Social Changes and Their Impact on The

SOCIAL CHANGES AND THEIR IMPACT ON THE

ROMANIAN MUSEUMS (1990 – 2003)

Dr. Virgil Ştefan NIŢULESCU

1. Overview

The fall of the communist regime, in 1989, has found the Romanian museums, as the entire society, in a profound crisis. The people were discouraged and impoverished. So were the museums and their curators. The individuals were depersonalised; seemingly, the museums: without brightness, dully and lifeless.

The first year, after the change, brought a few things to Romanians: freedom and diversity. They were reflected, also in museums. As in many other former communist countries, these changes brought, also, a sense of anomy and a lot of despair, intermingled with hope.

For the Romanian society, the very first three years of liberty (1990 – 1992) were characterised with a deep division: a people that was united only in hate against the dictatorship, proved itself unprepared to a spirit of tolerance. Almost anyone who had a different opinion was considered an enemy. The communist indoctrination proved to be more profound that it looked like. A group of people wanted to start a debate about responsibilities during the years of communism. Another group, with a large majority, wanted only to forget and to bury the past. The social dialogue was almost inexistent. Inside the museums was the same atmosphere – and this has affected a lot the museum activities.

Slowly, the society started to learn about differences. Some of its members got rich, others became poorer. Anyway, the economy was heavily subsidised by the state and the very first signs of reform were stopped during the following two years (1993 – 1994), for the sake of a macro stabilisation. The highest most important objective was calming down the inflation, that reached it’s highest level in 1993: 296%! Privatisation and reform were re-started only in 1995 and very shy! A hesitant management of the economy brought the country into it´s deepest crisis in 1998, when unemployed reached, at the end of the year, 11.9%. However, the next year was the very first one of recovery, in spite of an almost “universal” expectation for a general bankruptcy of the country. Since then, the country is slowly advancing, the gross domestic product is steadily growing, the unemployment is stagnating at less than 8.5% and inflation is reaching, in 2003, 14% - the lowest level in the last 14 years. These fluctuations did not coincide exactly with the changes in government. However, Romania had social-democrat governments ever since 1989, with a break of four years (1997 – 2000), when it was lead by a Centre coalition.

In the last 14 years the Romanian population decreased with about 1.4 million persons, the proportion of retired people grew and the number of married couples with children became smaller.

During all these years, Romania had made important efforts in order to be accepted in the Council of Europe (it happened in 1993) and in the European Union (it will happen in 2007).

The Romanian museums had followed this scheme, more or less accurately.

2. Legislation

In February 1990, the Law for the Protection of the National Cultural Heritage was abrogated, mainly, because of the abuses that were done in the last 15 years, in the name of this law: cultural heritage objects were lifted from personal houses and stored in museums, in the name of the need for a proper conservation.

Several governmental ordinances were issued, starting with 1992, trying to fill this gap. All these documents were trying to establish a national system for protection of the whole range of cultural goods.

Right now, the legislation consists of a complicated system of laws, ordinances and governmental decisions.

First of all, we should mention the Law for the Protection of the Moveable National Cultural Heritage (182/2000), which has amended by a governmental ordinance early, this year. The clear system of classifying the cultural goods in the legal category called the national cultural heritage was changed, becoming more complicated, as, virtually, all the objects owned by museums became parts of the national cultural heritage. What should have been the selection of exceptional objects is just a group of mixed objects, as anything should be equally preserved. The Law is establishing a more logical and efficient system that prevents the illicit traffic with cultural goods, in applying with the provisions of the 1970 UNESCO Convention, that was ratified by Romania in 1995. As a result, the illicit traffic has decreased dramatically in the last three years. Additionally, I should add that the thefts from museums are, currently, rather rare, in spite of the fact that the security devices are not very modern and in the small museums they are simply primitive.

One important provision of this Law is the establishing of the National Laboratory for Conservation and Restoration of the Moveable National Cultural Heritage. The Laboratory is going to become truly active only by late 2004 or beginning of 2005.

Also, the law is establishing a national system fro documentation, based on standardisation, headed by the Institute of Cultural Memory – a research institution with three decades of experience in this field.

Secondly, we should mention a group of at least 8 laws and governmental ordinances defending the historical monuments, most of these acts being amended, at least once. A special law id the one protecting the archaeological heritage and establishing a national system of archaeological research. Of course, almost all these laws are connected with the museums’activity.

