Murals as Memory Carriers. Analysis of the Meanings Given to Them and the Attitudes of Their Creators

The phenomenon of wall paintings has been developing in public space since the Mexican Revolution. Murals are used, among other purposes, to capture memories. Moreover, they are one of the most popular forms of representation of the past in public space, commonly called memory carriers. In the discussion of the research being carried out, the opportunities associated with the formation of historical awareness and attitudes towards society’s past through commemorative murals will be highlighted.The research was conducted from July to November 2020. It was based on the analysis of the existing materials – photographs of commemorative murals (significant and marked elements) and interviews with semi-structured memory agents. The first stage of the described research focused on the authors of commemorative murals.The aim of the research was to determine the meaning and values that the creators of murals have given in general and in particular to the commemorative murals made by themselves.The research allowed, among other things, to answer questions concerning the artistic path of the creators (graffiti environment), what factors influenced the process of making mural (family history, one’s own past, finances, social involvement), worldview and values of the declared creators (patriotism) and attitude to the politics of memory.

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A Bridge to the Past: Public Memory and Nostalgia for the Communist Times in Modern Georgia

Journal of Nationalism Memory & Language Politics ◽

10.2478/jnmlp-2018-0005 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

pp. 31-51

Author(s):

Elisabeth Kovtiak

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

Main Argument ◽

Ordinary People ◽

Politics Of Memory ◽

The Public ◽

Official Discourse ◽

Soviet People ◽

The Past ◽

Ideological Background ◽

Flea Market

AbstractThis paper deals with the politics of memory in contemporary Georgia’s public space. It explores the relations between official and vernacular commemorations of the Soviet past in Tbilisi. In this paper, I have studied the forms of materialization of vernacular memories in the public space and provided a frame in which they exist, including the ideological background of decommunization in Georgia and peculiarities of the Soviet era museumizing in state museums. The official discourse demonizes the previous epoque and neglects all its benefits, whereas the ordinary people are quite nuanced in their memories of their past – this contradiction leads to manifestations of vernacular memories. Therefore, this paper focuses mostly on Tbilisi’s Dry Bridge, a famous flea market where the memory of the recent Soviet past is negotiated. The main argument is that this particular flea market and its artifacts might be regarded as a “vernacular memorial” and “lieu de memoire” where nostalgia for an officially demonized era can be expressed and materialized. This paper explores the items that are on sale, explaining their meaning for the post-Soviet people, and describes the intangible practices that can be observed there. In addition, this paper unpacks that these nostalgic practices should not be considered as “unhealthy” or “retrospective” as it helps people to adapt to modernity and develop by considering more than one hegemonic version of their past.

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Uniformed Services Pension Amendment Acts in Poland as Part of State Politics of Memory

Archiwum Filozofii Prawa i Filozofii Społecznej ◽

10.36280/afpifs.2019.3.67 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 67-80

Author(s):

Mateusz Grabarczyk

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

Transitional Justice ◽

State Politics ◽

Specific Group ◽

Politics Of Memory ◽

Security Services ◽

The Past ◽

Historical Justice ◽

Political Narrative ◽

Administrative Sanctions

The article is an analysis of the regulations regarding the reduction of pensions of former officers of the People's Republic of Poland’s security services as an element of state politics of memory, presenting the Uniformed Services Pension Amendment Acts of 2009 and 2016 from the perspective of transitional justice. Whilst investigating the admissibility of using such a retribution mechanism, the author draws attention to the purpose of this type of regulation. Reducing pensions has, in fact, two goals – a retrospective one and a prospective one. The retrospective goal is about administering historical justice by penalizing a specific group of people using various mechanisms (in this case administrative sanctions). In the prospective aspect, it is an element of institutionalizing memory and building a specific political narrative. As a consequence, apart from commemorative practices, it aims to produce and disseminate knowledge in public space, while clearly rejecting the past regime. In relation to the Uniformed Services Pension Amendment Acts, while the Act of 2009 was to some extent aimed at the retrospective goal, the 2016 Act is primarily an element of politics of memory used by authorities to control the recollection of past events by explicitly condemning the previous system and all persons in any way related to it. For this reason, the author focuses on the mechanism of reducing pensions as one of the elements of politics of memory in Poland.

