On the Travels of Memory Spaces:

The National Village Museum “Dimitrie Gusti”

Maria Bianca Stoicescu, 2340585

RMA Musicology

Humanities Today: MCRMV16035

Dr. Susanne C. Knittel, Dr. Ingrid Hoofd,

Dr. Sebastian Wedler, Dr. Kila van der Starre (Seminar Coordinator)
Memories are often tied to spaces, objects, to materiality. They can also travel with these matters,
as they are affected by the passing time and the commemorative practices of individuals and
groups. The National Village Museum "Dimitrie Gusti," in Bucharest, Romania, is an interesting
meeting point of memory journeys from several contexts. Traditional houses originating from
different ethnographic regions in the country are brought together in a central area of the capital
city, in a commemoration of simple livelihoods, of cultural heritage. As I spent a great part of my
youth playing around these buildings, they also gained a new significance for me. Using Astrid
Erll’s theories on traveling memory, insights from Marcel Proust's Swann’s Way, and Katherine
Hayles’ ideas on materiality, I want to explore how the same constructions can link to various
layers of individual or collective remembrances along the years. Homes can turn into monuments.
Serious commemorations can become a playground. There is much that can be said about a
national museum, and its stories change depending on who tells them.

Memory and Materiality: Some Working Definitions

Two concepts that have traveled far in time and academic fields, memory and materiality
can be defined in many different ways. By underlining their inclination to change, they can also
appear dynamic. This is the case for the following two working definitions.
In her article, Astrid Erll presents a history of memory studies, then focuses on her own
additions to the field.1 After reflecting on notions of individual and collective memories,
Halbwachs’ “social frames,” and other resounding names and terms, she theorizes on
transcultural memory as a traveling entity.2 Erll explains this concept “as the incessant
wandering of carriers, media, contents, forms, and practices of memory, their continual ‘travels’
and ongoing transformations through time and space, across social, linguistic and political
borders.”3 She lists the elements at play in the complexity of memory creation, and emphasizes
the “unceasing motion” involved in this process.4 Taking each term aside for a closer analysis,
this definition grows in clarity: People are carriers of memories, as individuals and through the
groups with which they share their histories.5 Objects and technology, certain media, can also
contain recorded accounts of events, and impressions can be passed from one carrier or media to
another.6 In this process, the content, the stories of what is remembered, can be altered too
(forgotten, repressed, exaggerated etc.).7 Furthermore, the practices or rituals through which
humans commemorate marking events can also change with time or depending on influences
from other parts of the globe.8 Lastly, Erll refers to forms as elements with meaning, “symbols,

1
Astrid Erll, “Travelling Memory,” Parallax 17, no. 4 (2011): 4-18, https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2011.605570.
2
Erll, “Travelling Memory,” 4-18.
3
Erll, 9.
4
Erll, 12.
5
Erll, 12.
6
Erll, 12-13.
7
Erll, 13.
8
Erll, 13.
icons or schemata,” which can have different connotations based on the changing times and
contexts in which they are mentioned.9 Considering these aspects, it seems memory and history
are not set in stone. Their connections with materials, however, is worth delving into.
In her Writing Machines, Katherine Hayles explores the function of materiality in various
digital or printed media.10 The pages themselves show a creative use of this concept, as some
words appear in bigger font, others are underlined, and whole sections look as if magnified
through a lens. Also, on the edges of the text there is a pattern of vertical lines similar to how a
book looks from the side, or to a bar-code, depending on the interpretation. Besides what she
shows through examples, Hayles also directly explains what she means by text materiality.11 She
expands this into a general definition: “In the broadest sense, materiality emerges from the
dynamic interplay between the richness of a physically robust world and human intelligence as it
crafts this physicality to create meaning.”12 Reflecting on what surrounds them and further
transforming their environment, people make sense of the materials around them. In doing so,
they often attribute new layers of meaning to what they see and create. It seems Hayles’ view on
materiality does not only refer to a tangible world, but also to human abilities of finding
significance even in the simplest of objects.

