Do Croatian Museums Still Live in Socialism

Do Croatian Museums Still Live in Socialism?

Yes

Introduction

Interference of the Party and the state in literally all pores of social life and all activities is characteristic of socialist totalitarianism. Two other concepts are associated with socialism: bueraucratism and voluntarism. So, if the state and politics are still meddling excessively into museum business, if there is bueraucratism and voluntarism in that respect, then we haven't moved much further from socialism. The ideological phrasinghas of course been changed, but we are interested in the core of it.

In this text the word state will often be related with the word politics. That's because in Croatia everything is politics, even all state affairs. There have been serious analyses which establish a general politicization of Croatian society. In this country the state is simply an instrument of politics, I would dare say daily politics, and is seen as such by almost all political parties. Hardly anything is left to civil society.

When I say state I mean all the levels of state from the Republic to local government.

My thesis is as follows: Croatian museums still function as if they exist in socialist times.

Argument I.

Full state (political) control over museums' management boards.

By the Law on Museums, museums in Croatia can bepublic institutions and institutions. What's the difference? Museums founded by the Republic of Croatia, counties, the City of Zagreb, towns and municipalities(that is, what we call the state) are public institutions (we may also call them state institutions),while those founded by a domesticcorporation or individual(Act 16) are institutions.

No foreigners may set up museums in Croatia, so that we would not, God forbid, end up with a Guggenheim of some sort, as it happened to the Basques. Learning from their experience, cunning as we are, we put a stop to it before it even happened. It is true enough that foreigners in Croatia can buy the state telephone company, INA – our oil company, but setting up foreign museums–no way. If being xenophobic is a sign of totalitarianism, then at least when this law is concerned we still live in totalitarianism.

Let's now go back to institutions.Out of app. 120 museums in Croatia almost all of them are public institutions, founded and owned by the state. There are only two exceptions to this. Managing museums as public institutions is regulated by the Law on Management in Public Institutions in Culture.

It says thatPublic institutions in culture are regulated by management councils; Management councils for public institutions founded or owned by the Republic of Croatia, consist of seven members four of whom are appointed by the Minister of Culture, and three of them by the professionals of that institution; Management councils for public institutions founded or owned by the counties, the City of Zagreb, towns or municipalities, consist of three or five members, most of whom are appointed by the representative bodies of the founder or owner … (Act 1).

In socialism everything was public property, and so were museums. During the 90's everything was turned into state property, and then the state divided its propertyat will. It kept some museums for itself (the Republic), and the rest were distributed among counties, towns and municipalities. No matter which level we consider, the supremacy of the state (politics) has been secured. This is the way the state protects its interests from the never-content, insatiable and greedy curators. On the level of the Republic most management board members are appointed by the minister at his own will. The minister is a politician in the ruling party or one of the coalition parties. Through his people in management boards he directly governs the museums founded by the Republic. Lower levels are less trustworthy. Here most management board members are not appointed directly by the head of the culture department,but are elected by an assembly. This assembly consists of politicians from different parties, so the party having more representatives dictates the structure of the management board. A more direct political influence can hardly be imagined. And museum management boards have great power in museums. They make plans for the work and development of a museum, supervise their realization, decide on the financial plan and the annual statement, issue the statute, suggest changes in the organization of museum work etc.

The wish of the state as the owner of the museums to have insight and control over them is understandable and legitimate, but as understandable as this is the wish of the museum people not to be imposed with an incompetent management. This is not a problem that cannot be solved. The state (minister, assemblies) could choose most of the management board members from a list of people set up and given to them by museum expertsor the other way around the experts could choose from a list set up and given to them by the owner – the state. This would at the same time preserve the interest and influence of both state and the experts, and the responsibility for museum work would be shared. Yes, but then the control would not be full, and the enforcing of political willwould be made difficult.

Argument II.

Full state (political) control over museum directors.

The Law on Management in Public Institutions in Culture says: Directors of public institutions in culture founded or owned by the Republic of Croatia, are appointed and absolved by the Minister of Culture…; Directors of public institutions in culture founded or owned by the counties, the City of Zagreb, towns or municipalities, are appointed and absolved by the founder's or owner's representative bodies on the motion by the management boards of the institutions and after consulting the expert… personnel of the institutions in question. Expert opinion on the director, as you might already expect, does not oblige anyone, neither the management board, nor the minister or the assemblies. There have been cases when a person was appointed director although all the museum experts signed against it (Zagreb Museum of Contemporary Artseveral years ago or quite recentlySisakCityMuseum). Expert opinion serves only as decoration.

