"The Right to the Museum": Bamberg Museum of Market Gardeners and Wine-Growers as a Place of Heritage and Confrontation

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2025-3/82-103

Authors

Keywords:

Market Gardeners, museum, heritage display, City of Bamberg, intangible cultural heritage

Abstract

The article, based on extensive fieldwork and archival research, focuses on a small regional museum dedicated to the professional group of market gardeners and winegrowers in Bamberg. The author attempts to answer the following questions: if the museum as an institution preserves and exhibits objects of the distant past, how does it relate to a still active professional group? How do the gardeners and winegrowers use “their own” museum? Is it theirs indeed? The Market Gardeners' and Wine-Growers' Museum was created thanks to the initiatives and possibilities of certain individuals who had the necessary expertise and administrative resources.  When two concepts and expositions — the initial one from the 1970s and the new one from 2011 — were compared, it was revealed that the museum exists in two modes.  The first of them preserves and exhibits heritage, and the second one is practical: the museum serves as a meeting house for the professional association. An analysis of the gardeners' community's reactions to the 2011 re-exposure, in the context of the city's and professional group's changed cultural status, revealed conflicts over the right to the museum. While the previous rhetoric that the museum belonged to them maintained, the Bamberg market gardeners were actually pushed to peripheral and honorary positions, but lost the governing role they used to play before.

Author Biography

  • Julia Buchatskaja, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences

    Buchatskaja, Julia V. — Ph.D. in History, Senior Researcher, Peter the Great Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography (Kunstkamera) of the Russian Academy of Sciences (Russian Federation, Saint-Petersburg). E-mail: julia.butschatskaja@yahoo.de ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9139-0179

    For citation: Buchatskaja, J. V. 2025. "The Right to the Museum": Bamberg Museum of Market Gardeners and Wine-Growers as a Place of Heritage and Confrontation. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 3: 82–103.

    References

    Baiburin, A. K. 2004. Etnograficheskii muzei: semiotika i ideologiia [Ethnographic Museum: Semiotics and Ideology]. Neprikosnovenni zapas 33(1): 81–86. https://magazines.gorky.media/nz/2004/1/etnograficheskij-muzej-semiotika-i-ideologiya.html

    Baur, J. 2013. Messy Museums. Über Ordnung und Perspektiven des Museums. In Kultur_Kultur. Denken. Forschen. Darstellen [Culture_Culture. Thinking. Researching. Representing], ed. by R. Johler, Ch. Marchetti, B. Tschofen, C. Weith. Münster: Waxman. 369–377.

    Buchatskaja, J. V. 2023. «Proizoshli ot vendov»: mifologema slavianstva v istorii odnogo nemetskogo gorodskogo soobshchestva [“They Are of Slavic Origin”: The Slavic Mythologem in the History of One German Urban Community]. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 3: 229–247. https://doi.org/10.33876/2311-0546/2023-3/229-247

    Desvallees, A., and F. Mairesse (eds.). 2010. Key Concepts of Museology. Paris: Armand Kolin. 90 p.

    Gierse, S., and E. Lang. 2009. Zünfte — Vereine — Bruderschaften [Guilds — Clubs — Brotherhoods]. In Vom Wirtschaftsfaktor zum Welterbe. Bambergs Gärtner und Häcker. Veröffentlichung des Stadtarchivs Bamberg [From Economic Factor to World Heritage. Bamberg's Gardeners and Farmers. Publication of the Bamberg City Archives]. Vol. 12, ed. by M. Scheinost. Bamberg. 23–28.

    Habel, H. 2016. „Beggfreedla“ als beispielhaftes Spezialwerkzeug in der Ausstellung des Gärtner- und Häckermuseums Bamberg [“Beggfreedla” as an Exemplary Special Tool in the Exhibition of the Gardener and Hacker Museum Bamberg]. In Hammerhart?! Werkzeugforschung und Werkzeugvermittlung in Bayern [Hammer hard?! Tool Research and Tool Placement in Bavaria], ed. by T. Schindler. Bad Windsheim: Fränkisches Freilandmuseum. 57–73.

