PhD-FHSE-2020-30
The Faculty of Humanities, Education and Social Sciences
DISSERTATION
Defence held on 15/10/2020 in Esch-sur-Alzette to obtain the degree of
DOCTEUR DE L’UNIVERSITÉ DU LUXEMBOURG
EN HISTOIRE
by
Fabio S
PIRINELLI
Born on 24 May 1990 in Esch-sur-Alzette (Luxembourg)
S
TAGING THE
N
ATION IN AN
I
NTERMEDIATE
S
PACE
:
C
ULTURAL
P
OLICY IN
L
UXEMBOURG AND THE
S
TATE
M
USEUMS
(1918-1974)
Dissertation defence committee
Dr Andreas Fickers, dissertation supervisor Professor, Université du LuxembourgDr Denis Scuto, Chair
Associate Professor, Université du Luxembourg Dr Sonja Kmec, Vice-Chair
Associate Professor, Université du Luxembourg Dr Pascal Ory
Professor, Université Paris 1 Panthéon-Sorbonne Dr Françoise Taliano-des Garets
Abstract
Cultural policy has been analysed from various perspectives, ranging from sociology over cultural studies to political science. Historians have also been interested in cultural policy, but they have barely reflected on a theoretical framework. In addition, cultural policy has not been thoroughly researched in Luxembourg. The present thesis aims to contribute to this gap and examines how national cultural policy in Luxembourg evolved from the 1920s to the early 1970s. It investigates the presence of the national idea in cultural policy, and possible tensions and connections between the idea of the nation and the use or inclusion of foreign cultural references. Drawing on the concept of Zwischenraum (intermediate space) coined by the historian Philip Ther, the study considers Luxembourg as a nationalised intermediate space with the tensions that this status entails. Furthermore, it investigates how the State Museums, particularly the history section, evolved in the cultural policy context. To analyse the evolution of cultural policy, three interconnected aspects are considered: structures, actors and discourses.
T
ABLE OFC
ONTENTSINTRODUCTION ... 6
A Review of Cultural Policy Literature and Historiography in Luxembourg ... 11
Presentation of the Case Study: the Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art ... 14
Structure of the Study ... 20
The Self-Reflecting Historian ... 22
CHAPTER I. THEORY AND METHODOLOGY ... 25
I.1. Keywords of the Study... 25
I.1.1. Culture, policy, and cultural policy ... 26
I.1.2. Cultural institutions ... 36
I.1.3. Museums ... 41
I.2. Cultural Policy Research: an Overview ... 43
I.2.1. The sociological viewpoint ... 43
I.2.2. Cultural (policy) studies ... 48
I.2.3. The historiographical approach ... 59
I.3. Framework and Methodology ... 65
I.3.1. Actors, discourses, structures, and their contexts ... 65
I.3.2. Luxembourg as a nationalised intermediate space ... 71
I.3.3. Sources and source criticism ... 76
CHAPTER II. A SHORT HISTORY OF LUXEMBOURG SINCE THE 19TH CENTURY ... 79
CHAPTER III. BUILDING THE NATION: CULTURAL POLICY UNTIL 1940 ... 103
III.1. From Non-Intervention to Consolidation ... 103
III.1.1. A liberal policy in the 19th century ... 104
III.1.2. An anatomy of two concepts: Kulturpolitik and arts et sciences ... 106
III.1.3. From Paul Eyschen’s liberal era to Joseph Bech’s nationalist policies ... 110
III.1.4. Government spending as a reflection of interwar cultural policy ... 112
III.1.5. Diplomacy, propaganda and espionage in the nationalised Zwischenraum ... 124
III.2. The Political Performance of Cultural Policy in a National Era ... 143
III.2.1. The legal framework and the protection of the past ... 144
III.2.2. Consecrating national culture: the literature prize ... 155
III.2.3. Monumentalising the nation, celebrating culture ... 160
III.3. An Aggrandizement of the Nation: the Centenary of Independence in 1939 ... 170
III.3.1. Organising the national aggrandizement ... 172
III.3.2. Initiatives of the sub-committees ... 183
III.3.3. Performing the master narrative: the historical procession ... 191
III.3.4. Capturing the performance: The Film du Centenaire ... 206
III.4. From Private Initiatives to the Musée(s) de l’Etat ... 219
III.4.1. The origins of the State Museum(s) ... 219
III.4.2. Travelling collections and unsuitable spaces ... 229
III.4.3. The imagined museum ... 244
III.4.4. The construction of the national museum ... 269
III.4.5. The project of a folklore museum ... 289
III.5. Preliminary Conclusions ... 294
CHAPTER IV. NEUTRALISING THE NATION: LUXEMBOURG DURING NAZI OCCUPATION (1940-1944) ... 303
IV.1. The Implementation of Cultural Policy ... 305
IV.1.1. The administration of culture: Aufbauarbeit, Deutschtumpflege, Kulturpflege ... 305
IV.1.2. Budget aspects of Nazi cultural policy ... 311
IV.1.3. The dispositif of control in Nazi cultural policy ... 315
IV.2. Cultural Institutions: Instrumentalisation, Innovation, Expansion ... 336
IV.2.1. Theatre as a tool for cultural propaganda ... 337
IV.2.2. The State Archives and the Archivpflege ... 344
IV.2.3. The Landesbibliothek: “A spiritual fortress in the West of the Reich”... 348
IV.3. The Ambiguous Institution: the State Museum during the Occupation ... 359
IV.3.1. The administration of the museum and the planned expansion ... 366
IV.3.2. The (ambiguous) activities of the museum ... 380
IV.3.3. The staff of the Landesmuseum ... 405
IV.4. Preliminary Conclusions ... 428
CHAPTER V. REBUILDING THE NATION: CULTURAL POLICY IN THE POST-WAR PERIOD ... 434
V.1. Cultural Policy in the Aftermath of the War ... 436
V.1.1. The administration of culture between continuities and changes ... 437
V.1.2. The development of the cultural society ... 440
V.1.3. Cultural policy in times of restitution and reconstruction ... 447
V.1.4. Ambiguities in the nationalised intermediate space ... 464
V.1.5. A renewed national aggrandizement: heroes, victims, patriots ... 476
V.2. The Age of the State-Administrator ... 491
V.2.1. From “arts et sciences” to “affaires culturelles” ... 491
V.2.2. The cultural budget towards consolidation ... 497
V.2.3. A conservative cultural policy: high culture, cultural heritage, cultural institutions ... 507
V.2.4. The Millennium Celebration in 1963: aggrandizement and changes in continuity ... 525
V.2.5. A new cultural diplomacy in a changing context ... 553
V.3. Answering the Public Call: the State Museums after 1945 ... 581
V.3.1. An institution for the people: democratisation and education ... 586
V.3.3. Framing the museum: professionalisation and its limits ... 600
V.3.4. Of junk, masterpieces and other things: the value of art and its definition ... 629
V.4. Preliminary Conclusions ... 641
CONCLUSIONS ... 648
Building, neutralising, rebuilding ... 649
An institution for the nation-state ... 653
Branding the nation? ... 657
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ... 663
ANNEX ... 665
Administrative evolution, 1918-1974 ... 665
Evolution of the Cultural Budget: 1918-1940 ... 666
Evolution of the Cultural Budget: 1948-1974 ... 668
Categorisation of the Post-War State Budget: Explanations ... 670
Categorisation according to destination ... 670
Categorisation according to nature ... 671
List of actors and committees of the Centenary Celebration in 1939 ... 673
BIBLIOGRAPHY... 674
Archival records ... 674
Luxembourg City Archives, VDL archives ... 674
Archives nationales du Luxembourg, ANLux ... 674
Arquivo Bienal São Paulo (digitized resources) ... 675
Bundesarchiv Berlin-Lichterfelde, BArch Berlin ... 675
Centre national de l’audiovisuel, CNA ... 675
Landeshauptarchiv Koblenz, LHA Ko ... 676
Musée national d’histoire et d’art – internal archives, MNHA archives ... 676
Photothèque de la Ville de Luxembourg ... 677
Legal texts ... 678
Official documents, records and reports ... 684
Newspaper and magazine articles ... 687
Printed sources... 691
Literature ... 694
I
NTRODUCTIONThe late Raymond Williams once noted that “culture is one of the two or three most
complicated words in the English language.”1 Though he did not reveal what the other most
complicated words would be, it is difficult to argue against his observation. The abundance of literature on the topic illustrates the multi-faceted and complex nature of culture. Over the last decades, it has become an explicit policy domain in many countries around the world. Cultural policy is far from being an easy subject to tackle, partially because of the interdisciplinary nature of culture-related research.
