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ABSTRACT
Serious monuments to the tragic past and whimsical representations of the everyday reflect the structural realities of a new Russian memorial culture. Structural pluralism provides space for expressions of cultural conservatism and Soviet nostalgia, but it also encourages monument builders to address broad audiences and avoid political polarization. Moreover, it allows local authorities to experiment with new forms of representation in efforts to appeal to local constituencies. The commemoration of tragedy has entered Russian public space, shaped by the contours of its pluralist public, new need for public relations, and fractious political culture. Humour was also not a great hallmark of Soviet monumental art, but public space in post-Soviet Russia has plenty of room for the humorous, the fantastic, and the whimsical. The presence of the whimsical and the tragic in sculptural form is enabled by pluralist institutions, civic boosterism, and critical public discourse in a context much different from monument building in the Soviet era.
RÉSUMÉ
Les monuments de facture sérieuse dédiés aux événeménts tragiques du passé et les représentations fantaisistes du quotidien reflètent les réalités structurelles d’une nouvelle culture commémorative russe. Le pluralisme structurel offre un espace pour les expressions du conservatisme culturel et de la nostalgie soviétique, mais il encourage également les constructeurs de monuments à s’adresser au large public et à éviter la polarisation politique. De plus, ce pluralisme permet aux autorités locales d’expérimenter de nouvelles formes de représentation pour essayer de plaire aux groupes locaux. La commémoration des événements tragiques est entrée dans l’espace public russe, façonnée par le profil de son public pluraliste, son nouveau besoin de relations publiques et sa culture politique conflictuelle. L’humour n’était pas non plus une caractéristique de l’art monumental soviétique, mais l’espace public dans la Russie post-soviétique a bien assez de place pour tout ce qui est humoristique, fantastique et fantaisiste. La présence de la fantaisie et de la tragédie dans une forme sculpturale est rendue possible par les institutions pluralistes, la promotion civique et le discours public critique dans un contexte bien différent de celui de la construction de monuments pendant l’ère soviétique.
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Notes
1. Alekseeva and Kolosova, “Skul′ptura,” 245.
2. See, for example, Sherbakova, “Vladimir Putin’s Russia.”
3. “Bol′shoi terror i repressii.”
4. Forest, Johnson, and Till, “Post-Totalitarian National Identity,” 359.
5. Sherlock, “Russian Politics,” 45.
6. Nelson, Bringing Stalin Back In, 2–4.
7. Darsavelidze, “Pamiat′ i pamiatniki,” 204; Hellberg-Hirn, Imperial Imprints, 197–8; Izvestiia, 7 March 2007, 6.
8. Quoted in Tetrault-Farber, “Russia Bucks Trend.”
9. Gabowitsch, “Russia’s Arlington?” 90.
10. Nelson, Bringing Stalin Back In, 4.
11. See, for example, Forest and Johnson, whose sources are mostly based on foreign news digests that tend to reflect central news organs, central government concerns, and the capital city and who employ a small sample size of around 166 Russian monuments. Forest and Johnson, “Monumental Politics,” 275–7. Local government is absent from Nelson’s and Gill’s accounts, while Forest, Johnson, and Till focus on just two monuments, both from Moscow. Forest, Johnson, and Till, “Post-Totalitarian National Identity,” 359. Smith also writes about central elites. Smith, Mythmaking in the New Russia, 8.
12. Cohen, War Monuments, xxiv.
13. Kommersant, 1 December 2016, 5. Some of the newspaper sources cited in this article are taken from unverified text files in the East View central and regional Russian newspaper databases. The author takes no responsibility for mistakes in any source provided by East View.
14. Gill, Symbolism, 218.
15. Habermas, “Public Sphere.”
16. Clark et al., Soviet Culture and Power, 351.
17. L. G. Ionin, quoted in Brusilovskaia, “Culture of Everyday Life,” 30; Millar, “Little Deal,” 695; Chernyshova, Soviet Consumer Culture, 7.
18. Greene and Robertson, Putin v. the People, 7–8.
19. Based on data compiled from Sokol, “Rossiiskie monumental′nye pamiatniki,” and Pamiatniki monumental′nogo iskusstva Moskvy.
