Symbolic formation on the national landscape during the final stage of the Czech National Revival (1860–1914) in the context of the National Museum collections

The National Museum, as an institution fundamentally bound to the history of the Czech National Revival of the 19th century and to activities carried out in its interest, offers to the potential visitors of its Historical Building, among others, artistic depictions of the Czech landscape, thereby raising an interesting question related to the significance of landscape in the context of the formation of a modern Czech nation. From among particular landscape elements, the following may be mentioned: the allegorical figures of Elbe and Vltava (Antonín P. Wagner) located above the fountain on the ramp in front of the Historical Building, and the memorable Říp Mountain (Julius Mařák) depicted on one of the landscapes adorning the Historical Building interior. Landscape as an interdisciplinary subject of research has, in the interest of a wide range of natural science and social scientific branches, been occurring in the Czech milieu since the 1990s. Regarding its history, it is especially the Baroque or industrial landscape; landscape as an important aspect in the process of the formation of the modern Czech nation and of the building of the national identity has been paid minimum attention so far.
Projecting oneself into space, as one of the needs of modern nations, appeared also in connection with the Czech nation. Failures and mishaps in the field of constitutional law fights and the increasing Czech-German nationalist antagonism carried with them efforts to project unfulfilled needs, visions and desires into the landscape, which also had a strong mobilisation potential within the public space. The national community projected many meanings into the landscape which may be perceived as a physical and, at the same time, symbolic space, and which was perceived as the symbol of homeland and home. It became a part of the national-identification heritage, of a jointly shared picture of history, a scene of a national life. One of the attributes ascribed to the landscape was being Czech, connected with whole landscape regions (such as Polabí or Povltaví).
Within this interdisciplinary scientific and popularising project (focused on the collections of the Historical Museum, National Museum Library and Czech Museum of Music), the biggest attention will be paid to two pairs of landscape elements of Bohemia – the principal Czech rivers Vltava and Elbe, and the mountains of Říp and Blaník, surrounded with symbolism. These belonged to the most significant mountains which, in the 19th century, gradually became important places of the Czech nation memory (Říp as the symbol of the beginning of our nation and Blaník as the symbol of the nation’s hope). Thus, the research of the topic selected is related, among others, to the concept of the so-called memory places, in this case nature formations fulfilling the function of a memorable space reinforcing the collective memory.

Project name: Symbolic formation on national landscape during the final stage of the Czech National Revival (1860–1914) in the context of the National Museum collections
Duration: 2017–2018
Agency: National Museum
Project type: Internal grant
NM’s investigator: Mgr. Nina Milotová, Ph.D., PhDr. Markéta Kabelková, Ph.D. (co-investigator)

Anticipated results/outputs:
Within this project, a travelling exhibition (completed with listening to audio extracts and a photo frame) will be organised, an article will be published in an expert, peer-reviewed periodical, and at least one chapter will be included in a specialist book. Further, at least two papers will be presented at expert conferences. The project topic also enables a wide spectrum of popularising research to be performed – selected collection items will be presented through a virtual exhibition on the eSbírky portal, a popularising article is planned to be published, and lectures for the general public are to be given.