Despite cultural policy researchers – mostly scholars from fields other than history – having produced a plethora of literature on the topic, such as in France, Great Britain, the Nordic countries and the US, the case of Luxembourg has mostly remained a blank page, despite the irrefutable evolution of cultural policy from an implicit into an explicit policy domain supervised by its own ministry. Luxembourg City has been twice European Capital of Culture, in 1995 and 2007. In 2017, the southern city of Esch-sur-Alzette, marked by its industrial past, won the bid for European Capital of Culture in 2022. New cultural infrastructures such as the Philharmonie and the Musée d’art moderne Grand-Duc Jean (MUDAM) have enriched the cultural landscape. More recently, creative industries have attracted interest from policymakers. The specificities characterizing Luxembourg – a small territory, a diverse population and a language policy based on multilingualism, to name a few examples – make for a compelling case for cultural policy history.
However, cultural policy is not a recent invention in Luxembourg, despite the apparent and accelerated development of the last decades. Cultural policy is driven by specific interests or objectives, pursued by actors with motivations and intentions. It is not an innocuous field, especially as national cultural policy is linked to the idea of the nation. In Luxembourg, discourses surrounding the nation and national identity have been present in cultural policy throughout the 20th century: from the era of nation-building and the Centenary of Independence
in 1939 to the nation-branding initiative of the government launched in 2014. The nation has been a persistent concept.
The present study would like to respond to an existing gap in Luxembourgish historiography, but also in cultural policy research in general. It will analyse the evolution of
national cultural policy in Luxembourg from the 1920s to the early 1970s by investigating the use of cultural policy to promote a vision of the nation. For its case study, I will focus on the State Museum, particularly the history and art section, to examine the implementation of cultural policy in a national cultural institution and its relationship with the state. The history and art section of the State Museum was the predecessor of the National History and Art Museum (Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art, MNHA) in Luxembourg City.
The following research questions and sub-questions will guide this study:
1. How did national cultural policy in Luxembourg evolve from the interwar period to the early 1970s?
a. How was cultural policy shaped by the dynamic relationship between actors, discourses and structures?
b. How did cultural policy evolve within broader national and international contexts?
c. Were there any specificities of cultural policy in Luxembourg?
2. How did the precursor of the MNHA evolve within the cultural policy context? a. How did the relationship between the institution and the state evolve? b. Was the museum instrumentalised for specific purposes, and if yes, how? c. What role did the idea of the nation play?
The first chapter will provide clarifications of the methodology and framework of the study and shed light on the formulation and choice of these questions. At this stage, however, it was preferred to introduce the questions at the very beginning of the study.
The choice of the interwar period as a starting point is based on a series of considerations. The subsequent chapters will provide more explanations concerning contextual and cultural reasons. Some scholars attribute the emergence of what would today be recognised as cultural policy to the post-war period.2 Yet, I argue that this limits the scope of cultural policy history – the interwar period, as will be shown, is a relevant counter-example. At the time, “cultural policy” was not an explicit policy category; rather, policies related to culture were subsumed under arts et sciences. The state became increasingly interventionist and cultural initiatives were often inspired by the general context of the interwar period. Cultural policy clearly changed at the time, while the post-WWI political landscape took on a new shape. Following a liberal era, Luxembourg entered a phase of conservatism and nationalism. The First World
War thus marks a historical turning point. It will, however, not be treated in a distinct chapter and might only be shortly referred to when necessary or useful. The Second World War and the occupation of Luxembourg will receive a much greater attention. The cultural policy during German occupation (1940-1944) will be studied in detail in a distinct chapter. This period is barely comparable to the previous and the following ones – though the continuities will not be ignored.
The choice of the early 1970s as the second temporal point of reference might be perceived as a rather peculiar one at first. The reasons are historical as well as pragmatic. From a contextual viewpoint, cultural policy in the 1970s went through considerable changes, not only in Luxembourg but also in other countries. In the grand duchy, the advent of a liberal-left government in 1974 marked a paradigm shift, even though it should be noted that the new cultural policy introduced after 1974 did not entirely break with previous approaches. The general context was characterized by societal developments, demographic changes, crises, discourse about mass media, or the end of economic growth that had served as a backdrop to the extension of the welfare state. As for pragmatic reasons, I need to respect some ethical and personal arrangements. The pragmatism of my choice is largely due to the introduction of the archival law passed in August 2018. Thus, I could only use folders that are accessible to the public or folders for which I was granted access under the new regulations.
For the period after 1974, folders related to the Department of Cultural Affairs have not yet been recorded in the database of the National Archives of Luxembourg. The archival law passed in 2018 has rendered access to folders more complicated and difficult – thus temporarily obstructing historical research. Though my research has not been considerably hampered – unlike that of other colleagues – two folders containing exchanges between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Cultural Affairs in 1972 and 1973, for example, have not been presented to me despite a formal request. Concerning the internal archives of the MNHA, I agreed not to disseminate personal information on donors and acquisitions after the 1970s. Furthermore, ethical issues arise when disseminating personal information about employees and possible internal affairs the more I advanced to the present times.
Art Museum, like the National Natural History Museum, evolved within this context and have played a non-negligible part in those years. The epilogue can lay the foundations of further research, but it also strikes a compromise between complete silence and an overly ambitious study.
Whenever possible, I will look beyond national borders to uncover potential transnational exchanges or influences. Furthermore, the present study develops a theoretical framework that identifies the main aspects to consider when analysing the history of cultural policy, thus offering a historiographical approach. It is the aim of cultural policy history to grasp and analyse this complexity.