20. Forest and Johnson, “Unraveling the Threads,” 524.
21. Sviatoslavskii, “Kul′tura,” 358.
22. Izvestiia, 16 March 2001, 3.
23. See, for example, Gosudarstvennyi arkhiv Rossiiskoi Federatsii (GARF), f. 259, op. 46, d. 3721, l. 128.
24. Novye izvestiia, 16 June 2005, 7; Moskovskaia pravda, 18 December 2007, 15.
25. Cohen, War Monuments, 75.
26. Abolina, “Monumental′naia Leniniana,” 25.
27. Strigalev, “Monumenty i my,” 12.
28. Tolstoi, Leninskii plan, 54.
29. Voronov, Sovetskaia monumental′naia skul′ptura, 193; Sokolov, “Discussions,” 59.
30. Allenov et al., Istoriia russkogo i sovetskogo iskusstva, 429.
31. Ivanova, Skul′ptura i gorod, 23.
32. Ekspert, 11 July 2011, 73.
33. Kuzbass, 7 October 2009.
34. Novosti Iugry, 24 July 2010.
35. Profil′, 17 February 2014, 47.
36. Respublika Bashkortostan, 7 February 2012.
37. Moskovskii Komsomolets, 19 June 2012, 8.
38. Kommersant, 7 December 2015, 11.
39. Reiter and Golunov, “Rassledovanie RBK”; “Reference about the Activities of the Russian Military Historical Society.”
40. “Liudoed podo Rzhevom.”
41. “Otchet za 2017 god,” 56, available at “Otchet o deiatel′nosti RVIO.”
42. “Otchet za 2020 god,” 14, available at “Otchet o deiatel′nosti RVIO.”
43. Cohen, War Monuments, 149.
44. “Otchet za 2015 god,” 34, available at “Otchet o deiatel′nosti RVIO”; Cohen, War Monuments, 86–7, 199.
45. See the prominent examples on the main page “Monumental′naia propaganda.”
46. “Otchet za 2016 god,” 36, available at “Otchet o deiatel′nosti RVIO.”
47. Cohen, War Monuments, 8.
48. Palatnika and Kuznets, “Istoriia memoriala Sovetskomu soldatu.”
49. “Nevzorov o Rzhevskom memoriale.”
50. Palatnika and Kuznets, “Istoriia memoriala Sovetskomu soldatu.”
51. Ibid.
52. Kommersant, 1 December 2016, 5.
53. Izvestiia, 16 March 2001, 3.
54. Novaia gazeta, 31 October 2018, 19.
55. Kommersant, 1 December 2016, 5.
56. Gill, Symbolism, 228.
57. Il′ia Kalinin, quoted in Malinova, “Political Uses,” 44.
58. “Narodnaia karta pamiatnikov.”
59. Cohen, War Monuments, xxvii–xxviii.
60. Malysheva, “Na miru krasna,” 225–6, 236–8; Cohen, War Monuments, 74, 149.
61. GARF, f. 501, op. 3, d. 1497, ll. 113–14; f. 501, op. 3, d. 1692, l. 170.
62. Pamiatniki monumental′nogo iskusstva Moskvy.
63. Moskovskaia pravda, 31 May 2016, 1; “Virtual′nyi muzei Gulaga.”
64. “Narodnaia karta pamiatnikov.”
65. Novaia gazeta, 1 November 2017, 5.
66. Moskovskaia pravda, 31 May 2016, 1.
67. Smith, “Monument for Our Times?” 1337.
68. Novaia gazeta, 25 September 2015, 16.
69. Kommersant, 28 May 2016, 3.
70. Vecherniaia Moskva, 6 December 2016, 3.
71. Argumenty i fakty, 30 August 2017, 13.
72. Smith, “Monument for Our Times?” 1330, 1337.
73. Novaia gazeta, 30 May 2016, 19.
74. Samarskie izvestiia, 9 November 2005.
75. Samarskie izvestiia, 18 March 2009.
76. Izvestiia, 31 October 2017, 2.
77. Profil′, 6 November 2017, 23.
78. Novaia gazeta, 1 November 2017, 4–5.
79. Kashin, “Chto ne tak s pamiatnikom.”
80. Zinov′eva, “Pamiatniki Velikoi Otechestvennoi voiny,” 63.
81. Oushakine, “‘Red Laughter’,” 191–2; Chamberlin, “‘Anecdote’,” 27; Etty, Graphic Satire, 41.
82. Hanke, interview in East Side Story.
83. Oushakine, “‘Red Laughter’,” 195–6; Waterlow, “Sanctioning Laughter,” 200.
84. Ablin, “Sovershenstvovat′ ‘iazyk’,” 18.
85. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva (RGALI), f. 3355, op. 4, d. 248, l. 16.
