„Nelengvas paveldas“: Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės Valdovų rūmų atkūrimo problemiškumas

Santrauka

The article analyses the problematic nature of reconstruction of the Grand Duke’s Palace, destroyed in 1801, which has become an object of discordant opinions and visions. The analysis focuses on reasons for tensions and motivations behind individual positions. Sources for tensions are found at several levels: heritage protection, axiological, practical, as well as historical consciousness. The article features a discussion on the dissonance between disapproval for heritage reconstruction declared in doctrine heritage protection texts and real reconstruction practice present in the world, i.e. between the ambition to pursue the principle of heritage uniqueness (non–reconstructability) and the need to solve problems of national identity. This particular case causes even more complications since reconstruction is situated in a historic place of Vilnius – a World Heritage object. In proposals for authentic remains of the Grand Duke’s Palace (cellars unearthed during archaeological dig), a conflict is seen between two groups representing different value systems – the traditional and the liberal one. The traditionalists, who nourish the national history discourse and consider the Duke’s Palace to be the symbol of statehood, have proposed to “augment” the building to the authentic remains and respectively put forward the purpose based on traditional museum conception. The liberals, who are against the idea of “reanimation” of the past, question the building’s significance to statehood and attack the very principle of “augmentation”. The article highlights practical problems that became apparent after a scientifically unmotivated political decision to reconstruct the Duke’s Palace was taken in 2001. These are as follows: insufficient scientific information necessary for reconstruction, lack of conceptual theoretical grounding for the reconstruction project, uncertainty of the idea of a “centre of historical culture” declared by the Lithuanian Government, aimed to become the underlying purpose conception. Furthermore, incongruity between a halfway architectural building project based on the idea of “image restoration” and proposed unidirectional traditionalist museum ideas for its purpose remains unsolved. The article reveals the existence of two contemporary historical consciousnesses of Lithuanians based respectively on concepts of traditional history and historical culture as well as two different views towards reconstruction and purpose. The predominance of the traditional historical consciousness resulted in elimination of historical culture line represented by the workgroup of the Faculty of History at Vilnius University. Proponents of the latter line sought to solve problems of reconstruction and purpose by searching for halfway decisions based on the contemporary theoretical thought.