As with every study, some choices need to be made and limitations imposed. The restriction to national cultural policy and to one case study of a national cultural institution ensures a consistent account. The focus on national cultural policy does not mean that relations of the state with local authorities or supranational organisations will not be taken into consideration. Though it could be argued that one case study is not enough, my aim is not to produce a comparative analysis of several cultural institutions. The museum stands as an example of analysing a cultural institution through the lens of cultural policy history. This does not mean, however, that other cultural institutions are completely ignored when this wider consideration contributes to a better understanding of the general context and the position of the museum within the cultural policy field. This is the case in the chapter about the German occupation, for instance.
The research presented in this study is based on original sources in different languages, nearly entirely other than English. The choice of English for the current study is anchored in pragmatic reasons (an international readership). It also creates a certain distance to the sources. Thinking about translating into or explaining content in another language than the one used in the sources poses an additional challenge, but it forces the researcher to think harder and to look closer. Throughout the study, many quotes in French or German have been translated into English, with the original text in the footnotes. When specific concepts, proper nouns, or titles have been used in the sources and were difficult to translate or had no adequate English notion, the original term is used. This is especially the case for the Second World War and the Nazi vocabulary, such as Gau, Altreich, volkstum, etc.
more analytical history […].”3 I hope that my study will at least partly satisfy this need. The
interest of my research is threefold: filling a gap in Luxembourgish historiography, reflecting on and developing a methodology for a history of cultural policy, and analysing a cultural institution from a new perspective by embedding it in the cultural policy context and uncovering its political dimension. I will mostly exclude natural sciences from my account, though it will be considered when necessary for the general context. To the possible disappointment of some readers, I will not discuss the situation of artists, except if it becomes a cultural policy issue dealt with by the state.
3 Emphasises in the original text (Morgan Meyer, ‘Creativity and Its Contexts: The Emergence, Institutionalisation and Professionalisation of Science and Culture in Luxembourg’, European Review
of History: Revue Européenne d’histoire 16, no. 4 [2009]: 468–469,
A Review of Cultural Policy Literature and Historiography in Luxembourg
Academic literature on cultural policy in Luxembourg is limited. Internationally, cultural policy has mostly been left to sociologists, cultural studies scholars and political scientists. Of course, these scholars have not ignored historical dimensions and historians have tackled subjects at least related to cultural policy. However, barely any accounts exist that take a resolutely historiographical approach to cultural policy. In Luxembourgish historiography, the field of cultural policy history is a “hidden” agenda: somehow present, but rarely explicit, and even less systematically analysed. In contrast, literature about art and culture in Luxembourg is quite abundant, encompassing newspaper articles, journal papers, exhibition catalogues, dissertation theses or books. Whether state cultural policy is conceded some space in these works depends on the perspective endorsed by their authors. Researchers have analysed aspects concerning, for instance, cultural production in Luxembourg, its development, and the evolution of structures and institutions framing it.4
In the general literature on the history of Luxembourg, such as in Michel Pauly’s Geschichte Luxemburgs5 or Gilbert Trausch’s Histoire du Luxembourg6, cultural policy as such is nearly
entirely ignored. Pauly dedicates some lines to the development of Luxembourg’s cultural landscape in the late 20th century. The journalist Rosch Krieps has written two books dedicated to cultural policy, Kultur im Kleinstaat7 and Des Kleinstaats kulturelle Affairen8, but they convey a more personal and episodic account, and, even if providing interesting insights, they are written in a journalistic style without a historiographic ambition. Frank Wilhelm’s contribution to the anthology Le Luxembourg au tournant du siècle et du millénaire (1999), edited by Gilbert Trausch, provides an overview on cultural life and production in Luxembourg since the 19th century, concerning literature and language, media, and art (painting).9 Though it is helpful in understanding the general cultural and artistic context, cultural policy as such is
4 We might mention, as an example, the study by Fabienne Gilbertz on the professionalisation and evolution of the literary production and theatrical landscape in Luxembourg in the 1960s and 1970s (Fabienne Gilbertz, Wortproduzenten: Literarische und ökonomische Professionalisierung im
Luxemburger Literatursystem der 1960er und 1970er Jahre [Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter,
2019]).
5 Michel Pauly, Geschichte Luxemburgs (Munich: C.H. Beck, 2011).
6 Gilbert Trausch et al., Histoire du Luxembourg: le destin européen d’un ‘petit pays’, 2nd ed. (Toulouse: Ed. Privat, 2003).
7 Rosch Krieps, Kultur im Kleinstaat 1879-1989: Ein kritischer Rückblick auf 110 Jahre (Esch-sur-Alzette: Editions Schortgen, 2006).
8 Rosch Krieps, Des Kleinstaats kulturelle Affairen: 1990-2000 (Ehlerange, 2014).
9 Frank Wilhelm, ‘La culture au coeur de la réalité luxembourgeoise’, in Le Luxembourg au tournant
only present to a limited extent. In her thesis The Making of a National Audio-Visual Archive (2014), Françoise Poos dedicates a chapter to the cultural policy at the time of the minister of cultural affairs Robert Krieps as a background to the creation of the Centre National de l’Audiovisuel (CNA).10 The volume on Robert Krieps, his life and political career, edited by
Franz Fayot and Marc Limpach, provides information on the politician’s ideas and his time as minister for cultural affairs, but covers a small period of the history of cultural policy in Luxembourg.11 Paul Spang, former director of the National Archives, deals with the cultural policy of the governments in Luxembourg in a contribution to a festschrift dedicated to the historian Paul Margue.12 In his piece, he covers an extensive time span reaching from the 19th century to the second half of the 20th century. However, the decades after the Second World War are much less examined in comparison to the period up until the 1930s. Furthermore, Spang embeds his analysis in a larger history of the state administration and, due to his own professional background, offers an overview on archives and funds related to cultural policy. In a paper published in 2009, Morgan Meyer investigates the development of science and culture in Luxembourg, and examines their emergence, institutionalisation and professionalisation, providing useful information on the development of the scientific and cultural fields from a policy perspective.13 His merit resides in combining the history of
scientific research with that of cultural policy, and in focusing on the museums, thus offering a more general but essential account on their evolution. In 2012, Catherine Lorent published her study on the arts and cultural policy in Luxembourg from 1934 to 1944, with a focus on the years of the German occupation. However, she considered mainly the arts policy of the National Socialists and analysed how they used artistic creation (in the domain of fine arts) for
propaganda.14 The historian Guy Thewes, in Les Gouvernements du Grand-Duché de
Luxembourg depuis 1848 (2011), has produced a useful overview on the governments in Luxembourg, their composition and the policies they pursued.15 Even then, cultural policy is
10 Françoise Poos, ‘The Making of a National Audio-Visual Archive: The CNA and the Hidden Images Exhibition’ (Dissertation, De Montfort University, 2016).
11 Franz Fayot and Marc Limpach, Robert Krieps (1922 - 1990) : démocratie, justice, culture,
éducation (Esch/Alzette: Le Phare, 2009).
12 Paul Spang, ‘La politique culturelle des Gouvernements luxembourgeois de 1848 à nos jours’, in Le
Luxembourg en Lotharingie - Luxemburg im Lotharingischen Raum: Mélanges Paul Margue - Festschrift Paul Margue, ed. Paul Dostert et al. (Luxembourg: Saint-Paul, 1993), 585–606.
