MYTH, RHETORIC AND HUMAN TRAGEDY IN LITHUANIAN MUSEUMS AND SITES OF MEMORY

A myth can be considered an accepted manifestation of 'truth' that is legitimated in popular culture through for example films, books, television, tourism and visitor encounters with museums and sites of memory. A 'myth' in this context is therefore a body of knowledge which constructs, through discourse, a specific object whilst placing limits on other ways in which that object might be constituted (Hall, 1997). This paper explores the rhetorical representation or 'myth' of 20th century human tragedy in Lithuanian ethnocentric museums and sites of memory using a Foucauldian perspective. The paper reflects over Foucault's Archaeology of Knowledge as a philosophical lens through which to view narrative structures of knowledge about human tragedy in these sites. A discursive formation is identified and two broad organising discourses are articulated as an authorised 'Lithuanian national victimhood' and a problematic, unauthorised discourse of Jewish 'ethnic tragedy'. These 'statements' can be considered to represent a 'body of knowledge' in Lithuanian museums, bound by a set of rules or 'statements'.