Finally, early this year, the Law on museums and public collections (311/2003) defined these institutions and set up a system of accreditation. Also, the law has several provisions concerning the compulsory insurance of all the museums’ objects. The law was expected by almost everybody in the profession, but when it was approved, it produced a huge disappointment: it brought no bigger salaries or other important advantages.

One could also mention a huge number of governmental decisions for organising the net of institutions concerning the research and protection of the cultural heritage.

The main trait of the legal system could be considered to be the relative fluidity of the provisions. There is little chance for a law not to be changed, somehow, during the first two or three years of enforcement. The reasons are diverse: first of all, the need of the legislative to adapt itself, continuously, to a moving reality; secondly, the lack of experience of the legislators and the still insufficient legal expertise – a characteristic for the entire Romanian legal system, not only for the part concerning culture. Finally, one could mention that almost anytime a dignitary is changed, the new one would like to create his own legislation, instead of continuing the old one.

Still, the legislators are making noticeable efforts in order to harmonise the Romanian legislation with the EU one, though, sometimes, the latter is not fully understood, as is the case with the way in which the provisions of the Directive 93/7 are applied by the Romanian government.

3. Museum realities

With respect to the Law on museums and public collections, the following terms are defined:

a)museum – the public cultural institution, in the service of the society, that collect, conserves, researches, restores, communicate and exhibits, for purpose of knowledge, education and enjoyment, material and spiritual testimonies of the human communities existence and evolution and of the environment;

b)collection – assembly of cultural and natural goods, systematically and coherently constituted, by physical or private or public legal persons.

Also, the public collections are the collections that are accessible to the public and to the specialist, irrespective of the holder of the owners’ rights, which are gathering goods that are significant for their artistic, documentary, historical, scientific, cultural and memorial value.

The private collections accessible to the public are the collections which are in the private ownership of physical or private legal persons, where the public and the specialists have access only with the permission of the holder.

The Law, also defines the museum patrimony as the “totality of goods, rights and duties with patrimony value that are belonging to a museum or, as the case may be, to a public collection”.

Considering the coverage territorial area, the size and the importance of the patrimony, the museums and the public collections are classified as it follows:

a)museums and collections of national importance;

b)museums and collections of regional importance;

c)museums and collections of county importance;

d)museums and collections of local importance.

The Law, already shares out the first three categories, mentioning 29 museums and collections of national importance, 14 of regional importance and 41 of county importance. It means that all the rest are of local importance. The system is not freezed. A museum could be moved from one category to another, as its collections are growing or diminishing in number and/or importance.

Yet, there are no criteria established for accrediting museums and public collections. When the accreditation will start, it will be the basis for a new method of deciding on financing the museums and public collections. Until the accreditation of museums will become a reality, it is very difficult to appreciate even the true number of museums. Thus, the National Institute of Statistics, considering the ICOM definition on museums, has counted 548 museums, at the end of the last year. However, the specialised institute of research of the Ministry of Culture and religious Affairs, the Institute of Cultural Memory, has counted, by the end of the month of September, 2003, 749 museums. Thus, the future accreditation will be a sign of the increasing standardisation of the cultural institutional network.

It doesn’t matter which calculation we are considering, it is clear that the vast majority of the museums are publicly owned, by the state or by the local authorities. Most of the private ones are, in fact, small religious collections, owned by monasteries and churches. No important private museum has been established, so far, in Romania. The situation is, somehow, in accordance with the entire Romanian economy, where the important investors have appeared only in 2003.

However, some important public owned museums were opened or re-opened in the last decade, as is the case with the much praised Romanian Peasant Museum, the new galleries of the National Art Museum of Romania (completely refurbished after the museum was heavily damaged in the very first days of liberty, in December, 1989), the new National Contemporary Art Museum, that would be opened, for the public, in a few months, in a generous space, in the Palace of the Parliament, the new museums for natural history in Galaţi and Bacău a. s. o.. Unfortunately, the successes are rather poor, compared with the projects and with the efforts accomplished.

I should, also, add that no important museum was closed, after 1989, with the exception of the former museum of the history of the Romanian Communist Party. Some other very small local collections were closed, but, in most of the cases, the objects were transferred to other organisations or, at least, locked in some store rooms.

