{"id":24566,"date":"2022-09-26T08:30:32","date_gmt":"2022-09-26T07:30:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/?p=24566"},"modified":"2023-02-07T12:35:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-07T12:35:51","slug":"soviet-monuments-are-being-toppled-this-gives-the-spaces-they-occupied-a-new-meaning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/research.reading.ac.uk\/research-blog\/2022\/09\/26\/soviet-monuments-are-being-toppled-this-gives-the-spaces-they-occupied-a-new-meaning\/","title":{"rendered":"Soviet monuments are being toppled \u2013 this gives the spaces they occupied a new meaning"},"content":{"rendered":"

In the Latvian capital of Riga, an 80-metre concrete obelisk\u00a0came crashing down<\/a>\u00a0in late August to the loud cheers of a nearby crowd. It was created to commemorate the Soviet Army\u2019s capture of Latvia in 1944. Days earlier in Estonia, another Soviet monument, this time of a tank adorned with the communist red star, was\u00a0removed and taken to reside in a museum<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"Pulling
The destruction of public monuments has a long history. Pulling Down the Statue of King George III by Johannes Adam Simon Oertel. Wikimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

<\/p>\n

Such scenes are happening all over central and eastern Europe \u2013 in Poland, Lithuania and Czechia. The removal or destruction of Soviet-era monuments is a powerful reminder of the complex relationship that exists between history, memory and politics.<\/p>\n

Monuments are powerful instruments of propaganda, making the events of the past visible in the present. Public art of this type defines the heroes of history and writes the story of a nation\u2019s identity. But these objects being removed reflect (and create) conflicting histories and interpretations of the aftermath of war. Public memory is not uniform or static.<\/p>\n

Statues and memorials erected in the years after the second world war are prime examples. Intended to commemorate liberation from Nazism, they were also\u00a0symbols of<\/a>\u00a0Soviet power and presence in eastern Europe and political and military occupation.<\/p>\n

As a result, memorials, statues and monuments that appear to propagate communism or commemorate the Soviet past have also been subject either to government-sanctioned removal or, more commonly,\u00a0defacement, marginalisation or repurposing<\/a>. Their removal is not a destruction or an erasure of history, but a creation of a new way of remembering.<\/p>\n

De-communisation of public space<\/h3>\n

In Ukraine, the \u201cde-communisation<\/a>\u201d law passed in April 2015 prohibited the use of communist symbols and propaganda in monuments, places and street names. More than 2,000 monuments to Ukraine\u2019s communist past were removed between 2015 and 2020, following the Russian annexation of Crimea.<\/p>\n

An updated law on de-communisation in Poland in 2017 enforced the removal of monuments and memorials to individuals and events that symbolised communism or other forms of totalitarianism. Driven by the Russian war in Ukraine, the Polish Institute of National Remembrance intensified its efforts to de-communise public spaces. In March 2022 its head, Karol Nawrocki, called for\u00a0swift action to remove symbols<\/a>\u00a0that might promote communism from public spaces.<\/p>\n