Soviet Memorials as Dissonant Heritage in Estonia

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "Archaeology, Memory, and Politics in the 2020s: Changes in Methods, Narratives, and Access", at the 2023 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

We know from all periods of history that political turns are accompanied by re-evaluation of heritage, especially statues commemorating political leaders or victims or heroes of wars and political crimes. The Russian war against Ukraine provoked debates on Soviet monuments in all post-socialist countries. In Estonia, the removal of the most prominent Soviet statues from cityscapes started already during the Singing Revolution. The majority of statues were peacefully gathered to museal environments and re-interpreted. Since the 2000s, several artefacts from occupation have been carefully restored on buildings in prominent places and other monuments recognized for their artificial value. The policy of avoiding blank pages in history has worked well, especially because the only significant removal of a Soviet monument – the Bronze Soldier – not just caused riots but did not solve the problem. This paper presents developments in the anti-statue movement since the war of Russia against Ukraine began.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Archaeology, Memory, and Politics in the 2020s: Changes in Methods, Narratives, and Access   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2023

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Nicole Haddow