The Fragile Contours of Memories: Proust and Personal Remembrances of Spaces

After years of summer camps spent on its premises, the Village Museum Dimitrie Gusti
is a place well charted in my memory. To draw a picture of this space, I will turn to my own
impressions on it. From the entry, a white building with a ticket booth, visitors can take either of
three stone alleys ramifying through a maze of humble houses. Everything is surrounded by
greenery. I prefer walking to the left towards the lake, where there is a "floating" blue building
with fishing equipment. This side extends from a tall gate to another, both leading to the park
across the lake. The first is next to a wooden carousel, and the second is next to the oldest
building in the museum, a church made from the same material. Sometimes tourists are allowed
inside, and can see the faded paintings on its walls. To the right, the museum’s rim is fenced. It
takes at least two hours to look at all the exhibits, which indeed form a village of hay, clay,
braided twigs and solid wood buildings. If any performances at the central stage attract the
visitors' attention, or if their children start to chase the chickens living there, then the tour can
last for longer.

9
Erll, 13-14.
10
N. Katherine Hayles, Preface, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2, in Writing Machines (Cambridge/London: Mediawork
MIT Press, 2002), 4-33.
11
N. Katherine Hayles, “Chapter 2: Material Metaphors, Technotexts, and Media-Specific Analysis,” in Writing
Machines (Cambridge/London: Mediawork MIT Press, 2002), 32-33.
12
Hayles, “Chapter 2,” 33.
 Turning to another description from memory, the narrator in Swann's Way by Proust also
reflects on an important place for him, Combray.13 When he “revived old memories” of his
hometown, they often blended into each other in a mixture of darkness and light.14 He was aware
that the city could look differently too, in other instances, yet he only had his own recollections
of it.15 They could vivid, focusing on episodes that marked him. An example is when “the whole
of Combray and its surroundings, taking shape and solidity, sprang into being, town and gardens
alike, from [his] cup of tea.”16 The narrator’s mother gave him this hot drink and madeleine cake
on a winter day.17 The taste of these treats filled him with a state of bliss that reminded him of
where he spent his youth.18
Similar to those in Proust’s text, my remembrances of the Village Museum are fading
into one another, changing with the passage of time. They are also dependent on my
surroundings, and perhaps on other senses too: a visit to the museum might trigger even more
related memories to the surface of consciousness, just like a taste of the traditional sweets sold at
the entry. When I think of the blue house by the lake, I also think of the times I ate my lunch
there on the wooden pontoon. This happened so often that I cannot separate the days from one
another, but I do recall a more unusual experience as well: A child fell in the water there, and his
father rescued him. I witnessed the scene with worried eyes, and I imagine the boy’s memories
of the lake house are probably less peaceful than mine. Each visitor or curator of this village has
their share of stories about it. I could also add more details about my favorite hide and seek spots,
or a windmill that fascinated me, but there are other layers of memories to explore here, which
are important for bigger groups of people. For this purpose, most facts on the museum are based
on the information available online on its official website.19

Long Standing Commemorations: The Museum’s Affirmation of the Nation

With the word “national” in its title, the Village Museum is closely tied to the collective
memory of Romanians, showcasing traditional houses from ethnographic areas in the country,
preserving cultural heritage. This is its official commemorative function, contributing to the
nation’s aim for longevity. The museum spans an outdoor area of over 100 000 m2 next to the
capital's largest park and lake, Herăstrău (recently renamed after King Michael I). Its central
position is also telling of the exhibition's centrality in Romanian culture. In terms of origin, some

