Ex-Soviet monuments [WP2]
PI: Inês Moreira
Representations of political and military power displayed in public spaces, such as monuments and architectural façades, are created as objects of celebration which may become elements of controversy, depending on the interpretation of the values that these works encapsulate both to different political regimes and to citizen reception.
With the (re)independence of the non-Russian republics of the former Soviet Union, the presence and maintenance of Soviet monuments became an unwanted legacy for the new nations, opening heated debates between different ethnicities, political positions and States. After Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022, the processes of contestation, removal and replacement of former Soviet monuments accelerated in several countries. A neutral reading of this heritage that considered it only as an authorial sculptural and architectural creation, or a monumental inscription with cultural and artistic value, after 2022, in addition to being controversial, has, in many cases, become impossible.
Included in the Extreme Sites project, the Ex-Soviet Monuments workpackage brings together the research* of an international team of researchers who, after fieldwork carried out in 2022 in Estonia, critically and analytically monitor the process of removing and/or replacing monuments.
*Research initiated at the European Forum for Advanced Practices [Cost Action CA18136] and since 2023 affiliated with the Centro de Estudos Arnaldo Araújo - ESAP.
Team:
Inês Moreira
Nico Carpentier
Ruth-Helene Melioranski
Pille Runnel
Laís Andrade (PhD Student)
Partners:
Charles University in Prague [Czech Republic]
EKA Estonian Academy of Arts [Estonia]
Estonian National Museum [Estonia]