13 Meyer, ‘Creativity and Its Contexts’.
14 Catherine Lorent, Die nationalsozialistische Kunst- und Kulturpolitik im Großherzogtum
Luxemburg 1934-1944 (Trier: Kliomedia, 2012).
only mentioned as such for the first time when Thewes writes about the Juncker/Poos II government (1995-1999). Paul Feltes, in his contribution on the history of Luxembourg in L’art au Luxembourg edited by Alex Langini, includes some information on cultural policy.16 Though he goes back to the interwar period, he does not offer a coherent narrative, as he focuses on specific moments (such as the Centenary Celebration in 1939). The balance between the different periods is also unequal. He dedicates much more space to Pierre Grégoire’s initiatives, while the changes in the 1970s and 1980s are completely ignored. For the period since the 1990s, he mentions the European Capital of Culture in 1995 and depicts a positive evolution for Luxembourgian art, but omits other developments.17
Thus, considering the state of research in Luxembourg, cultural policy has not been completely ignored, but many gaps still need to be filled. The present work will tread a very narrow path crossing the vast field of cultural policy. Though I have analysed the history of cultural policy and the cultural discourses in my Master’s thesis, a systematic approach was lacking.18 The transnational aspect appeared in some parts, but it was not paid close attention to. Furthermore, the starting point of my Master’s thesis was 1945, hence there was no possibility to compare the post-war period to the interwar years. In the theoretical part, I considered cultural policy as a field, drawing on the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu, but it remained vague and I barely referred to it throughout my work. Nevertheless, I was able to provide some groundwork for further studies.
16 Paul Feltes, ‘Une histoire mouvementée d’un petit pays au coeur de l’Europe’, in L’art au
Luxembourg de la Renaissance au début du XXIe siècle, ed. Alex Langini (Bruxelles: Fonds
Mercator, 2006), 9–45. 17 Feltes, 42–43.
Presentation of the Case Study: the Musée National d’Histoire et d’Art
Literature on museums is abundant, whether in the field of museology, museum studies, sociology, or history. However, historians do not seem to have analysed how museums, as cultural institutions, evolve within a cultural policy context. Texts about their history might focus on their evolution as such (for instance from private collections to public museums), but do not explicitly include reflections on how the cultural policy context has shaped these museums. Furthermore, the history of museums in the 20th century has attracted limited interest, and much less than that of the 19th century. In fact, as the 19th century has been
considered to be the “age of museums”19, most studies have focused on that period. In Une
histoire des musées de France, the French historian Dominique Poulot, for instance, dedicates the major part of his book to the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. The 20th century is in itself unequally covered, and much less than the other periods.20 Another book by the same researcher, Patrimoine et musées, dedicates relatively more space to the 20th century and
provides even general overviews on the evolution in other countries than France, for instance in Germany or in the US. Yet, it does not intend to provide a detailed analysis.21 Philippe
Poirrier has contextualized the history of museums (mainly in France) within the larger history of heritage (patrimoine) and related policies from the 18th century to the 20th century with its “liberal turn” (tournant libéral).22 Though approaching museums with a significant area of
cultural policy, Poirrier’s text does not equal a detailed analysis, nor does it focus on a museum as a case study. Strategies of Display by Julia Noordegraaf (2004) is probably one of the rare studies that cover more extensively the 20th century. Noordegraf analyses the evolution of the “museum script” – the display of the objects and the interactions between exhibits, designers,
room disposition, and visitors – while focusing on two art museums in The Hague.23 Sharon
Macdonald’s edited volume The Politics of Display (1998) also covers the 20th century, but
focuses on science and technology museums and exhibitions.24 In general, then, historians have
19 Cf. Jean-Claude Caron and Michel Vernus, L’Europe au XIXe siècle: Des nations aux
nationalismes 1815-1914 (Paris: Armand Colin, 2008), 287.
20 Dominique Poulot, Une histoire des musées de France: XVIIIe - XXe siècle (Paris: La Découverte, 2008).
21 Dominique Poulot, Patrimoine et musées: L’institution de la culture (Vanves: Hachette, 2014). 22 Philippe Poirrier, ‘Patrimoine et musées’, in Aux confins des arts et de la culture: Approches
thématiques et transversales XVIe-XXIe siècle, ed. Philippe Poirrier and Bertrand Tillier (Rennes:
Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2016), 139–149.
23 Julia Noordegraaf, Strategies of Display: Museum Presentation in Nineteenth- and
Twentieth-Century Visual Culture (Rotterdam: NAi Publishers, 2004).
not ignored the subject, but they have usually not reflected on the place of museums in cultural policy and on their relationship with public authorities.25 My case study aims at making such
reflections and analysing a specific museum through the lens of cultural policy.
As has been indicated above, the MNHA, or more precisely its predecessor, the history and art section in the State Museum, serves as a case study. Its history, as will be shown, was marked by failed projects, many years of construction, and postponements of its official opening. Eventually, it was inaugurated only after the Second World War. Museums have been central to cultural policies, regardless of the existing discourses on culture. In Luxembourg and in other countries their existence pre-dated any cultural policy as understood since the second half of the 20th century. The MNHA is one of the oldest public museums in Luxembourg. Over time, it has experienced many transformations. Until 1988, it was part of the Musées de l’État (State Museums), alongside with the Musée d’histoire naturelle (Natural History Museum). In 1988, both institutions were separated de jure (but only physically in the 1990s), and the history museum acquired its current name. In this context, Luxembourg is a more particular case compared to other countries where public museums have existed since the 19th century. However, the idea of a national museum, as we will see, has been around for much longer than the construction of the museum itself.
The MNHA is not only dedicated to the history of Luxembourg, but also to art and art history. Therefore, it could be considered hybrid according to Mark W. Rectanus’ definition.26
The MNHA is divided in different sections, from archaeology over fine arts to arts and crafts (arts décoratifs et populaires). Its temporary exhibitions are various in subjects and fit within the broad scope of the museum. In the title of an interview with the museum’s director Michel Polfer, the MNHA is labelled as an “allround-museum”.27 One might regard this term as a modern synonym to the encyclopaedic museum. The notion “allround” might even conjure a negative image: the museum covers a broad area, but it is not specialised in any of them. If we consider Olaf Hartung’s overview on museum types, the MNHA combines art, trade and
25 Possible exceptions being historical studies about museums and colonial heritage or postcolonial processes, such as Sarah van Beurden’s study of the Institut des Musées Nationaux du Zaïre/du Congo (See: Sarah Van Beurden, Authentically African: Arts and the Transnational Politics of Congolese
Culture [Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015]).
26 Mark W. Rectanus, ‘Globalization: Incorporating the Museum’, in A Companion to Museum
Studies, ed. Sharon Macdonald (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2006), 381–397.
industry (Gewerbemuseum), (cultural) history, and folklore.28 Of course, these categories are
not always clearly discernible. Exhibiting art also means exhibiting cultural history, while folklore can overlap with trade and industry. Indeed, Hartung’s discussion of museum types is anchored in their historical development, rather than in an observation of today’s museum landscape. As he acknowledges in his introduction, the variety of museums has increased. Typologies are constantly evolving. He warns that the typology used in his book is merely an “ideal type of reduction of a much more complex reality”.29
The MNHA being a national public museum is a further reason for its choice. Indeed, the most logical choice in a study about national cultural policy is a national cultural institution. Furthermore, it enables an examination of the most prevalent perspective on national culture and of its evolution. Like national monuments, the museum “also acted as an agency and site for identifying worthy heritage, in effect, creating three-dimensional identity-stories for the public.”30 Hence, the case study in the present context will not only consider the relations
between the museum and public authorities, the exchanges and the potential tensions, but also the kind of culture the museum exhibited and how this perception fitted within the cultural policy context.