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Chelovek.RU/Человек.RU

Chelovek RU ◽

10.32691/2410-0935-2020-15-18-53 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 18-53

Author(s):

Sergei Avanesov ◽

Keyword(s):

Family History ◽

Great Distance ◽

Point Of View ◽

The Past ◽

Russian Philosopher ◽

True Meaning ◽

The Future ◽

Pavel Florensky ◽

The Moment

Abstract. The article analyzes the autobiography of the famous Russian philosopher, theologian and scientist Pavel Florensky, as well as those of his texts that retain traces of memories. According to Florensky, the personal biography is based on family history and continues in children. He addresses his own biography to his children. Memories based on diary entries are designed as a memory diary, that is, as material for future memories. The past becomes actual in autobiography, turns into a kind of present. The past, from the point of view of its realization in the present, gains meaning and significance. The au-thor is active in relation to his own past, transforming it from a collection of disparate facts into a se-quence of events. A person can only see the true meaning of such events from a great distance. Therefore, the philosopher remembers not so much the circumstances of his life as the inner impressions of the en-counter with reality. The most powerful personality-forming experiences are associated with childhood. Even the moment of birth can decisively affect the character of a person and the range of his interests. The foundations of a person's worldview are laid precisely in childhood. Florensky not only writes mem-oirs about himself, but also tries to analyze the problems of time and memory. A person is immersed in time, but he is able to move into the past through memory and into the future through faith. An autobi-ography can never be written to the end because its author lives on. However, reaching the depths of life, he is able to build his path in such a way that at the end of this path he will unite with the fullness of time, with eternity.

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Populism and Memory: Legislation of the Past in Poland, Ukraine, and Russia

East European Politics and Societies and Cultures ◽

10.1177/0888325420950806 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 088832542095080

Author(s):

Nikolay Koposov

Keyword(s):

Soft Power ◽

Historical Memory ◽

Authoritarian Regimes ◽

Crimes Against Humanity ◽

National Narratives ◽

Politics Of Memory ◽

Democratic Culture ◽

The Past ◽

Initial Stage ◽

The Holocaust

This article belongs to the special cluster “Here to Stay: The Politics of History in Eastern Europe”, guest-edited by Félix Krawatzek & George Soroka. The rise of historical memory, which began in the 1970s and 1980s, has made the past an increasingly important soft-power resource. At its initial stage, the rise of memory contributed to the decay of self-congratulatory national narratives and to the formation of a “cosmopolitan” memory centered on the Holocaust and other crimes against humanity and informed by the notion of state repentance for the wrongdoings of the past. Laws criminalizing the denial of these crimes, which were adopted in “old” continental democracies in the 1980s and 1990s, were a characteristic expression of this democratic culture of memory. However, with the rise of national populism and the formation of the authoritarian or semi-authoritarian regimes in Russia, Turkey, Hungary, and Poland in the 2000s and 2010s, the politics of memory has taken a significantly different turn. National populists are remarkably persistent in whitewashing their countries’ history and using it to promote nationalist mobilization. This process has manifested itself in the formation of new types of memory laws, which shift the blame for historical injustices to other countries (the 1998 Polish, the 2000 Czech, the 2010 Lithuanian, the June 2010 Hungarian, and the 2014 Latvian statutes) and, in some cases, openly protect the memory of the perpetrators of crimes against humanity (the 2005 Turkish, the 2014 Russian, the 2015 Ukrainian, the 2006 and the 2018 Polish enactments). The article examines Russian, Polish, and Ukrainian legislation regarding the past that demonstrates the current linkage between populism and memory.