There are several types of subordination, for the publicly owned museums: to a central authority, to a county or to a locality. In 1990, there were not too many museums subordinated directly to a central authority – i. e. the Ministry of Culture. Then, the number increased in 1992, the reasons being that the Ministry wanted to help the museums, trying to give them more social prestige and, if possible, more money. 1994 has been the witness of a major recentralisation, this time, for political reasons, trying to keep under control the county museums from some regions that are inhabited, mainly, by the Hungarian minority. By the end of 1996, 80 museums were directly subordinated to the Ministry of Culture. Then, immediately after the change in power, by the beginning of 1997, the process reversed and it was continued until now, by the today’s Government. Right now, there are still 13 museums subordinated to the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs, and another one is subordinated to the Ministry of Defense. In fact, the most important museums of the country are those subordinated to the Ministry of Culture and Religious Affairs, as is the case for the National Art Museum of Romania, the National Museum of History of Romania, the “Dimitri Gusti” National Village Museum, the Romanian Peasant Museum, the “Grigore Antipa” National Museum of Natural History, the National Contemporary Art Museum. Of course, many small museums are run by different public institution – as theaters or schools – or by limited companies owned by the state – as is the case with the National Museum of the Crude Oil or the “Dimitre Leonida” National Technical Museum, but most of the museums are under the control of the county and local counties.

It is interesting to note a specificity of the Romanian museums. Starting with the late 70’s, many county museums were “united” in so called “museum complexes”. The main reasons were those of saving decision jobs salaries and obtaining a better control of the employees. Immediately after 1989, in most of the cases, these “complexes” were crushed in the initial pieces, by the simple will of the curators. It was the time of anomy and lack of authority. Some of these museums, enjoying good managements, have survived; some others, were re-united in the same “complexes” – this time, as a result of a managerial thinking at the authority level, taking into consideration the shrinking financial resources.

Considering the type of collections, most of the museums are small, local collections of ethnography, followed, in terms of numbers, by different artistic and archaeological museums. An interesting feature of the beginning of the last decade is the appearance of the museums devoted to the national minorities. Enjoying a full recognition of rights, the 18 legally recognised national minorities of Romania have looked for the emphasizing of their national cultural identity. Several collections were opened by or with the help of Hungarians and Szeklers, Roma, Germans, Jews, Ruthinians, Ukrainians a. s. o., being devoted to their culture. However, these museums and collections were not welcomed with the same sympathy from the very beginning – i. e. the first five or six years. But, little by little, the general attitude of the museum professionals towards these museums and collections have changed and their existence is accepted as something normal.

A different type of museums, represented by only one example, is the Memorial of the Victims of the Communist Repression. The Memorial was mounted in a former prison, where most of the members of the Romanian political, religious and intellectual elites were emprisoned in the late 40’s – beginning of the 50’s. Being done with the strong support of the Council of Europe and of the Romanian civil society, the Memorial has certain resemblances with the HolocaustMemorialMuseum in Washington D. C. –as concerns a part of its’ architectural conception. However, it was criticised by some representative of the traditional Romanian museology.

Apart of these examples, in fact, the general structure of the collections remained unchanged in the last 14 years. The main reason for this is the fact that the collections had very low figures of increasing. Leaving apart the archaeological museums, where the collections are enriched by research, fro the museums that, usually are using the acquisitions as their main source of growing, the last 14 years were rather poor. All the museums’ “patrons” – be they local or central – were extremely restrained in financing acquisitions. This situation has leaded the museums into a very difficult situation. The only new exhibitions, by the end of the 80’s, were those organised by from the museums of history, for a very simple reason: they were, in fact, pure propaganda. The other museums had unchanged exhibitions since the middle of the 70’s. Thus, in 1990, the museums of history needed a new face, in order to change the propagandistic content with a scientific one, and all the others, because the exhibitions were, simply, outdated.

The very first three – four years were rather poor in creating new exhibitions, mainly, because of the lack of resources, but when they were done, some of them were continuing the same way of mounting an exhibition, as it was used before 1990. However, slowly, museums have learned a few tricks, in order to survive and to create, in the same time. On of them was that of the common itinerary exhibitions: a few museums are uniting in doing an exhibition that it is itinerated, then, in all the museums that have collaborated to it. If there are 6 or 7 museums, such an exhibition could be itinerated at least two years. The other one is, of course, sponsorship. Romania has a law on sponsorship since 1994, after the civil society has put a huge pressure over the Government. Unfortunately, the law, after at least five major modifications is still not favorable to the sponsors, so that its provisions are almost useless for the museums. However, the museums have learned to create small circles of “friends of the museum” – most of all, completely informal, that are instrumental in helping the museum for each exhibition opening or similar event. For many museums, the subsidy that covers from 50% up to 80% of the museum budget is used almost entirely for salaries and maintenance. In spite of all odds, still, some private donations were made fro public owned museums.