War on Monuments: Documenting the Debates over Russian and Soviet Heritage in Eastern and Central Europe (original) (raw)
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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.
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.
"History cannot be finished!" Dismantling and Demolishing Soviet Monuments in Latvia since 2022
War on Monuments: Documenting the Debates over Russian and Soviet Heritage in Eastern and Central Europe. In Kunsttexte.de/ostblick, 2024
The article analyses a number of processes that have taken place in Latvia regarding Soviet monuments since Russia launched a full-scale war in Ukraine on 24 February 2022. The Latvian government, in cooperation with several local organisations, has implemented a new law that has affected 70 monuments built either in the Soviet times or during the German occupation of Latvia during World War II. At the top of the list of monuments to be dismantled or demolished was the Victory Monument (1985), located in Victory Park in the Pārdaugava district of Riga. The article seeks to explore how these processes have been carried out and who have been involved in their implementation. It looks at the decision makers, as well as the context in which particular views were formed, by politicians, art experts or the society at large. Focusing on the controversies surrounding the monuments, the article specifically points out the politically charged decisions in the dismantling/demolition process, as well as the influence of the nationalistic discourse.
Heritage & Society, 2019
The statues of Stalin can be inscribed in the controversial category of contested cultural heritage: they are simultaneously important resources of historical memory that celebrate the “man who defeated Nazism” as well as inconvenient symbols of a totalitarian leader who executed millions of people. In post-Soviet countries these statues have received drastically diverse treatments: a few have been preserved in situ, many have been toppled down, some have been removed from public accession, while others have been relocated in parks and museums. Still, identifying and enforcing an appropriate method of management for these statues remains a thorny issue. By critically analysing the cases of Asht (Tajikistan), Gori (Georgia), and Grūtas Park (Lithuania), this article provides some preliminary reflections on the complex dilemmas associated with the management of contested cultural heritage.
Politologija, 2024
For a long time the approach of the both two Baltic states to the Soviet heritage was formed by: (1) international and bilateral agreements which obliged states to protect monuments and memorial sites of the Soviet Army as well as (2) numerous Russianspeaking community for whom the Soviet statues constitute its cultural identity. The situation has significantly changed due to Russia's aggressive policy against Ukraine, when the authorities made several attempts to remove the Soviet monuments. This brought some controversies and objections among the Russian-speaking communities in Latvia and Estonia. The paper focuses on the transformation of the national historical narrative toward the Soviet monuments and the processes of the adapting of the Russian-speaking community to the official memory discourse. More specifically, the aim is to explore the ways in which the Russian-speaking residents reacted to the removal of the Soviet monuments. The concept of resistance was applied in order to explore and synthesize the outcomes of the interviews carried out among Russian-speaking communities in Latvia and Estonia. It is argued here that the reconstruction of the public space by shifting the most visual symbol of the victory of the Red Army in the WWII has not induced hot feelings among Contents lists available at Vilnius University Press
Monuments and Memorial Sites in Changing Social-Political Contexts - Szeged, 22-23 November 2017
The constructed knowledge about the past could be often visible through different memorial sites and monuments. Their role and function had undergone many changes. During the second half of the 19 th century all over Europe plenty of monuments were erected which connected the symbols of the mythical past to defined places in the context of the modern nation state. After the WWI new practice unfolded among the warfaring countries in the name of the cult of the soldier heroes. In the second half of the 20th century the in Eastern Europe communist regimes had been constructing their own memorial sites, which were often used to exercise power in a symbolic way. However, memorial culture has undergone significant changes in the Western Europe in that time as well. After the collapse of communism the memorial practices had been taking new forms, but at the same time many social conflicts emerged.
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.
Heritage as a gift of public space: The removal of Lenin Memorials in Finland in 2022
Public Archaeology, 2024
In Finland, two public Lenin sculptures were removed by the cities of Kotka and Turku after Russia launched its war against Ukraine in 2022. This article focuses on the expulsion of the sculptures, and how their status as gifts not only factored in these removal processes but is related to cultural heritage in general. It is argued that the trope of 'heritage as a gift' should not be understood as an intergenerational transaction, but an act between contemporary heritage communities. The communities give their heritage, part of their identities, to others for recognition and reciprocity, and this widens the public space for further interactions. In modern states, official institutions, in this case the Cities of Kotka and Turku, acknowledge communities and their heritage and incorporate them into the shared political space. This makes official decisions to remove items of heritage, like the busts of Lenin, problematic. Instead of extending the diversity of heritage communities, such gestures can diminish public space.