Monuments and Territory : War Memorials in Russian-Occupied Ukraine.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gabowitsch, Mischa.

Contributor:

Homanyuk, Mykola.

Fonds zur Förderung der Wissenschaftlichen Forschung (Austria), Funder.

Series:

Memory, Heritage and Public History in Central and Eastern Europe Series

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

War memorials--Ukraine.

War memorials.

War memorials--Ukraine--Psychological aspects.

Propaganda, Anti-Ukrainian--Russia (Federation).

Propaganda, Anti-Ukrainian.

Russian Invasion of Ukraine, 2022.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (234 pages)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

2025

Budapest : Central European University Press, 2025.

Language Note:

In English.

Biography/History:

Gabowitsch Mischa : Mischa Gabowitsch, historian and sociologist, is Professor of Multilingual and Transnational Post-Soviet Studies at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Germany. He holds degrees from the University of Oxford and the EHESS in Paris, and previously held positions in Princeton, Potsdam, and Vienna. He is the author or editor of numerous books in various languages, including Protest in Putin's Russia (2016) and Replicating Atonement: Foreign Models in the Commemoration of Atrocities (2017).Homanyuk Mykola : Mykola Homanyuk, sociologist, geographer, and theatermaker, is an associate professor at Kherson State University, Ukraine. He defended his PhD thesis in sociology at V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University. Since 2022 he has been a member of the Prisma Ukraïna: War, Migration, and Memory research group. Mykola is the author of numerous articles on mental mapping, ethnic studies, as well as memory and commemoration. As a theatermaker he runs the Kherson Theater Lab.

Summary:

"From the very first days of their large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022, the Russian invaders have made exceptional efforts to interact with war memorials on the newly occupied territory. Tens of thousands of monuments, mostly in small towns and villages, commemorate the Second World War and other conflicts, including Ukraine's resistance against Russia since 2014. The Russians have destroyed some of these memorials, renovated others, and built new monuments amid continued fighting. They also used war memorials in countless propaganda photos and videos aimed for a domestic audience and largely escaping Western attention. Why this fervor? Gabowitsch and Homanyuk draw on unique sources to trace the logic of Russian monument policies in occupied Ukraine. Mykola Homanyuk spent several months in occupied Kherson and collected sources on the ground, often at considerable risk to himself. This exceptional wartime on-site ethnography was complemented by systematic real-time data collection from online sources, many of which have since disappeared. The book shows how Russian invaders believed their own propaganda about Soviet war memorials being mistreated in Ukraine, and what they did when they discovered well-maintained monuments on the ground. More generally, it also discusses the link between monuments and territorial claims by irredentist empires"-- Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Cover

Front matter

Series title page

Title page

Copyright page

Table of contents

List of Figures

Acknowledgments

Introduction

War memorials and territorial claims

Structure, scope, sources, and methods

Chapter 1. Theorizing the Monumentscape

Writing a collective biography of war memorials

Monumentscapes

Contesting the monumentscape: From "disputed territories" to imperial irredentism

Iconoclasm or heritage protection?

Chapter 2. Historical Background: War Memorials in Soviet and Post-Soviet Ukraine

The Soviet period

Post-Soviet changes: Expanding the memorial canon

Changes since 2014

Ukrainian memory politics

Recent changes in rural Ukraine

Conclusion

Chapter 3. Monuments Destroyed, Spared, and Stolen

Monuments destroyed: War memorials demolished, damaged, or removed by Russian forces

Monuments spared

Monuments stolen

Chapter 4. Monuments (Re-)Built

Lenin's return

"Eight (thirty?) years of neglect"

Rekindling the eternal flame

Spurious reconstruction

Monuments as sites of reeducation

Monuments built

Monuments planned

New monuments in Russia and the Ukrainian territories occupied since 2014

Coda: Monument construction as big business

Chapter 5. Monuments Broadcast

Pictures and videos of war memorials in Russian propaganda

Pictures and videos of war memorials in Ukrainian propaganda

Chapter 6. Responding to Invasion: Toppling Monuments, Building Monuments

Monuments defiant

Monuments and anti-war protest in Russia

Iconoclasm abroad and in free Ukraine

New and renewed memorials

Chapter 7

Dates, Practices, Symbols

The commemorative calendar

Table of commemorative dates

Linking practices

Educational practices

Symbols

Chapter 8

Conclusions

Goalposts of a shifting frontier.

Decentering perspectives on war memorials

Bibliography

About the Authors

Index of Places in Ukraine

Index of Names

Back cover.

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0

Description based on publisher supplied metadata and other sources.

ISBN:

1-003-72084-6

963-386-823-8

9781003720843

OCLC:

1518028813