Tsarist Russia joined Europe’s museum craze a little late, developing a few large museums by the time of the Revolution. The USSR later enthusiastically developed museums as educational and propaganda tools – even pioneering new types of museums. Today, the cities within the former Eastern Bloc contain surprising numbers of these institutions, both private and publically funded, and on nearly every subject imaginable. Many of these museums have survived wars, revolutions, and economic and political collapse, often by innovating ways of preserving, funding, and maintaining their collections. For anyone studying museum science, Russia and other former soviet bloc countries make for fascinating study abroad destinations.
As a historian of World War II with a focus on Holocaust studies, visiting Poland was a must since the atrocities of Hitler’s Final Solution predominately occurred in Poland. Today, there are countless commemorations to the Holocaust on almost every street in Poland, it seems. Museums tell the stories, plaques mark the walls of buildings, […]