As a museum, the MNHA is not only in touch with public authorities and the ministry it depends on, but also with economic actors (private sponsorship)31 and the cultural society (exhibitions, relations with the association Amis des Musée d’Art et d’Histoire). The museum as a public cultural institution is itself an example of the implementation of cultural policy. Structures, discourses and actors can influence how it works and fulfils its missions. Additionally, transnational exchanges constantly take place, via international organisations
(ICOM), temporary exhibitions, loans, or discourse on cultural management.32
The present study is not anchored in the vast field of museology, which has produced a plethora of literature,33 but it will consider the museum through the lens of cultural policy
28 Olaf Hartung, Kleine deutsche Museumsgeschichte: Von der Aufklärung bis zum frühen 20.
Jahrhundert (Köln: Böhlau, 2010).
29 Own translation. “[…] eine idealtypische Reduktion einer in Wirklichkeit viel komplexeren Realität.” (Hartung, 8).
30 Sharon Macdonald, Memorylands: Heritage and Identity in Europe Today (Abingdon: Routledge, 2013), 166.
31 An example is the acquisition of a painting by Barend Cornelis Koekkoek, for which the MNHA collected funds by relying on private sponsorship.
32 Some studies have adopted a transnational approach to a history of museums. See for instance: Andrea Meyer and Bénédicte Savoy, eds., The Museum Is Open: Towards a Transnational History of
Museums 1750-1940 (Berlin/Boston: De Gruyter, 2014).
history, as a politically shaped cultural institution. A similar position has been defended by the scholar Clive Gray, who argued that museums have an “inescapably political nature”.34 Albeit
taking a specific perspective, the analysis of the case study can be considered as a history of the museum, which “can refer to research about the particular history of a museal institution, or to studies that embrace the development of museums collectively as part of a branch of cultural history.”35
Concerning the state of research, the MNHA has published some texts on its own history and added a section to the permanent exhibition on its history. Some articles published in its magazine (Museomag) or in catalogues36 have been dedicated to the museum’s past as well as the origins of its collection. Indeed, it was the MNHA that was mostly interested in its own history. Concerning the pre-history of the museum – dating back to the creation of the Société archéologique in 1845 – Joseph Goedert published the monography De la Société archéologique à la Section historique de l’Institut grand-ducal in 1987, edited by the Historical Section of the Grand-Ducal Institute. Though it provides essential information on the genesis of the archaeological society and of its collection, as well as on the actors evolved, it remains a mostly factual account.37
Another important matter in the current section concerns the literature on the museum during the occupation period (1940-1944), which is very limited. In her book, Catherine Lorent dedicates a small interlude to the museum, its situation and its integration into the German administrative structures.38 In an exhibition catalogue edited by the Musée d’Histoire de la
Ville de Luxembourg (MHVL, now Lëtzebuerg City Museum) in 2002, François Reinert contributed with an article on the history department of the state museum39, while Foni Le Brun
être perçu.” (André Gob and Noémie Drouguet, La muséologie: histoire, développements, enjeux actuels [Paris: Armand Colin, 2010], 15).
34 Clive Gray, The Politics of Museums (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015).
35 Cintia Velázquez Marroni, ‘Understanding the Past in the History Museum. Visitor Research in Two Mexican Museums’ (University of Leicester, 2015), 90.
36 Jacques Santer et al., Trésors du Musée national d’histoire et d’art Luxembourg (Luxembourg: Musée national d’histoire et d’art, 1989); Jean Luc Koltz et al., Musée national d’histoire et d’art
Luxembourg (Bruxelles/Luxembourg: Crédit communal/Cregem International Bank, 1990).
37 Joseph Goedert, De la Société archéologique à la Section historique de l’Institut Grand-Ducal:
tendances, méthodes et résultats du travail historique de 1845 à 1985, Collections de la Section
historique de l’Institut greand-ducal de Luxemborug 101 (Luxembourg: Section historique de l’Institut grand-ducal, 1987).
38 Lorent, Die nationalsozialistische Kunst- und Kulturpolitik im Großherzogtum Luxemburg
1934-1944, 131–134.
39 François Reinert, ‘“Inter arma silent Musae”. Les musées d’Etat pendant la guerre’, in ...et wor
alles net esou einfach. Questions sur le Luxembourg et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Fragen an die Geschichte Luxemburgs im Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Musée d’histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg
wrote a text on the natural history museum and Heuertz’ chronicle.40 François Reinert is a
curator at the Musée Dräi Eechelen, attached to the MNHA. Foni Le Brun is head of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique. Both authors have been working directly or indirectly for the institutions that they examined in their texts, but these need to be considered carefully, as will be highlighted in the section on the Landesmuseum during the German occupation. The most critical and recent account on the museum during the Second World War to date was penned by historian and museologist Marie-Paule Jungblut. In her contribution to a volume edited by André Gob, Des musées au-dessus de tout soupçon (2007), she critically examines the acquisition policy of the museum during the Second World War and the question of spoliation. Instead of limiting her research to the texts produced by the curators, she takes into account a larger variety of sources that contribute to a more nuanced image of the situation, an observation that she makes herself when touching on the issue of the sources:
[…] il existe quelques rapports et correspondances adressés à divers supérieurs de l’administration d’occupation que Meyers et son principal collaborateur, Georges Schmitt, ont rédigés entre 1940 et 1943. Ceux-ci n’ont à ce jour fait l’objet d’aucune analyse scientifique. Bien sûr, ils ne restituent pas toutes les facettes des activités du musée ; ils livrent toutefois des informations importantes sur la politique d’acquisition du musée et sur ses relations au commerce luxembourgeois de l’art. Le registre des entrés du musée complète ces documents. Combinées, ces sources nuancent le rapport d’activité sommaire de Meyers publié en 1949.41
In the same year that Jungblut’s text was published, the Commission spéciale pour l’étude des spoliations des biens juifs au Luxembourg pendant les années de guerre 1940-1945 presented an intermediate report. The final report was published in 2009.42 The commission first met in January 2002 after it had been created by the then Government. It was mainly composed of historians, representatives of public institutions and administrations, and lawyers. The special commission’s mission consisted in analysing the conditions under which the spoliation of mobile and immobile goods belonging to Jewish people residing in Luxembourg was carried out. Another goal was to study the compensations and restitutions in the post-war
40 Foni Le Brun-Ricalens, ‘Le Musée d’Histoire naturelle de Luxembourg sous l’occupation
allemande (1940-1945). Un témoignage: le livre-chronique de Marcel Heuertz’, in ...et wor alles net
esou einfach. Questions sur le Luxembourg et la Deuxième Guerre mondiale. Fragen an die Geschichte Luxemburgs im Zweiten Weltkrieg, ed. Musée d’histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg
(Luxembourg: Musée d’histoire de la Ville de Luxembourg, 2002), 78–84.