When appointing a director of a public institution in culture it is necessary to have the opinion of the cultural council in charge(Act 5).These are of course councils in which most members are appointed by the minister or at lower levels it is done by local authorities. If you want to be a member of such a council you would never in your right mind go opposing the one who appointed you–because the same person can absolve you of that duty without further explanation. Therefore the control is complete.

What do directors do? The director organizes and conducts all of the museum business, suggests the work and development program,… is responsible for the museum's expert work…(Law on Museums,Act 26) So he is the big shot. He's the know-all, he's the greatest expert and manager. But this ideal exists only in the writing of the Law.In reality all these talents are assessed by - who else but – the owner, that is, the state, the same entity that appointed this man museum director in the first place. The objectivity of such assessment is ridiculous even to discuss. Problems arise only after a change of government (after an election). Then many directors all of a sudden stop being successful so they are replaced. For this reason directors in Croatia do not depend on the success of their museum but on the political situation in the country. They are employees of the state (politics), because it is the one that appoints and absolves them. People always serve the one they depend on. This is why in many museums there is tension between experts and the director. Objectively they depend on two completely different worlds. Every party, when it gains power in any area, pushes in someone theirs, and the family connections should not be forgotten either, so in the process of filling in the director personnel crossword (a socialist term well-known to all countries in transition) we are bound to meet our very familiar socialist acquaintance – negative selection. Positions are taken by people who are not up to the job they need to get done. This leads to voluntarism, that is,incompetent management based on good will and best intentions.

Argument III.

With extensive prescribing of museum work by different laws and regulations – bureaucratization of work – one falls into the trap of voluntarism.

By citing laws we have already partly pointed to the bureaucrat quality of regulations. For instance: Why do we need regulations on expert councils in museums if they do not have any authority over anything whatsoever? Who needs official applying for directors’ jobs when the ones who will really decide on them are the minister or the assembly? But this is just a small part of thebureaucrat instrumentarium.

Law on Museums orders the making of 6 rulebooks to regulate museum work. Fear not, I will not specify them all, but I can't help but say a few words about some of them, because they make good examples of both bueraucratism and voluntarism.

Museums…are to join into a system of museums of the Republic of Croatiain order to implement a unique professional approach to museum work. The way and the standards of this joining into a system of museums of the Republic of Croatia is regulated by the Minster of Culture at the proposal of the Croatian Museum Council(Law on Museums, Act 6). The all-presence and all-powerfulness of the minister has already been noted. The question arises: why must all the museums be involved in this system of museums? This system, popularly called the museum network, hasin its mind central and subcentral museumswhich help and controltheir museums, up to the right of inspection and giving fines.In the guise of a system a parastate apparatus is being introduced. Why would any museum allow to be pushed around by another, state-chosen museum? Who would be crazy enough to set up a private museum under these terms? Helping museums is just an excuse. It can be organized at a voluntary level as it is done in Britain or Bavaria, which does not require any compulsory network. Central museumsmust hand in reports on theirmuseums to the Ministry of Culture. Total control over museums– that's the point of this network. In the process, in a typically bureaucrat way, a museum hierarchy is being introduced, and the relations between museums are formalized. Part of the plan is even to establish special departmentsat central museumsand to employ new experts to work in the network. So, the networkwill cost money. Great effort for nothingis typical of socialist management,and this is exactly what the establishing of a complicated network produces.

Instead of this network we could have created services from which the museums, especially the smaller ones,could gain practical benefitor we could have worked a bit on standards and guidelines for the museum work, for we don't have a single one (I repeat: not a single one). And they are the tools of the profession.

The rulebook on the content and the way of keeping documentation on museum material, orders keeping no less than 15 kinds of documentation booksfor each museum. Among other things regulated here is the way of keeping the museum inventory books. It has 26 mandatory columns. Demanding such a number of data for each exhibit is surprising if we take into consideration that up to this moment only 10% (pessimistestimate)or 40% at the most (optimist estimate),of all museum exhibits have been accessed. Many museums, among which there are some very important and old ones with extremely significant collections, haven't yet done their accession worknot even by the old system which demanded much less information. How can a regulation be made if it is inconsistent with reality? Filling in all of the 26 columns in the inventory will definitely not speed up the work. The logical thing to do would be to simplify the accessionand in this way try to get back in step. Later when this is accomplished the documentation demands could gradually beextended. At the same time it says nowhere that each exhibit should be photographed, though this would be useful because this(or some other visual medium) is extremely important inthe identification of lost or stolen exhibits.