86. Kholmogorova, Sots-art, 13.
87. Young, At Memory’s Edge, 7.
88. Profil′, 17 February 2014, 47.
89. Ibid.
90. Moskovskii komsomolets, 14 October 2004, 2.
91. Tomskii vestnik, 13 November 2008.
92. Bereg, 29 May 2013.
93. Respublika Bashkortostan, 18 August 2009.
94. Ibid.
95. Samarskie izvestiia, 26 July 2005.
96. Samarskie izvestiia, 9 December 2005.
97. Samarskie izvestiia, 22 November 2013.
98. Samarskie izvestiia, 13 March 2015.
99. Volzhskaia kommuna, 6 February 2018, 12.
100. “V Samare otkryli skul′pturnuiu kompositsiiu”; “Tanets kak arkhitektura.”
101. Volzhskaia kommuna, 6 February 2018, 12.
102. Iastrebova, “V skvere na ploshchadi Kuibysheva.”
103. Volzhskaia kommuna, 7 September 2018, 21.
104. Tomskii vestnik, 31 October 2008.
105. Tomskii vestnik, 18 April 2008.
106. Ibid.
107. Ibid.
108. Sutton, “Rostan Tavasiev.”
109. Ibid.
110. Kommersant, 19 April 2013, 14.
111. Tsentral′nyi gosudarstvennyi arkhiv literatury i iskusstva Sankt-Peterburga (TsGALI SPb), f. 229, op. 1, d. 367, l. 2.
112. “Democracy in Today’s Russia.”
113. Abolina, “Monumental′naia Leniniana,” 25.
114. Unless otherwise indicated all figures for Lenin monuments in this paragraph are taken from “Pamiatniki Leninu.”
115. Argumenty i fakty, 24 August 2005, 20.
116. Von Eggert, “Why Putin Dare Not.”
117. Kazarin, “Pochemu v Rossii ne snesut Lenina?”
118. Samarskie izvestiia, 24 December 2008.
119. Kommersant, 17 November 2014, 5.
120. “Vladimir Lenin.”
121. Izvestiia, 21 November 2012, 2.
122. Tomskii vestnik, 14 May 2004.
123. Komsomol′skaia pravda, 19 March 2016, 5.
124. Kommercheskie vesti, 11 June 2014.
125. Kommersant, 17 February 2005, 7.
126. Nezavisimaia gazeta, 29 November 2017, 1. Ichthyander was the main character in the popular Soviet science fiction novel Amphibian Man.
127. Tumarkin, Lenin Lives! 263.
128. Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv sotsial′no-politicheskoi istorii (RGASPI), f. 556, op. 15, d. 126, l. 5.
129. Pravda, 2 November 1971, 6; Izvestiia, 3 November 1971, 4; Sovetskaia kul′tura, 2 November 1971, 1.
130. Sovetskaia kul′tura, 16 February 1985, 3.
131. Novaia gazeta, 24 April 2006, 21.
132. Altaiskaia pravda, 27 March 2012.
133. Tomskii vestnik, 24 June 2006.
134. Izvestiia, 2 March 2005, 2.
135. “Pamiatniki Leninu.”
136. Kashin, “Chto ne tak s pamiatnikom.”
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Aaron J. Cohen
Aaron J. Cohen is a professor of history at California State University, Sacramento, USA. He has published on topics related to monuments, art culture, the Russian emigration, and the memory of war in the early twentieth century, including a monograph on World War I and the Russian art world, Imagining the Unimaginable: World War, Modern Art, and the Politics of Public Culture in Russia, 1914–1917 (2008). His latest monograph is entitled War Monuments, Public Patriotism, and Bereavement in Russia, 1905–2015 (2020).