The Palette of Memory Sites of Political Repressions: Monuments and Counter-Monuments

Abstract

The authors propose a typology of sites of memory of political repressions that took place in different periods of Russian history, which emerged under the influence of a set of historical, social and cultural factors. The purpose of the study is to trace the logic of the formation of specific types of monuments, including those existing in the form of the so-called counter-monuments, in the process of implementing the politics of memory and formulating ideas about the traumatic past. The authors used the chronotopic method of examining sites of memory in a number of regions of Russia, such as the memorial complex Perm-36, multiple sites of commemoration at the Bolshoy Solovetsky Island, places of memory at the Rybinsk water reservoir, the Butovo polygon, memorial objects in the Saratov region, and the Republic of Mordovia, architectural constructions in the Russian Far East, etc. Theoretically, the research is rooted in the concept of “memory sites” proposed by Pierre Nora and understood as a combination of material and spiritual elements of culture that carry a symbolic load associated with understanding the social past. The authors demonstrate the presence of several types of memorial sites. It turned out that in the Russian domain of memory about the political repressions there are no sites that meet the criteria of a traditional monument. Conditionally traditional monuments can be territorially localized (solitary or complex) or dispersed (standard or heterogeneous). The second type of monuments is defined as hybrid, including vernacular, alternative and palimpsest varieties. Vernacular monuments are determined by their agents of construction, while the alternative ones are associated with specific interpretations of the past and can be supplemented with new constructive elements in the course of existence, palimpsests imply the explicit or hidden presence of many symbolically loaded layers. Counter-monuments constitute a special type represented by walking, landscape, ecological, and disappearing monuments. They are characterized as performative and participatory. The presence of different types of monuments proves not so much the absence of a unified strategy of commemoration in Russian society, but rather the fact that multiple social groups participate in the process of commemoration, producing heterogeneous and polyphonic monuments.