“Sculptural Graveyards”: Park-Museums of Socialist Monuments as a Search for Consensus (original) (raw)
Related papers
Discuss Ing Her Itag e a ND Museums: Cross Ing Paths of FR a Nce a ND Serb I a
2017
After the fall of Communist regimes in Europe an important part of the monumental propaganda remained as a haunting memory of the past. Just like after every revolution, one of the first impulses was to take down the statues or to de-sanctify them by painting them over with graffiti. This impulse was sooner or later stifled, depending on the country, and in most cases this was achieved by removing the monuments from the public space and relocating them to what is commonly defined as "sculptural graveyards". Temporary solution or permanent open-air museums, this is one of the new phenomena in museum practices in Central and Eastern Europe from the last couple of decades. In this paper we examine the practice, but also the linguistic code behind it. The idea of a graveyard, burying, is opposite to that of heritage and preservation of memory. Thus the inauguration of sculptural parks-museums could be part of what James Young defined as an attempt to forget. By examining the differences those open-air museums represent in their museum practices, the question of memories of the recent past and the conflicts arising from them, as well as the intent behind the common use of the term "graveyard", our INA BELCHE VA /103 "SCULPTURAL GRAVEYARDS": PARK-MUSEUMS OF SOCIALIST MONUMENTS AS A SEARCH FOR CONSENSUS "When men die, they enter history. When statues die, they enter art. This botanic of death is what we call culture." Les Statues meurent aussi, 1953 1
2021
This chapter analyzes museologic and historical discourses on communism in post-communist museums, focusing on their use of communist objects in an overall anti-communist discourse. The chapter also analyzes the work of memory (travail de mémoire) in these museums, as objects that might be useful in fostering remembering are deprived of their communicative power, surrounded with excessive texts and labeling, with the result that exhibitions on communism seem to encourage forgetting rather than remembering. Romanian communism has remained an unwanted relic in the basements of museums for more than twenty-five years now. First, there was a widespread consensus that it was too early to uncover the communist past. Afterwards, when it became obvious that a discourse on the communist past was necessary, the objects the communist regime produced to represent itself were considered fake, designed to mislead the visitor and thus difficult to use in a “democratic” discourse on communism. The chapter analyzes current Romanian exhibitions dealing with the communist past (the Sighet Memorial-Museum, the Romanian Peasant Museum, and the National History Museum of Romania) as exercises in framing museum objects to deliver the exact opposite of the message they were created to deliver. The techniques invented in order to perform this re-branding of the communist object are varied: from the absolute lack of objects, to interventions on the object, to scenographic devices creating revealing context.
Crisis of the memory – two monuments from the socialist era today
2017
The essay studies the sorrowful present of two landmark monuments of the socialist era: the memorial “1300 Years Bulgaria” and the “Buzludzha Monument.” Built to commemorate important events of Bulgarian history, today these significant historical masterpieces of architecture and art from the second half of the 20th century are abandoned and doomed to destruction. The need to rethink their historical role and to start a discourse on the threat of destruction of the cultural heritage of our country is brought to the front. I argue that it is necessary to inform and educate the community on the problems of protection and preservation of the national cultural values. By applying a semiotic analysis the essay aims to reveal the complex layers of meaning coded in the two monuments in order to establish criteria for aesthetic evaluation of the artistic qualities which are not subject to political bias and reflect the intransient values in architecture and art. The presented projects exemp...
Visuele Geschichtskultur, Bonlau Verlag Koln Weimar Wien, 2014
After the colapse of Yugoslavia in early 1990s, antifascist monuments were completely abandoned, and their symbolic meanings suppressed and obliterated. Modes of public commemoration towards post WWII heritage have changed drastically and new ways to publicly deal with the old memorials tended to de-ideologize them, thus trying as well to erase the collective memory of post WWII period as explicit manifestation of the former political system and ideology. During the period between 1990 - 2000 almost the half of the total number of antifascist monuments were destroyed. However, during the recent decade a slow process of antifascist monument renovation started but only around 100 monuments have been restored, i.e. 3% of the total number. However, the existing inventory list of antifascist monuments has been made without clearly defined criteria of valorisation and many of these monuments are still not listed.
This dissertation is an attempt to look at history museums historically, to establish genealogies of their discourses and curatorial practice in times of social change. It proposes a genealogy of exhibiting communism, crucial for understanding current attempts at building museums of communism. The Romanian communist regime’s self-representation in museums is both model and anti-model for current exhibitions on the recent past. The thesis also highlights the transnational network of museums that shaped the form and content of Romanian museums in the 1950s and 1990s. The dissertation argues that museums of communism of the 1950s are linked with post-1989 (anti)communist museums not only by subject, inherited buildings and artifacts but also by curatorial practice. It argues that curatorial practice, in general, is historically determined and the museum functions poorly if the content of the museum and the museology that exhibits it stand in contrast.
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.
Special issue of kunsttexte.de 2024, no. 1. Ed. Kristina Jõekalda. /// 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.
Boundary Objects of Communism: Assembling the Soviet Past in Lithuanian Museums
2013
Acknowledging that every study of post-Soviet museums is a pilot study and that it is subject to the aforementioned limitations, this chapter seeks to cast some light on the rich social, material, political, and professional diversity and heterogeneity of assembling the communist past in Lithuanian museums. The analysis focuses on six museums, created by amateurs or cultural professionals, owned by the state or private individuals, newly built or revamped: the Ninth Fort , the Museum of Victims of Genocide, the Museum for Resistance and Deportations in Kaunas (established in 1993 and transferred to Kaunas City Museum in 2005), Grūtas Statue Park, the Lithuanian National Art Gallery, the Open Air Museum's Sector for Deportations and Resistance. State museums are often misunderstood to be channels for official state discourses that stem from policy documents and politicians’ speeches. However, in many cases a state museum is just an administrative status, when in fact the organization was created and maintained by civil society groups that managed to lobby and gain state funding and administrative support. It can perhaps be agreed on a minimal definition of a museum as an attempt (not a final result) to stabilize an idea or a story as an important one and relevant to the public. Museums are organizations, and like all organizations, they are better understood as processes, as a mesh of social practices and material settings. The museums’ formal administrative structures inscribed on paper and embodied in the architecture of offices and bank accounts, and their exhibitions, publications, and objects in storage are just one part of a highly complex reality. A proper study of a museum would be sensitive to this processual and material nature and investigate the moments of change. Ultimately, we study museums in order to contribute to a better understanding and discourse about the past: an academic study should avoid treating its object of analysis, critique, and advice as a static entity.