41 Marie-Paule Jungblut, ‘La spoliation des biens culturels au Luxembourg: le Landesmuseum Luxemburg pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale’, in Des musées au-dessus de tout soupçon, ed. André Gob (Paris: Armand Colin, 2007), 207–208.
42 Commission spéciale pour l’étude des spoliations des biens juifs au Luxembourg pendant les années de guerre 1940‐1945, ‘La spoliation des biens juifs au Luxembourg 1940-1945: Rapport final’
period.43 Despite the report shedding some light on the general situation concerning the
spoliation of Jewish possessions and liquidation of companies owned by Jews, the MNHA is mentioned only once. The report merely observes that the museum did not acquire objects from the Abteilung IV A, which was responsible for the spoliation and the supervision of related activities during the occupation.44 Though this conclusion might be correct, it does not consider the complexity of the matter as it does not question whether the museum acquired Jewish possessions through other intermediaries. The only source used in this context are the acquisition books of the museum. The authors seemed to have no knowledge of or to ignore Jungblut’s work. Though Jungblut draws the same conclusion, she raises additional questions. In 2011, Michel Polfer, director of the MNHA, has written a contribution on the acquisitions of the museums during the war, focusing on the Reiffers collection.45 Hence, most literature about the museum during the Second World War has been produced as a result of related debates.
43 “La commission, à laquelle appartiennent tant des représentants du consistoire israélite que des historiens et des personnalités de la vie publique, ainsi que des représentants de différentes administrations susceptibles de la recherche de documents et d'informations relatifs à la spoliation d'avoirs juifs, a pour mission d'étudier les conditions dans lesquelles les spoliations des biens mobiliers et immobiliers appartenant à des personnes juives résidant au Luxembourg ont été perpétrées par l'occupant nazi. La commission étudiera encore les conditions et l'ampleur des
restitutions et/ou dédommagements accordés aux victimes des spoliations ou à leurs héritiers après la Deuxième guerre mondiale. Si elle le juge nécessaire, la commission formulera dans son rapport final des recommandations au Gouvernement.” (‘Réunion de la commission spéciale pour l’étude des spoliations des biens juifs au Luxembourg’, June 2002,
https://gouvernement.lu/fr/actualites/toutes_actualites/articles/2002/01/29commspoli.html).
44 ‘Réunion de la commission spéciale pour l’étude des spoliations des biens juifs au Luxembourg’, 83.
Structure of the Study
The first chapter of the study is dedicated to the framework and methodology. Apart from an overview and an analysis of existing literature on cultural policy and subject-specific approaches, I develop a method to examining the history of cultural policy in Luxembourg. First by identifying the advantages and shortcomings of existing approaches, then by explaining my own. Additionally, chapter I includes a section dedicated to the main concepts of the present study.
Chapter II provides a general overview on the history of Luxembourg since the 19th century. Readers who are well acquainted with the most important developments might want to skip it, as it offers a general overview to ensure that every reader knows the historical backdrop of the subsequent chapters.
Chapters III to V are devised chronologically, whereby their contents are not necessarily presented in a chronological order, as many evolutions treated in separate sections or sub-sections overlap. Furthermore, each chapter first focuses on the general cultural policy, then on the case study, and finally closes with an interlude summarizing the most important results and developments of the related chapter. In my opinion, it was more fruitful to analyse the case study on the background of a certain period than dedicating a separate chapter to it.
In chapter III, I will examine cultural policy in the interwar period and the increasing public intervention, by looking at this development from different perspectives (laws, budget, initiatives, etc.) and by using the concept of political performance. A larger section will be dedicated to the Centenary of Independence in 1939, which was a moment of crystallisation of interwar cultural policy. The case study will begin with the origins of the State Museum in the 19th century.
The post-war period will be treated in Chapter V. The consequences of the war, the return of the national idea, the development of cultural policy in the context of the expanding welfare state and the new cultural diplomacy constitute the themes of this chapter. I will investigate the changes in the cultural society. In the case study, I will examine the new roles of the State Museum after the war, its approach to culture and the concept of culture it disseminated, and internal developments regarding professionalisation.
The Self-Reflecting Historian
Study the historian before you begin to study the facts.46
Edward H. Carr, historian (1892-1982) This self-reflective chapter was not initially envisioned. Through the recommendation of a colleague, I discovered a doctoral thesis studying visitor’s experiences in two Mexican history museums by the researcher Cintia Velazquez Marroni. Marroni included a short section in which she reflected on her background and influences on her research.47 I think that this is a legitimate approach, also in historical research. Historians think so much about the past that they tend not to reflect about themselves. Hence my decision to include a short, personal section. What is my background? In what context has this thesis been written? Why am I conducting research about the topic treated in this thesis?
I have a background in history and spent most of my academic career at the University of Luxembourg. In between, I studied arts du spectacle (cinema and theatre studies) in Liège, Belgium. My experience in Belgium certainly broadened my cultural horizon. I attended a class on the politics and economy of culture, which was the first time that I became acquainted with the topic of cultural policy. In hindsight, my experience in Liège was some sort of an intermezzo, but an extremely valuable one from a personal and cultural perspective. Back in Luxembourg, I enrolled in the Master in European and Contemporary History at the University of Luxembourg. For my Master’s thesis, I chose cultural policy as a topic. I think it would never have crossed my mind without my Belgian experience. The present study is the product of a work in progress, and of many fortuitous decisions that I made in the past.
When I started researching on cultural policy for my Master’s thesis in 2015, I did not really expect that shortly thereafter, cultural policy would gain momentum in public debates in Luxembourg with the elaboration of a cultural development plan, with Esch-sur-Alzette nominated as European capital of culture in 2022, or with the debates on preserving the Hall des Soufflantes in Esch-Belval, an industrial building next to the university campus.
Having lived most of my life in a small country, I have been exposed to different kinds of cultures and languages in everyday life, some more, some less, and, as a European male, not necessarily in a dialogue of equals, often unconscious of my biases. If the potential of this cultural diversity would be really tapped into, it would be a wonderful opportunity. I believe in the importance of culture to societies. Culture can promote empathy and nourish a critical
reflection on our environment. Culture can contribute to finding comfort, to building bridges, to broadening the horizon, to promoting social justice. Culture can lead to emancipation.
If emancipation is the goal, cultural education is the tool. Cultural education teaches us to take a closer look, to observe, to think, and to be surprised. It broadens our cognitive horizon, it helps us acquire new interests, decode our environment, fight our own biases and prejudices. My travels and my exchanges with people from many different countries during my research has contributed to reduce my own biases, but it is certainly not a process with an end. I am also aware that such travels have been a privilege not everyone can have.
