HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE
HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE

Interdisciplinary journal focusing primarily on sociological, political science and historical perspectives on the issue of long-term social processes and trends, modernization, globalization tendency and impacts.

The journal creates a broader platform for researches in the historical social sciences. Epistemological field is not strictly bounded, it is also meant to overlap with civilizationalism, cultural sociology and other related fields.

Historical Sociology is Open Access Journal and all published papers are available in the archive section. Open access journal means that all content is freely available without charge to the user or institution. Users are allowed to read, download, copy, distribute, print, search, or link to the full texts of the articles in this journal without asking prior permission from the publisher or the author.

Published by Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press, cooperated with Faculty of Humanities, Charles University in Prague.

Reviewed scientific journal issued twice a year (in June and December).

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HISTORICKÁ SOCIOLOGIE, Vol 11 No 2 (2019), 11–33

Tell a Story of the Nation: Image of Religion and Non-religion in the Czech National Museum

Tomáš Bubík

DOI: https://doi.org/10.14712/23363525.2019.14
published online: 02. 12. 2019

abstract

The study of religion and non-religion in a museum has become a phenomenon recently gaining attention from scholars, especially those focusing on the study of religiousness in public spaces. This paper examines the topic using the example of the Czech National Museum, particularly of its long-term exhibitions because these have a broader social impact. As a state institution, the National Museum not only collects, exhibits and studies items and artifacts but at the same time creates a story, a narrative contributing to the formation of national identity and to a sense of community. This story tries to represent Czechness in modern times, its national character, its past and present, and how it has been self-defined as well as created in relation to others. The main objective of the paper is to characterize the role of religion and non-religion in the national narrative from a Religious Studies perspective. It aims not at comparing the findings with the real importance of religion in Czech society but at uncovering how the National Museum wants its visitors to perceive the role of religion in the story of Czechness, and which events, people and values have gained a purely non-religious character in it.

keywords: religion; non-religion; secularity; museum; nation; national identity; Czechness; religious studies

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Tell a Story of the Nation: Image of Religion and Non-religion in the Czech National Museum is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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ISSN: 1804-0616
E-ISSN: 2336-3525

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