Wars of Statues: Ius imaginum and Damnatio memoriae in the 20th century

Latvia

Sergei Kruk

Monument

Encyclopeadia Britannica (1975): ‘recalling to mind or commemorating specific event or personage’.

Great Soviet Encyclopeadia (1975): ‘usually’ it is a medium of propaganda of the ideas of ruling regime, and it implements an ‘active impact’ on society.

Latvian culture: stones are personalities endowed with souls, receptacles of solar powers and the forefathers’ knowledge; the sculptor’s task is to remove the shells revealing the old mysteries to contemporaries

Damnatio memoriae: dismantlement

I.Sudmalis, Liepāja, 1978-1995

Damnatio memoriae in the XX century

1940-41 – communists dismantle several Freedom Monuments

1941-44 – Nazis dismantle busts of Stalin 1950s – the Freedom Monuments of the First

Republic By 1962 – Stalin monuments 1990-91 – almost 80 Lenin monuments 1990s – some monuments to Latvian communists,

and monuments to the Liberators

Ius imaginum in the XX century

1896-1913: German medieval heroes vs. Russian Empire’s heroes (Baltic German privileges vs. Russification)

1930s: Freedom/Liberation War monuments 1947-1953: Stalin, Lenin, Victory 1954-1990: Lenin, Victory, 1905 Revolution, Latvian

Communists and intelligentsia 1991…: Victims of the Communist terror; Re-erection of German medieval and Russian imperial

monuments (Western vs. Eastern Latvia’s identity); Memorials on the war cemeteries commemorating victims of

Holocaust, and German soldiers

Semantics– Stimulus: natural damage and decay, vandalism.– Signifier: elimination/addition of details, style.– Signified: designation, inscriptions, narratives.– Referent: identity of the represented persons.

Syntactics: interaction with other elements of the urban architecture / environment.

Pragmatics: inclusion in meaningful social practice.

Natural damage

World War 2 cemeteries in Vaiņode and Riga

Vandalism

11 Komsomol Members – martyrs of counter-revolution, Valmiera, 1948

Discrete signs: new additions

Memorial to the composers, 1973, addition in 2003

Discrete signs: elimination of a part

Monument to the Liberators of Riga, 1985

Corresponding division: elimination of a part

Monument perceived as a divisible sign

P.Stučka, Riga, 1961-1991.Usually confused with Stalin’s unfinished statue

Stylistic connotations

Boulder: traditional tombstone; memorial sign to the Victims of Communist terror.Processed granite: tombstone of a Latvian businessman.

Stylistic connotations

Evolution of Lenin statuary: from Russian naturalist round sculpture to Latvian generalised astringent monument.

Change / addition of inscriptions

Syntactic transformations

The former Alley of Old Bolsheviks and the sepulchral monument of the first President of Republic of Latvia Jānis Čakste (1859-1927) (in background). 1935.Sepulchral monument of the Prime minister of Soviet Latvia Vilis Lācis (1904-1966) (in front). 1974.

Memorial Pantheon, 1971. Necropolis of the leaders of Soviet Latvia.Grave of the First Secretary of Latvian CP Jānis Kalnbērziņš (left).Sepulchral bust of the chieftain of ‘alcohol mafia’ killed in 1996.

Inclusion in banal activities /inclusion in rituals

Freedom Monument, Riga, 1935

Inclusion in banal activities /inclusion in rituals

Monument to the [Red] Latvian Riflemen, 1971.

Inclusion in banal activities /inclusion in rituals

Monument to the poet Rainis, 1964.His social democratic identitywas a reason to minimise the monument’s availability for mass manifestations.

Pragmatic applicability

J.G.Herder, 1864,dismantled in 1953,re-erected in 1959to greet Walter Ulbricht

Pragmatic applicability

Lenin monuments in small towns permitted to localise the global Soviet political communication and arrange the public rituals.

Lenin’s birthday celebrated in 1985 and 2006.

Pragmatic applicability

From 2000 the Monument to the Soldiers of Soviet Army – Liberators of the Soviet Latvia and Riga from fascist invadersbecame a popular place for mass manifestations by the residents of Slavic origin while the V-day is the central symbol of collective identity.

Reverent attitude to stones enhances the symbolic force of three-dimensional images.

Tradition of commemoration of the dead avoids the visual representation of individual identity. During the Soviet years, only seven Latvians enjoyed the ius imago to have a monumental portrait figure.

Outdoor sculpture possesses a singular potential to impress viewers. Inclusion of an artwork in social practice makes of it a powerful political

actor. Outdoor sculptures as the physical objects structure the urban space demarcating a territory suitable for collective action; as the signs they provide discourses facilitating the acting social group to express its identity.

The signified is actively redefined in order to accommodate the signifier for singular pragmatic needs.

Why quarreling about the monuments?

In a society where a positive experience of collective movement and universal rights of access to the public sphere are missed, the erection of monuments is perceived as a practice of social differentiation undertook by a social group seeking to increase its political weight.

Protest of contemporary anti-ritualism against symbols is only against rituals of differentiation (Douglas 2003: 165). Authorities employ different techniques against the monuments in order to deprive the rivalling groups of symbolical capital and consequently to impose the new rules of social differentiation.

Why quarreling about the monuments?