During my years as a doctoral researcher, I have been more than once troubled by the uncertainties in our world, but I also had the privilege to work in a protected environment. Thinking about what has happened since I started in November 2016, I feel like an eternity has passed. On top of that, SARS-CoV-2 has been spreading around the world. It has elicited an eerie feeling in me. Slowly, I got somewhat used to the situation, and we adapted and responded (for better or for worse) as a society to the pandemic. Thinking about my own behaviour, I moved from a naïve attitude before lockdown (“Is it really that bad?”), to an emotional state of constant worries in the early phase of lockdown, to a rather pragmatic and – maybe – more or less “balanced” attitude. I was lucky enough to have had concluded my visits to the archives, so my own work was not too much impeded by the lockdown.
The events of the past years and my personal experiences have changed my view of what it means conducting research, and particularly what it means being a historian. Before that, as a student, I did not really know what historical research could contribute to society, besides satisfying our curiosity about our past. The picture, I think, has become clearer to me. While writing an academic study, I cannot judge the past by looking at it from the present. Yet, I consider the simple act of doing and sharing research as an act of peaceful confrontation. We should teach future generations to assess our environment and our past critically, by questioning information and checking its veracity and authenticity. We should promote empathy and raise awareness about the complexities of human behaviour, about the stories that have not been told, about the power structures that led to some people being silenced.
the last years. Without these, I might not have included, for example, some reflections about gender aspects, for as short and incomplete as these reflections are.
C
HAPTERI.
T
HEORY ANDM
ETHODOLOGYHistorical research about cultural policy has rarely been based on frameworks or methodologies for tackling their subject. Yet, a meaningful analysis of cultural policy history in Luxembourg needs to address these issues. The present chapter is divided into three parts. The first section is dedicated to a selection of keywords that are central to the study: culture, policy, cultural policy, cultural institutions and museums. The second part explores existing cultural policy narratives and approaches in different academic fields that are not always neatly separable. It provides an overview on how researchers have dealt with the subject. The third part develops and presents the framework that highlights the constituting elements we need to pay attention to in cultural policy history, and presents the methodology applied in the study. Hence, the structure of this chapter reflects two issues that are deeply intertwined. The ontological question focuses on what main aspects constitute cultural policy from a historiographic point of view. The epistemological question relates to the methodology for making sense of a history of cultural policy. Of course, the methodology developed in this chapter does not claim universal application. It merely constitutes one possible way of dealing with cultural policy history.
I.1. Keywords of the Study
I.1.1. Culture, policy, and cultural policy
The meaning of the word “culture” varies according to context and time, and across disciplines: in biology, it is used as a specialised term (a culture of bacteria, for instance) and can also refer to farming. In this case, culture is part of the semantic field of “labour and agriculture, crops and cultivation”48. In the present context, I apply “culture” from the viewpoint of the humanities. However, this does not mean that even within the humanities, “culture” would be well defined; it is a polysemic concept. The meanings of “culture” have evolved over decades and centuries: from Matthew Arnold’s concept in the 19th century (and
still widely accepted in the better part of the 20th century49), considering culture as “the best
which has been thought and said in the world”50, to an anthropological sense appearing in the
1970s and promoted by the UNESCO since the 1980s with the Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies (1982). According to this document,
culture may now be said to be the whole complex of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features that characterize a society or social group. It includes not only the arts and letters, but also modes of life, the fundamental rights of the human being, value systems, traditions and beliefs.51
More than a century before this declaration, the English anthropologist Edward Burnett Tylor, a contemporary of Arnold, had already suggested a broader definition of culture as “that complex whole which includes knowledge, belief, arts, morals, law, custom, and any other capabilities and habits acquired by man as a member of society”.52 All these definitions have
in common that they consider culture as constructed, antithetical to natural phenomena or manifestations; and none is universally accepted. Terry Eagleton criticized the Arnoldian concept, as much as the anthropological sense of culture. According to him, “we are trapped at the moment between disablingly wide and discomfortingly rigid notions of culture”53.
In cultural policy, the understanding of “culture” results from a deliberate choice, not necessarily transparent, but always embedded in a specific context. These choices entail
48 Eagleton, The Idea of Culture, 7.
49 One might refer to F.R. Leavis, for instance, who shared Arnold’s view of literature and the arts possessing a moral function (Martyn Hammersley, The Concept of Culture: A History and
Reapparaisal [Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019], 18).
50 Matthew Arnold, Culture and Anarchy, ed. Jane Garnett (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 5.
51 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, ‘Mexico City Declaration on Cultural Policies Adopted by the World Conference on Cultural Policies’ (UNESCO, August 1982), 1, http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0005/000546/054668mb.pdf.
52 Edward Burnett Tylor, Primitive Culture: Research into the Development of Mythology,
Philosophy, Religion, Art, and Custom, vol. 1 (London: John Murray, 1871), 1.
consequences on policies to be implemented. Unsurprisingly, culture has had many other definitions. Those presented above make up only a tiny fraction. In 1952, the American cultural anthropologists Alfred L. Kroeber and Clyde Kluckhohn claimed to have discovered more than 150 different meanings and definitions of ‘culture’. Beyond reviewing existing definitions, they also created their own:
Culture consists of patterns, explicit and implicit, of and for behaviour acquired and transmitted by symbols, constituting the distinctive achievement of human groups, including their embodiment in artefacts; the essential core of culture consists of traditional (i.e., historically derived and selected) ideas and especially their attached values; culture systems may, on the one hand, be considered as products of action, on the other, as conditioning elements of future action.54
Despite the abstract wording, Kroeber and Kluckhohn’s definition does not differ much from the UNESCO’s anthropological concept of culture. They recognise that culture refers to human interaction and shapes the way societies function. Indeed, “modes of life” (UNESCO) are nothing else than “patterns […] of and for behaviour” (Kluckhohn and Kroeber). In addition, they recognise the existence of material and immaterial culture. The only difference concerns the implicitness and explicitness of culture, but only because UNESCO’s definition does not provide a clear stance.
Instead of reviewing the various definitions of culture, we might also look at the frequency with which the term “culture” has been used, illustrated by the Google Ngram graph below, based on the English corpus available in Google’s database, from 1800 to 2000. The result is not necessarily representative and should be considered with reservations, as it depends on the kind of books scanned and the number of scanned books published over the years (the size of the overall corpus might decrease the further it goes back in time). The graph shows that the occurrence of the term “culture” has increased in the 20th century, with a sharp rise in the 1980s
and 1990s. Yet, it remains unclear in what contexts the term has been used. As for “cultural policy”, a sharp rise in the 1970s and 1980s can be noted, with more marked ups-and-downs: a decrease in the early 1980s, followed by an increase starting in the second half of the 1980s, and, as in the case of “culture”, a new decline since around 2000.
Fig. 1: “Culture”, Google Ngram Viewer, generated on 3 August 2017, not case-sensitive, using the English corpus with a soothing of 3.
