MUSEUM SPACE AND THE POLICY OF TRAUMA (Przestrzen muzeum a polityka traumy)

The article analyses how the representation of the traumatic past in a museum may affect the shaping of national identity. In the first part, which refers to several theoretical traditions (psychoanalysis, narrativism, critical theory), the author discusses the relations between the representation of the past and the interpretation of the collective trauma offered to the spectator. In the second part these phenomena are analysed on the basis of three museums: Yad Vashem in Jerusalem, Terror Háza in Budapest and the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising.