Hembygd i samtid och framtid 1890—1930. En museologisk studie av att bevara och förnya. (Past, present and future : A museological study of museums and the preservation of environment in Sweden c. 1890—1930.) : [Swedish with English summary.]

Sammanfattning: This dissertation deals with renewal on the foundation of the past, as this idea was elaborated in the establishment of community museums and car of the environmental landscape from the late 19th century to the 1930s. During that period the movement of taking care of nature, culture, and mankind increased and dispersed into national, regional and local organisations. This phenomenon is, in Sweden, called the hembygdsrörelse (hembygd is a place with special values, and rörelse means movement). The new organisations were mostly established along with existing regional museums, bat at the time toward the end of this study many of the museums and new organisations merged together. These changes indicated that the position of the past in present society had altered. The thesis consists of a main analysis of this movement (chapters 1, 2 and 8) interwoven with five different studies of the significance of preservation and renewal of the past (chapters 3—7). The first of these studies deals with different representations of history and artefacts, that was present at the turn of the century. Next the youth movement in Norway and the rise of a Swedish youth movement and their ideas of the creation of a better future are focused. The initiatives to establish popular education, Swedish Folk High Schools, that arose in the youth movement is the third subject interleaved, and similar initiative in Finland are also regarded. Then follows a presentation of the international discourse that not only takes the preservation of cultural but also natural heritage into consideration. This is also an overview of the European situation with special regard to German speaking areas. The fifth study (chapter 7) focuses on different was to exhibit, and to relate to what is exhibited. An important change in the purpose of a museum was the discovery of folk culture at the end of the 19th century. In the process of changing Sweden from a country of peasants to a nation of industrialised workers, an important part was to define a common understanding of the past. This is also a way to understand the notion of something as new. In the final chapter (9) the discussions during the 1930s are mirrored. At this time the meaning of the past in the present, and the idea of the past in future society altered. In the rising welfare society the present new past had to support the development in another way than before. The idea of renewal on the foundations of the past had lost its importance.