SANT 280-16

In Times of War:
Cultural and Symbolic Landscapes in
Contemporary Eastern Europe
LECTURES
• 23. October: The context of Eastern Europe, diverging historical narratives, politics of memory, and
monuments by Elina Troscenko (UiB)

• 25.October: Language policies in Ukraine by Ingunn Lund (UiB)

• 30.October: Peripheries, post-socialism, de-colonization, natural landscapes and resoursification by

Elina Troscenko and Darya Tsymbalyuk (University of Oxford) digital

• 1.November: Geopolitics and orientations in space and time by Giorgi Cheishvili (University of
Oxford) digital

• 6.November: Identity, belonging and nationalization of landscapes by Tone Bringa (UiB)

• 8.November: Eastern Europe and responses to the war by Elina Troscenko.

LITERATURE
• Readings for each lecture

• Supplementary readings/online
resources on more current
dynamics

• Monograph “Everyday War. The

Conflict over Donbas, Ukraine”
by Greta Lynn Uehling.
 EASTERN EUROPE

By GISGeography
“Lithuania at the Frontier of
the War in Ukraine” by
Neringa Klumbyte

• Temporality of sovereignty

• “Sovereignties do not last long in this

part of the world”

• Anxieties of war
“Lithuania at the Frontier of
the War in Ukraine” by
Neringa Klumbyte

• Memories are integral to reasserting

the legitimacy of national sovereignty

• Divergent historical narratives – Russia

does not recognize the Soviet
occupation of the Baltic States
To summarize:
• Historical experiences and historical
narratives

• People speak from different places

and from different historical
experiences

• The past is shaping our current

narratives and perception of things
“The Return of Suppressed Memories in
Eastern Europe: Locality and unsilencing
difficult histories” by Margaret Tali and
Ieva Astahovska

• For Eastern Europe WWII remains much more present.

• Illustrates how public memory is shaped by ideologies.

• After the collapse of the Soviet Union in Eastern Europe

memory work was mostly carried out through the
perspective of national remembering, leaving out those who
were not part of the new power dynamics.

• Eastern European complex and layered history which

involves a multiplicity of often conflicted memories poses
challenges to finding ways of transmitting historical memory

• Frameworks produced and developed by Western scholars

which might not be that well fitted for the particular
histories of the region.
“The Return of Suppressed Memories in
Eastern Europe: Locality and unsilencing
difficult histories” by Margaret Tali and
Ieva Astahovska

• Makes references to the war in

Ukraine

• Return of history
To summarize:
• The presence of the past and the return of the past

• Changing regimes and silenced memories

• Exploitation of historical narratives

“ The Politics of History and the “War of Monuments” in
Estonia” by Karsten Bruggemann and Andres Kasekamp
• Monument spectacle in Estonia

• Coming to terms with the past in the divided society

• In post-soviet Baltic states the politics of memory created a ”real” history that was based
upon a common understanding of collective victimhood under the Soviet rule, thus
excluding the Russian minority.

• Nationalized conceptions of the past.

• “Low levels of acceptance” of deviant historical memories in both communities that can be
charged with being the main engines behind the “war of monuments”.

• Memories organize people’s imagination of the past and shared past/understanding of

shared past are important elements in creating unity in political communities.
History and Society

• 1918 - independent nation state • Estonians from 90% to 62% of population

• 1940 - occupied by the Soviet troops
• Ethnically divided society: two parallel lives,
• 1941 - invaded by the Nazi Germany different information and media space
different historical experiences and
• 1944 - return of the Soviet troops understandings.
• 1944 – 1991 Soviet occupation (47 years)
• The ethnic Estonian population
overwhelmingly views itself as the victim of
Soviet aggression and subsequent terror,
oppression and repression.

• History as a semantic battlefield.

War Monuments
• Monuments - a visible object for studying changing modes of politics of memory.
• The symbolism of war monuments has changed over the course of time.
• Soviet victory monuments – heroization of the warrior-liberator narrative.
• In Eastern Europe the collapse of the USSR led to a visualization of contested narratives
of the past with the ubiquitous war monuments dedicated to the victory in the Great
Patriotic War suddenly being “silenced” by the change of the system.
• “Dead” symbols of the old nevertheless became hot spots.
The Lihula Monument and the Bronze Soldier
To summarize:
• Both are very political acts
• The internal discourse of the Baltics has been mainly concerned with the Soviet
occupation
• Divided historical memory of ethnic Estonians and Russian speakers in Estonia.
• Moral system
VICTORY
MONUMENT IN
LATVIA
RE-CONFIGURING SYMBOLIC LANDSCAPES
• Soviet Monuments Come Down Across Europe:
https://www.rferl.org/a/soviet-monument-destroyed-war-
ukraine-russia/31823629.html

• Soviet Monuments Become Latest Target of Backlash Against

War in Ukraine - The New York Times (nytimes.com)

• Ukrainians Soar High To Tear Down Soviet Symbols Amid

Russian Invasion: https://www.rferl.org/a/ukraine-kyiv-
motherland-statue-trident/32536479.html

• Ukraine war prompts Baltic states to remove Soviet

memorials (theconversation.com)
To conclude:

• historical narratives are mobilized and monopolized by political regimes

• cultural and historical sites became saturated with new political meanings in the time of
war and thereby become symbolic battlefields for political messages

• symbolic construction and re-construction of landscape through monuments