Such graphs are not exempt from criticism. They are not necessarily representative of the actual evolution, nor do they provide contextual information. However, we might advance a general insight gained from these graphs. The notions “culture” and “cultural policy” seem to be phenomena of the 20th and 21st centuries, confirming conclusions that researchers draw.55 According to Munira Mirza, culture and cultural policy seem nowadays to be much more difficult to grasp and to define than in the 19th century. The situation has changed, among other reasons due to the influence of anthropology. As Mirza argues:
In the late nineteenth century it was relatively easy to speak with confidence about the word ‘culture’, referring to a canon of literature, fine art, and poetry – what the arch Victorian Matthew Arnold described in Culture and Anarchy [1869] as ‘the best that has been thought and said in the world’. A century later, the influence of postmodern thought and theories of anthropology have undermined such a neat definition of culture, setting forth the view that culture is relative to particular societies. Culture today is an essentially contested concept.56
This evolution causes issues for cultural policymakers as well as (cultural policy) researchers. While the former might still play on the vagueness of the concept, neither group can refer to a universally accepted meaning of culture. However, this issue makes a historiographic analysis of the topic even more compelling: if culture can have different meanings that change over time, how does it influence cultural policy? Any study on cultural policy needs to include discourse on culture within the field of cultural policy, both aspects sustaining a mutual relationship. Cultural policy targets a specific definition of culture, and the definition of culture (as seen by public authorities) informs cultural policy.
Some scholars argue that the principles underlying cultural policy as we know today were developed after the Second World War, at a time when, at least in Europe, the welfare state was on the rise.57 However, considering that cultural policy is the main concept of the present
study, how can it be approached, especially at a time when it was not used in public discourse
55 The statements by Munira Mirza might serve as an illustration. On culture, he notes in 2012 that “in the past two decades in advanced industrial societies, the word ‘culture’ has become more prominent in political discourse. This reflects the increased politicisation of the arts and culture, but also the ‘culturalisation’ of other policy areas, such as education, economy, urban regeneration, health, and community relations.” (Munira Mirza, The Politics of the Culture: The Case for Universalism [Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012], 4). Concerning cultural policy, Mirza writes: “In both the United Kingdom, but also internationally, the sphere of cultural policy has boomed.” (Mirza, 11). 56 Mirza, The Politics of the Culture: The Case for Universalism, 11.
57 See for instance: David Looseley, ‘Notions of Popular Culture in Cultural Policy: A Comparative History of France and Britain’, International Journal of Cultural Policy 17, no. 4 (2011): 365–379; Eleonora Belfiore, ‘Auditing Culture: The Subsidised Cultural Sector in the New Public
Management’, International Journal of Cultural Policy 10, no. 2 (2004): 183–202,
doi:10.1080/10286630042000255808; Peter Duelund, ‘Nordic Cultural Policies: A Critical Review’,
or as an administrative category? What aspects might be useful to research on cultural policy in Luxembourg? Some scholars adopt an approach by discussing first culture and policy separately.58 As the complexity of culture was discussed above, it will not be repeated here. However, the question of policy in cultural policy will be addressed.
Indeed, cultural policy could refer to the activity of a public administration pursuing objectives related to culture, whatever its definition might be. At least in democratic countries, and more specifically in Luxembourg, the government creates legal frameworks and invests money in culture through a budget voted by the parliament. As the researchers David Bell and Kate Oakley explain:
Cultural policy is a form of public policy, […] and it is subject to the same political changes, financial challenges and global tensions as any other form of public policy (and arguably more than some).59
In the same book, Bell and Oakley argue that “cultural policy is what governments at various scales choose to do or not to do in relation to culture”60. This definition, as vague as it might
be, includes a series of important points. It also recognises that cultural policy is a public policy and can be shaped by authorities at different levels. It acknowledges the agency in cultural policy and the fact that “not doing something” is as conscious a choice as “doing something”. In this sense, it is one of the most applicable definitions for a historiographic perspective, suggested by two non-historians.
Since 2009, the International Journal of Cultural Policy (IJCP) defines cultural policy as “the promotion or prohibition of cultural practices and values by governments, corporations, other institutions and individuals”. Furthermore, the IJCP operates a distinction between explicit and implicit policies: “explicit in that their objectives are openly described as cultural, or implicit, in that their cultural objectives are concealed or described in other terms.”61 However, I cannot completely endorse this definition. In my opinion, and as has been highlighted by many researchers, a public policy is carried out by authorities, and not by corporations, for instance.
The fact that cultural policy only exists as a public policy and, as such, not outside of the field of government, derives from the definition of the concept of policy. As Dean Mitchell
58 Max Fuchs, Kulturpolitik (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2007); Armin Klein,
Kulturpolitik: Eine Einführung, 3rd ed. (Wiesbaden: VS Verlag für Sozialwissenschaften, 2009);
David Bell and Kate Oakley, Cultural Policy (Abingdon: Routledge, 2015). 59 Bell and Oakley, Cultural Policy, 6.
60 Bell and Oakley, 47.
notes, “one cannot imagine government without policy”.62 It should be noted, though, that the
English language distinguishes between policy (content), politics (processes), and polity (institutions and structures),63 whereas the French and German languages only know politique (politique culturelle) and Politik (Kulturpolitik), respectively. Hence, subtleties risk getting lost in translation. The specificity of “policy” motivates Andy C. Pratt’s approach to use “governance” instead of “policy”: “I prefer the term ‘governance’ rather than ‘policy’ as it encompasses policy, the definition of artefacts and their production, as well as the legitimisation and implementation of policy.”64 In practice, however, English literature on the
subject uses the term cultural policy in a broad sense, not limited to the content, but also interested in its implementation, its evaluation, and the implication of actors. In my study, I will use cultural policy because, strictly speaking, Pratt’s idea would exclude any possibility of seeing cultural policy as a top-down process.65 In my opinion, it suffices to hint at the issues surrounding cultural policy and the term “policy”. Replacing policy with governance does not necessarily solve the issue.
For the French sociologist Philippe Urfalino, cultural policy in France was “invented” in 1959, when the Ministry of Cultural Affairs headed by André Malraux was created.66 Urfalino’s account links the existence of cultural policy to a specific administration. Hence, it supports the idea of cultural policy as a state policy. It is, however, too restrictive as it considers its existence only when a ministry is dedicated to questions of culture and ignores the local and regional level. Furthermore, it adopts a French perspective. Not every country has a dedicated Ministry of Culture, but cultural policy can still exist. The French sociologist Vincent Dubois, in his work on cultural policy in France,67 begins with the 19th century and shows that before 1959, elements of cultural policy had existed, also confirmed by Pierre Moulinier.68 At the same time, Dubois highlights the vagueness and uncertainties of state intervention in the field of culture, by retracing the evolution of the administrative structures and the discourses on state
62 Mitchell Dean, ‘Policy’, ed. Tony Bennett, Lawrence Grossberg, and Meaghan Morris, New
Keywords: A Revised Vocabulary of Culture and Society (Malden: Blackwell Publishing, 2005), 258.
63 Fuchs, Kulturpolitik, 9.
64 Andy Pratt, ‘Cultural Industries and Public Policy: An Oxymoron?’, International Journal of
Cultural Policy 11, no. 1 (2005): 39.
65 According to Dave O’Brien, a difference exists between government and governance. Whereas the former is based on a top-down approach, the latter entails sharing resources and decision-making with several actors (Dave O’Brien, Cultural Policy: Management, Value and Modernity in the Creative
Industries [Abingdon: Routledge, 2014], 27).
66 Philippe Urfalino, L’invention de la politique culturelle (Paris: Fayard, 2010). 67 Vincent Dubois, La politique culturelle (Paris: Belin, 1999).