13
Marcel Proust, Excerpt from Swann’s Way, trans. C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence Kilmartin, (New York: The
Modern Library, 1992), 58-65.
14
Proust, Excerpt from Swann’s Way, 58.
15
Proust, 59.
16
Proust, 64-65.
17
Proust, 60-62.
18
Proust, 63-65.
19
“Historical National Museum of the Village “Dimitrie Gusti,”” https://muzeul-satului.ro/en/despre-noi/istoric-
muzeul-satului/.
The English version of this introduction can be found through a button on the top-right corner of the page. The
translation there is not entirely clear, so I turned to the Romanian version and paraphrased from there.
buildings date back to the 17th century, while the most recent ones are from the 20th century.
The houses have literally "traveled" from Moldavia, Transylvania, Oltenia, Maramureș, from all
regions around the country, to be assembled again in the museum. They have been well-
preserved, but some of their parts have also been replaced, especially after the damage produced
by two fires in 1997 and 2002. Telling of time, weather and hazards’ effect on materiality, this
issue touches on memory representation too. Like the ship of Theseus, if all parts come to be
replaced with similar ones, then will these houses still represent tradition as initially intended, or
will they become a shadow of what they used to be?

Worn out Wood and Fading Times: Thinking Back to the Beginning

Looking at their original function, all the buildings or annexes exhibited in the Village
Museum were initially part of people's homes or close knit communities. There used to be
religious ceremonies in the churches now mostly left for tourists to admire. Hay beds and low
wooden tables served people's sleeping and eating habits. The memories of peasants living in
these households have traveled with their belongings and now appear in the imagination of those
looking at their materiality. To better preserve these old objects, they are kept at a safe distance
from the public’s curiosity. There was a time, however, in which they again fulfilled their initial
purpose. From 1940 until 1948, the village museum hosted refugees from Basarabia and
Bucovina. It offered shelter, while it had to cease its touristic activity. The new inhabitants could
not be relocated sooner, which contributed to the damage and removal from display of several
exhibits. Tensions between home and monument related memories grow stronger in this time-
frame. The materiality of village pieces was initially meant for human use, but then traveled to
the context of museum preservation. Any shifts between these stages can cause literal and
discursive frictions for these buildings and what their function should be, respectively.
Furthermore, as already exemplified through some marking events, the museum also has
a beginning and history of its own. It was opened for the public in May 1936, after an opening
ceremony held in the presence of King Carol II. The name in its title, Dimitrie Gusti, is of the
sociologist and folklorist who greatly contributed to the creation of this space. Therefore, this
background adds to the official commemorative purposes presented in the previous section. The
museum not only affirms collective memories of traditional Romanian villages, but also tells the
story of how a nation’s representatives tried to preserve these remembrances and their material
connections.

Conclusion

As exemplified by the National Village Museum “Dimitrie Gusti,” places of

commemoration can activate complex layers of memories for the individuals and collectives
observing them. Using Astrid Erll’s definition of traveling memory, Katherine Hayles’ view on
the dynamics of materiality, and a parallel with Marcel Proust’s narrative on Combray, I reflect
on personal, national or other group remembrances connected with this space. My memories
from there exemplify the vivid or blurry forms that remembrances can take, and how they can be
marked or triggered by materiality, available through the senses. As the museum consists of an
outdoor collection of old traditional buildings from all ethnographic regions in Romania, this
newly formed village gives households the function of monuments. They affirm cultural values
deemed important by curators on the level of national collective memory. Invited to imagine the
life of the peasants who initially built the constructions preserved here, visitors are faced with a
series of narratives (the initial use of these houses, their history since the beginning of the
museum, their relevance in these contexts), while also being able to create their own impressions
of these surroundings. A home, a monument, a playground, each exhibit can travel a long way on
the observers’ memory lanes.
 Bibliography

Erll, Astrid. “Travelling Memory.” Parallax 17, no. 4 (2011): 4-18.

https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2011.605570.

Hayles, N. Katherine. Preface, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2. In Writing Machines, 4-33.

Cambridge/London: Mediawork MIT Press, 2002.

Proust, Marcel. Excerpt from Swann’s Way. Translated by C. K. Scott Moncrieff and Terence
Kilmartin, 58-65. New York: The Modern Library, 1992.