The paper deals with heritage interpretation through the use of myths and fairy tales. The text is divided into two parts. The first part is dedicated to the interpretation of heritage. The second part, dedicated to the role of myths and fairy tales, will be published in the next issue of the journal. The present article thus represents the first part of the text. It deals with heritage interpretation and defines it as a complex communication process with the goal of integrating heritage content and values into contemporaneity. The main hypothesis claims that heritage interpretation is the foundation of processes of participative heritization that strongly influence the social environment and ensuing processes of democratization. The research is interdisciplinary, and is based on heritological theory with consideration of museological, hermeneutical and psychoanalytic concepts. The author explains the need of postmodern society for active participation in heritization processes through heritological theory. With the help of hermeneutics, the differences between scientific and heritage interpretation are explained. From a hermeneutic and museological point of view, the role of communicative language is discussed. The paper also discusses the hermeneutic notion of searching for community meanings of cultural heritage. In the conclusion of the first part, the author justifies heritage interpretation as crucial for the heritage preservation in its original environment and of basic importance for more democratic and sustainable management of heritage. In the second part of the paper, to be published at a later date, myths and fairy tales are discussed as means of interpretation. Myths are considered as a prehistoric and primordial form of interpreting the world.