In these rulebooks we can also find some elementary-school nonsense. The Rulebook on the conditions and ways of insight into museum material and documentation (a cute bureaucrat name) where it describes the conditions required for the rooms in which borrowed exhibits will be kept, it says that one should be careful about moisture and warmth. We are of course interested in the temperature and relative air humidity, notmoisture and warmth. The level of expertise in the rulebooks is indeed low.

How could something like this have happened?The rulebooks were not made based on the analyses of the present situation, nor were the results attempted to be verified in practice before introducing these rules. They are in the old socialist fashion actually wishful planning. They arecommission-envisagedperfections. What is prescribed is not the minimum but the optimum. Typical voluntarism–evil paved with good intentions.

Argument IV.

In Croatia there is only one church museum and one private museum registered. Why? Because the regulations make it difficult or even impossible to set up a museum outside state control.

The sole fact of 2 (in letters: two) non-state museumsis proof enough that museum work is standing in the previous system with both legs.

Argument V.

State (Republic, county, town or municipality)is actually the only source of money for museums. All museum marketing activities, tickets incomeand all other independent profit is a mere trifle and museums do not thrive on it. In Croatia there are no foundations or similar funds which would finance the existing museums, no support to the founding of new ones, no loans, no financial services, no profit (except for a few honorable exceptions) –there is nothing besides the state.

Museums justify the funds received from the state by making reports. And reports are bureaucrat heaven. Everything can be accounted for in a report. This is a relatively comfortable positionin which what matters are not real results but what the report looks like. This is why some museums simply do not want to worry about making money – they simply take care of the report. They regularly get small but steady financesand nobody is asking too many questions. Who cares about visitors, tourists, money, profit.In the Report on the Work of Zagreb Museumsfor the year 2001 one museum proudly reported of its exhibition and stressed that it had 150 visitors. Nobody wondered who the exhibition was actually for. For the report, of course. Nobody bothered to compare the money invested and the result accomplished. I even know of a museum which staged no less thana fakepermanent display, because it got money for it (from the state – of course). There was an opening ceremony, speeches were heldand then there was acocktail party for all the guests. And a week after that this permanentexhibitionwas closed, the exhibits put awayand no harm done. The report saidthe opening of a new display. Everybody pleased. If this reminds you of Potemkin's villages the feeling is correct. These are characteristic of all socialist countries.

Exceptions

The status of the museum profession and experts has changed since the socialist times – it grew worse. In Yugoslavia we used to have workers' self-management. It was devised in the way that to become a director one had to be elected by the Workers' AssemblyorWorkers' Council. The flaw in this system for museums was that in this case the choice of director was made by everyone, including the cleaners. In worker's organizations (and museums were also worker’s organizations) there were party cells at workwhich always found ways to conduct party will in the end. Self-managementwas not idyllic and often turned into a farce, but still the word of experts at experts’ councilsandat workers' council meetingswas respected to a certain point at least–the closer to the dissolution of Yugoslavia, the more.Now we've lost even these scrapes. The expert council functions solely as decorational advisory of the director. The director can patronizingly take the advice or reject it with contempt. If he rejects it he does not need to explain his reasons to anyone ever. This is a truly humiliating position for an expert. This is why today the basic reaction of the common Croatian curator is - apathy.

I almost forgot. There has been another change. Small county museums, which make the museum majority, used to have, all of them I believe, collections ofNational Liberation Strugglefrom the Second World War. These are not fashionable any more. Now they have collections from the Croatian War of Independence in the 90'sinstead.

Conclusion

Behind all this stands one big(or maybe little, because this is about museums) lie. The state (politics) does not care about common welfare, nor about museums, but only about their own power. First it governed protecting the great socialist ideas, and then great nationalist ideas, from the museum profession, and today it protects nothing but bare power. Chaos, incompetence, bueraucratism, voluntarism, distrust, xenophobia –they makethe state’s natural environment it then creates in museums.There is little resistance–curators are mostly afraidfor their jobs and not complaining.