    Ivanova-Buchatskaja, J. V. 2010. Issledovaniia zemledel'tsev goroda Bamberg (2009 g.). (K metodike polevoi raboty v gorode i voprosu o novykh aspektakh izucheniia) [Research of Farmers of the City of Bamberg (2009). On the Methodology of Field Work in the City and the Issue of New Aspects of Study)]. In Materialy polevyh issledovanij MAE RAN [Materials of Field Research. Museum of Anthropology and Ethnography of the Russian Academy of Sciences MAE RAS], ed. by E. G. Fedorova. Issue 10. Saint Petersburg: MAE RAN. 176–193.

    Ivanova-Buchatskaja, J. 2011. Gorodskie ovoshchevody Bamberga (Germaniia): professiia i opyt ee sokhraneniia [Urban Gardeners of Bamberg (Germany): the Profession and Experience of its Preservation]. In Antropologiia professii ili Postoronnim vkhod razreshen, ed. by P. V. Romanov, Ye. R. Yarskaia-Smirnova. Moscow: Variant. 246–268.

    Jahreiß, A., and C. Günther. 2009. Vorstudie und Leitkonzept für das Gärtner- und Häckermuseum. Manuskript [Preliminary Study and Master Plan for the Gardener and Häcker Museum. Manuscript]. Bamberg.

    Krankenhagen, S. 2013. Das relationale Objekt. Überlegungen anhan transnationaler Sammlungsstrategien der Gegenwart [The Relational Object: Reflections on Contemporary Transnational Collecting Strategies]. In Kultur_Kultur. Denken. Forschen. Darstellen [Culture_Culture. Thinking. Researching. Representing], ed. by R. Johler, Ch. Marchetti, B. Tschofen, C. Weith. Münster: Waxman. 384–393.

    Myl'nikov, A. S., J. V. Ivanova-Buchatskaja, and A. A. Novik. 2009. V lesakh Severnoi Germanii. Po sledam ischeznuvshikh slavyan. Polnoe sobranie materialov Pervoi rossiisko-germanskoi etnologicheskoi ekspeditsii v Severnuyu Germaniyu 2000 g. [In the Forests of Northern Germany. In the Footsteps of the Vanished Slavs. Complete Collection of Materials of the First Russian-German Ethnological Expedition to Northern Germany 2000.]. Vol. 1. Saint Petersburg: Nauka. 604 p.

    Pomian, K. 1988. Der Ursprung des Museums: Vom Sammeln [The Origin of the Museum: From Collecting]. Berlin: Wagenbach. 109 s.

    Scharrer, W. 1988. „Denn wos a rechtä gärtnä is...“ Vor der Frömmigkeit der Bamberger Gärtner(zunft) und ihren Kultobjekten [“For What Is a Real Garden...” Before the Piety of the Bamberg Gardeners (Guild) and Their Cult Objects]. In „Denn wos a rechtä gärtnä is...“ Festschrift zum 125jährigen Vereinsjubiläum des Oberen Gärtnervereins Bamberg 1863–1988 [“For What Is a Right Gardener...” Commemorative Publication for the 125th Anniversary of the Upper Gardeners' Association of Bamberg 1863–1988]. Bamberg: Oberer Gärtnerverein Bamberg e.V. 43–48.

    Schchepanskaia, T. B. 2008. Proektsii sotsial'nogo kontrolia v prostranstve professii [Projections of Social Control in the Space of the Profession]. Etnograficheskoe obozrenie 5: 3–17.

    Thiemeyer, Th. 2013. Das Depot zeigen [Show the Depot]. In Kultur_Kultur. Denken. Forschen. Darstellen [Culture_Culture. Thinking. Researching. Representing], ed. by R. Johler, Ch. Marchetti, B. Tschofen, C. Weith. Münster: Waxman. 394–400.

    Thompson, M. 2003. Mülltheorie. Über die Schaffung und Vernichtung von Werten [Garbage Theory: On the Creation and Destruction of Value]. Bielefeld: Transcript Verlag. 324 p. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783839452240

    Wiesing, L. 2010. Zeigen, Verweisen und Präsentieren [Show, Point and Present]. In Politik des Zeigens [The Politics of Showing], ed. by K. van den Berg, H. U. Gumbrecht. München: Transkript Verlag. 17–28.

Downloads

Published

23.09.2025

Issue

No. 3 (2025): Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik antropologii)

Section

Ethnography in European Museums: The Interpretation and Construction of Traditions