VYTAUTO DIDŽIOJO UNIVERSITETAS POLITIKOS MOKSLŲ IR DIPLOMATIJOS FAKULTETAS SOCIALINĖS POLITINĖS TEORIJOS KATEDRA Rolandas Vytautas Lingys DABARTIES PAMINKLAI: PERMAININGUMO PROBLEMATIKA SOVIETINIŲ PAMINKLŲ ATVEJU Magistro baigiamasis darbas Socialinės ir politinės kritikos programa, valstybinis kodas 621L20008 Politikos mokslų studijų kryptis Vadovas Doc. dr. Jay D. Mininger __________ ________ (Moksl. laipsnis, vardas, pavardė) (parašas) (data) Apginta Prof. dr. Šarūnas Liekis __________ ________ (PMDF dekanas) (parašas) (data) Kaunas, 2014 Summary ........................................................................................................................................................... 3 Introduction ...................................................................................................................................................... 4 1. AEOLIAN HARP ..................................................................................................................................... 7 1. 1 Psychoanalytical and historical plain of perceiving soviet monuments and memorials ............ 8 Psychoanalytical facets of monuments and memorials .............................................................................. 8 Historical facets of a monuments and memorials ...................................................................................... 9 1. 2 Critique of conceptual and functional aspect of memory and remembrance ........................... 11 Critical issues on collective memory........................................................................................................ 12 Critical issues on remembrance ................................................................................................................ 13 Prosopopoeia: Functional status of monuments and memorials .............................................................. 16 1. 3 Monumentum tantum: Generic being of monuments and memorials ........................................ 18 The origin of the image of weaving ......................................................................................................... 18 Qualities of being Art or not-art? ............................................................................................................. 20 Issues of soviet monuments and memorials as within Benjaminian notion of a ruin .............................. 23 Carceri d'Invenzione: mutable facet of soviet monuments and memorials .............................................. 26 1. 4 Basic thesis: the proposition for critical understanding of soviet monuments and memorials 30 2. CRYPTOGRAM OF DOMINATION.................................................................................................. 31 2. 1 Renaming – official editing ............................................................................................................ 32 2. 2 Reformation: reconciliation as advertisement ............................................................................. 36 2. 3 Demolition as barbarism ............................................................................................................... 39 3. DISPLACEMENT OF SOVIET MONUMENTS AND MEMORIALS ........................................... 41 3. 1 Reorganization through inversion: Mimetic aspect of displacement of soviet monuments and memorials .................................................................................................................................................... 42 3. 2 Fetishism of cultural commodities and displacement practices ................................................. 44 3. 3 Commodified historification: parks for soviet monuments and memorials ............................. 45 4. SPORADIC IN TIME AND DISPERSE IN SPACE .......................................................................... 48 4. 1 Aura as an inapproachable cult-image of a ruin ......................................................................... 48 4. 2 Problematic issues of a ruin as a potential of a cult image ......................................................... 50 4. 3 Sporadic dimension and disperse spatially .................................................................................. 51 5. FETISHIZATION OF THE MATERIAL AS ACTS OF VANDALISM ......................................... 52 Conclusions ..................................................................................................................................................... 56 Biobliography ................................................................................................................................................. 58 Appendix ......................................................................................................................................................... 61 2 Summary Mutability Issues on Remembering in the case of Soviet Monuments and Memorials. For more than two decades we live after a massive geopolitical change caused by the collapse of the soviet regimes. However, relics from the recent past are still around as, and the material ones are sometimes causing increased socio-political attention. This thesis is consist a cultural critique of one particular group of residues from the past - soviet monuments and memorials. Due to intension of analyzing today’s political realm within memory and remembrance, soviet monuments and memorials are addressed through their general facets. This way, by invoking theoretical models from the critical theory of the Frankfurt school, general facets are tackled with the theoretical analysis of the case in the relation to socio-political spectrum. Therefore, a theoretical critique of the ossified image of soviet monuments and memorials is introduced. Practical relevance of this thesis reside in the current ‘problematic’ factors such as erosion and vandalism of monuments and memorials. Consequently, this thesis investigates how soviet monuments and memorials in today’s socio-political realm are operating as monuments of the present. Santrauka Daugiau nei porą dešimtmečių mes gyvename po milžiniško geopolitinio pasikeitimo sąlygoto sovietinės sistemos žlugimu. Tačiau praeities liekanos yra vis dar aplink mus, o materialiosios liekanos neretai sulaukia ir padidėjusio socialinio-politinio dėmesio. Šis tyrimas yra nutaikytas į vieną išskirtinę praeities liekanų grupę,- sovietinius paminklus ir memorialus. Siekiant išanalizuoti šiandieninę politinę sritį atminties įamžinimo aspektu, sovietiniai paminklai yra tyrinėjami dėka savo bendrųjų savybių. Tokiu būdu, pasitelkiant Frankfurto mokyklos kritinę teoriją, bendrieji aspektai yra nagrinėjami teorinės analizės būdu siejant juos su socialiniu-politiniu spektru. Taigi, pristatoma sovietinių paminklų kaip sukaulėjusio vaizdinio teorinė kritika. Praktinis šio darbo aktualumas yra pagrįstas tokių dabartinių „probleminių“ veiksnių kaip sovietinių paminklų ir monumentų savaiminis nykimas ir vandalų išpuoliai. Dėl minėtųjų priežasčių, šis darbas teoriškai nagrinėja kaip sovietiniai paminklai ir memorialai šiandieninės socialinės-politinės aplinkos atveju gyvuoja kaip dabarties paminklai. 3 Introduction This thesis tackles the topic of soviet monuments and memorials today and the different socio-political factors that they face. Often just forgotten, edited in the past, being in decay or vandalized, from time to time these objects reappear in the spotlight of the socio-political realm and raise intriguing and problematic issues within cultural discourse. However, within the predominant sociological discourse on this issue, soviet monuments and memorials are often approached with a strict preconception of a somewhat static mode of their being in relation to the society. Therefore, in the case of soviet monuments and memorials, a more insightful theoretical critique is offered here to address key social-political issues that underlie common facets of these monuments and their theoretical re-interpretation. The relevance of this research ushers from the notion that all cultural objects have a political importance, whether it is explicit or not. Therefore, this thesis proceeds from the presumption that socio-political aspects go beyond the limits of politics into the realm of aesthetics. By focusing on the aesthetic aspects of cultural transformation, this thesis on the critique of post-soviet cultural politics of monuments and memorials discloses additional profound aspects of the socio-political situation we face today. The main object of critique is soviet monuments and memorials built in the former USSR and Socialist states in Europe in the period of 1945-1990. With the intention of applying socio-political critique, the category of monuments here implies statues, buildings, or other structures erected to commemorate a notable person or event.1 Moreover, due to this thesis not being orientated toward critique of art per se, further insights on particular monuments are addressed as illustrative elements of the aesthetic and socio-political realms. This thesis understands the negating of soviet monuments and memorials as instrumental ‘interventions’ and critically addresses instrumental reason and action towards them as being: false, even senseless in relation to art, as well as, moreover, the social-political present. The objective of this thesis is built upon Adorno’s notion of works of art being known as cognitive in themselves.2 Therefore, the main objective of this thesis is an interpretation of soviet monuments