Concrete Dust Versus Angel's Wings? Sacralization of the “Victory Monument” and Postcolonial Memory Politics in Latvia

Authors

Deniss Hanovs, Art Academy of LatviaFollow

Author ORCID Identifier

Deniss Hanovs, 0000-0002-6762-8279

Abstract

The article analyzes the current state of memory politics in Latvian society in the frame of Baltic postcolonial studies. The dominant traumatic experience of contemporary Latvian society is the period of Soviet occupation (1940, renewed 1944, lasting until 1991) and WWII. The so-called “Monument of Victory” in Riga was the central site of memory, loaded with mnemonic tension and ambiguity of collective memories of the Russian-speakers in the restored nation state. After it was toppled on August 25, 2022, the monument continues to exist in Russian-speakers’ digital imagination and is framed by the semiotics of a sacred site of memory. The state politics of memory until now have failed to recognize the mnemonic content of Russian speakers as a part of Latvian memoryscape. Sociological data and discourses analyzed in the article allow us to revisit postcolonial conditions in Latvia. The article is an attempt to conceptualize signs of what can be defined as post-Soviet coloniality, a cultural matrix of revived mnemonic hierarchy as a model of societal cohesion in a postcolonial nation state.

Recommended Citation

Hanovs, Deniss (2022) "Concrete Dust Versus Angel's Wings? Sacralization of the “Victory Monument” and Postcolonial Memory Politics in Latvia," Occasional Papers on Religion in Eastern Europe: Vol. 43 : Iss. 9 , Article 2.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.55221/2693-2148.2470
Available at: https://digitalcommons.georgefox.edu/ree/vol43/iss9/2