For example, interview with Practitioner 1, ESC, 26 September 2017.

Appendix

Interviews in the Great Guild Hall (GGH), Tallinn, Estonia:

Practitioner interview 1, 7 September 2017.

Practitioner interview 2, 7 September 2017.

Practitioner interview 3, 7 September 2017.

Visitor interview 1, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 2, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 3, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 4, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 5, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 6, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 7, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 8, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 9, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 10, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 11, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 12, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 13, 6 September 2017.

Visitor interview 14, 7 September 2017.

Visitor interview 15, 7 September 2017.

Visitor interview 16, 7 September 2017.

Visitor interview 17, 7 September 2017.

Visitor interview 18, 7 September 2017.

Visitor interview 19, 7 September 2017.

Visitor interview 20, 8 September 2017.

Visitor interview 21, 8 September 2017.

Visitor interview 22, 8 September 2017.

Interviews in the European Solidarity Centre (ESC), Gdańsk, Poland:

Practitioner interview 1, 26 September 2017.

Practitioner interview 2, 26 September 2017.

Practitioner interview 3, 26 September 2017.

Practitioner interview 4, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 1, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 2, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 3, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 4, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 5, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 6, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 7, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 8, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 9, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 10, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 11, 26 September 2017.

Visitor interview 12, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 13, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 14, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 15, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 16, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 17, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 18, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 19, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 20, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 21, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 22, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 23, 27 September 2017.

Visitor interview 24, 28 September 2017.