Memorials are built forms with commemorative as well as political functions. They can articulate selective historical narratives, focusing attention on convenient events and individuals, while obliterating what is discomforting for an elite. While articulating historical narratives, memorials can set cultural agendas and legitimate political power. Elites thus use memorials to convey the kinds of ideals they want citizens to strive towards. Design strategies are available to entice users along a specific interpretation of memorials. Nevertheless, individuals can differently interpret and use memorials in ways designers might have never envisioned. There is a significant geographical and semiotic literature on the multiple interpretations of memorials. This literature is grounded in two main distinctions: between material, symbolic, and political dimensions; and between designers and users. This paper aims to overcome these distinctions by connecting the cultural, geographical, and semiotic perspectives on the interpretations of memorials. This connection provides a broader theoretical and methodological framework for the study of the multiple interpretations of memorials in regime change. To develop this framework, this paper presents a case study: the relocation of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. After regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Estonian national elites used memorials as tools to culturally reinvent the built environment. Cultural reinvention is the process of filling the built environment with specific cultural meanings through practices of redesign, reconstruction, restoration, relocation, and removal. As the relocation of the Bronze Soldier shows, these practices have sparked broad debates and have resulted in civil disorder in Estonia. Controversies have arisen because each individual and each group interprets memorials differently and, on this basis, develops specific patterns of behavior within the space characterized by memorials.
Relocating the past: The case of the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn
Federico Bellentani
2018-01-01
Abstract
Memorials are built forms with commemorative as well as political functions. They can articulate selective historical narratives, focusing attention on convenient events and individuals, while obliterating what is discomforting for an elite. While articulating historical narratives, memorials can set cultural agendas and legitimate political power. Elites thus use memorials to convey the kinds of ideals they want citizens to strive towards. Design strategies are available to entice users along a specific interpretation of memorials. Nevertheless, individuals can differently interpret and use memorials in ways designers might have never envisioned. There is a significant geographical and semiotic literature on the multiple interpretations of memorials. This literature is grounded in two main distinctions: between material, symbolic, and political dimensions; and between designers and users. This paper aims to overcome these distinctions by connecting the cultural, geographical, and semiotic perspectives on the interpretations of memorials. This connection provides a broader theoretical and methodological framework for the study of the multiple interpretations of memorials in regime change. To develop this framework, this paper presents a case study: the relocation of a Soviet war memorial in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. After regaining independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Estonian national elites used memorials as tools to culturally reinvent the built environment. Cultural reinvention is the process of filling the built environment with specific cultural meanings through practices of redesign, reconstruction, restoration, relocation, and removal. As the relocation of the Bronze Soldier shows, these practices have sparked broad debates and have resulted in civil disorder in Estonia. Controversies have arisen because each individual and each group interprets memorials differently and, on this basis, develops specific patterns of behavior within the space characterized by memorials.
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