"Absent Statues," a review of two recent New York exhibitions featuring Yevgeniy Fiks (original) (raw)
Related papers
Mimetic De-commemoration: The Fate of Soviet War Memorials in Eastern Europe in 2022–2023
Kunsttexte, 2024
Some observers have claimed that Soviet monuments, and in particular war memorials, are coming down “across Europe” in response to the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Soviet war memorials have indeed been removed in large numbers in 2022-23 even though previous waves of de-communisation had often spared them. However, the geography of this new iconoclasm is limited to Poland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and some regions of Ukraine, in addition to one case in Czechia and one in Bulgaria. This article analyses the new bureaucracies of iconoclasm, noting that they first emerged in Poland and then spread to new countries in a mimetic process. The article then reviews the actors and logics of monument destruction and protection. Whereas right-wing governments and activists have spearheaded the removal of war memorials, the case to recontextualise monuments instead of removing them was primarily made by historians, art historians and heritage experts. The article dwells in particular on the ways in which Soviet war memorials have been appropriated and domesticated by local residents, gaining new meanings that go beyond their original ideological messages. It argues that de-commemoration, like commemoration, should be a complex process involving all those with a connection to the monument and what it memorialises, and that the top-down removal campaigns of 2022-23 have largely eschewed democratic deliberation.
IKON. Journal of Iconographic Studies, 2018
This essay traces the history of a Lenin statue from former East Berlin that was disassembled and buried in the 1990s and excavated recently. The essay examines pictures taken of the statue as well as its current display in a museum. It then focuses on oral and written comments made on the statue. This pictorial and verbal evidence reveals a desire to emphasize the statue's passivity and a repeated calling on the forces of history to turn the propaganda piece into an archeological object free from ideological agency.
What has happened to Soviet war memorials since 1989/91? An overview
Politika.io, 2021
During and after the Second World War, monuments of various kinds to Red Army soldiers were built inside the USSR, but also across the entire Soviet sphere of influence and beyond. Unlike other socialist-era statuary, most of them at least initially escaped post-socialist iconoclasm, not least because they had been erected atop burial sites. Where they were destroyed or removed, it was typically on local initiative; Poland’s centralized decommunization campaign in 2016 was the main exception. Drawing on publications in multiple languages, this paper surveys the fate of Soviet war memorials internationally since 1989, discussing the historical background; legal context, institutions, and inventories; new construction and reinterpretation; destruction, removal, and modification; and artistic intervention. Numerous examples are provided throughout.
Historiography of Now: Russian/Soviet Monuments under Debate in Europe
Published as editorial in War on Monuments: Documenting the Debates over Russian and Soviet Heritage in Eastern and Central Europe, ed. Kristina Jõekalda. Special issue: kunsttexte.de/ostblick 2024, no. 1, pp. 1–9, https://doi.org/10.48633/ksttx.2024.1.102627\. /// Many East Europeans probably have the impression that they know more or less what is going on with the monuments in neighbouring regions; that they know what kinds of debates about historical memory have been held in past decades. Do we really? Even if we did know, the situation has changed rapidly over the past couple of years. This special issue documents the recent and ongoing public debates about Russian and Soviet monuments in Eastern and Central Europe. The actions taken in terms of actual removal of monuments vary greatly. While in some countries a shift is barely visible, in others hundreds of monuments have been dismantled or relocated in a short period of time, and it seems that, behind these actions, political – rather than expert – decisions have been the guiding force. The focus of this special issue is the historical and art historical perspective on the statements about monuments by academics, heritage specialists, artists, journalists, think tank members and, of course, politicians. The 12 articles, some covering more than one state’s perspective, plus the introductory and concluding articles, offer a variety of analytical views on the developments in each country in a regional and wider comparison, documenting the professional, political and social reactions to the war in Ukraine as reflected in the public space.
War II martyr Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya. The array of monuments to Kosmodemyanskaya stands apart from other sets of Soviet monuments to war heroes, both in terms of sheer number and in variety. An analysis of the most significant sites informs us about the multiple mythologies associated with this Soviet 'saint'. This article asks how the plurality of bodily representations in memorials of Kosmodemyanskaya gives insight into the confluence of collective memory, national myth-making and constructions of gender in the Soviet Union and in post-Soviet Russia. A study of Kosmodemyanskaya's monuments, situated in symbolic locations, shows how competing trends, Soviet political needs, private commemorations, and public responses shaped the representation of this war hero. The evolution of monuments to Kosmodemyanskaya illuminates both
This paper presents the results of research into the social practices of using memorials dedicated to the Second World War in post-soviet Russia. The authors introduce a comparative analysis of two case studies. They examine Poklonnaya Gora, located in Moscow, which is a site of memory (lieux de memoir), according to Pierre Nora, where there was no real fighting during the Battle of Moscow in 1941–1942. This is contrasted with Mamayev Kurgan, located in Volgograd, which is a site of remembrance (lieux de souvenir), according to Aleida Assman, where violent fighting took place during the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942–1943. The authors describe in detail the spatial infrastructure of both memorials and make a classification of the practices in relation to their use, including commemorative, political, leisure, religious, and infrastructure-related social practices exercised by different groups of social agents. The authors conclude that Poklonnaya Gora is a universal memorial relaying a monological heroic discourse, whereas Mamayev Kurgan reproduces the same triumphant discourse, yet twisted through the local context of interaction between the local authorities and the city’s communities.
A Monument for our Times? Commemorating Victims of Repression in Putin’s Russia
Europe-Asia Studies, 2019
Three decades ago, a civic movement arose in the USSR around commemorating Stalin's victims. Yet only in 2017, following President Vladimir Putin's approbation, was a central monument to victims of repression constructed. Analysis of the genesis and results of the design process for the new monument shows that memory discourses in Russia have been harnessed to a form that allows civic activists and state officials to express a limited consensus. The truncated nature of the competition and the jury's safe choice, however, produced a monument unlikely to become a locus for popular or official remembrance.
Areti ADAMOPOULOU, Anna Maria DROUMPOUKI (éd.), Monuments for World War II: Memory and Oblivion in the Balkans and Central-East Europe, Ioannina: University of Ioannina / Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation, 2024
This article focuses on one of the dominant narratives of contestation of the Monument to the Soviet Army (MSA) in Sofia since 1989 and the political and memorial strategies aimed at its disqualification. Calls for dismantling the monument have been an integral part of a rhetoric appropriating the concept of “liberation”, demanding that public space is “liberated” from the monument’s symbolically, politically and aesthetically burdensome presence. Concepts of cultural heritage have featured prominently in these debates, especially concerning the meaning of “monument”. Concentrating on an essential part of these debates –the “monumental” status of the MSA (according to the criteria of historical accuracy, memorial significance and aesthetic value)– we propose here a reflection on the way in which concepts of heritage can be instrumentalised in periods of political transition.