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The Politics of Memory: Rededicating Two Historical Monuments in Postwar Germany

Central European History ◽

10.1017/s0008938908000332 ◽

2008 ◽

Vol 41 (2) ◽

pp. 255-280

Author(s):

Sam A. Mustafa

Keyword(s):

Twentieth Century ◽

Middle Class ◽

Politics Of Memory ◽

Postwar Germany ◽

The Past ◽

Historical Monuments ◽

Coffee Table

For much of the past two centuries German governments encouraged or even sponsored the construction of war monuments. By the turn of the twentieth century Germany was covered in more than a thousand such shrines, most of which had local or regional significance as places of annual celebration or commemoration. Government, media, and business all contributed to an elaborate hagiography of Germany's battles, war heroes, and martyrs, with monuments usually serving as the centerpieces. Millions of middle-class Germans attended or participated in commemoration ceremonies at war monuments all over the country, and/or filled their homes with souvenir trinkets, tableware, wall decorations, coffee-table books, and other quotidian items that reproduced images of the monuments or scenes from the events they memorialized.

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UNDERSTANDING LAW AND RELIGION AS CULTURE: MAKING ROOM FOR MEANING IN THE PUBLIC SPHERE

Constitutional Forum / Forum constitutionnel ◽

10.21991/c9dw92 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 15 (1, 2 & 3) ◽

pp. 2006

Author(s):

Benjamin L. Berger

Keyword(s):

Public Sphere ◽

Public Space ◽

Public Discourse ◽

Religious Groups ◽

The Public ◽

The Past ◽

Law And Politics ◽

Important Relationship ◽

The Public Sphere ◽

The Relationship

The relationship between law and religion in contemporary civil society has been a topic of increasing social interest and importance in Canada in the past many years. We have seen the practices and commitments of religious groups and individuals become highly salient on many issues of public policy, including the nature of the institution of marriage, the content of public education, and the uses of public space, to name just a few. As the vehicle for this discussion, I want to ask a straightforward question: When we listen to our public discourse, what is the story that we hear about the relationship between law and religion? How does this topic tend to be spoken about in law and politics – what is our idiom around this issue – and does this story serve us well? Though straightforward, this question has gone all but unanswered in our political and academic discussions. We take for granted our approach to speaking about – and, therefore, our way of thinking about – the relationship between law and religion. In my view, this is most unfortunate because this taken-for-grantedness is the source of our failure to properly understand the critically important relationship between law and religion.

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Politics of Memory: Making Slavery Visible in the Public Space

Rhetoric and Public Affairs ◽

10.14321/rhetpublaffa.18.4.0793 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 18 (4) ◽

pp. 793

Author(s):

McVey

Keyword(s):

Public Space ◽

Politics Of Memory ◽

The Public

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Between the past and the present: the Ixil Maya and the discovery of rare mural paintings in Guatemala

Estudios Latinoamericanos ◽

10.36447/estudios2014.v33-34.art7 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 34 ◽

pp. 169-185

Author(s):

Jarosław Źrałka ◽

Katarzyna Radnicka

Keyword(s):

Colonial Period ◽

Cultural Continuity ◽

Wall Paintings ◽

The Past ◽

The North ◽

Mural Paintings ◽

History Of ◽

Maya Area ◽

Distinct Features ◽

North Western

The Ixil Maya area is located in Quiche Department of the north-western part of the Guatemalan Highlands. It has witnessed a continuous occupation since the 1st millennium BC till today. This archaeologically interesting region has provided many important discoveries of rare cultural mixture, with distinct features typical for both Maya Highlands and more distant Lowlands. Recently, the scholarly interest has focused on Chajul where a few years ago, in one of the local houses, well preserved wall paintings dated to the Colonial period were exposed by the house owner during the process of its renovation. With this extraordinary finding a question emerged - are we able to confirm the cultural continuity between the pre-Columbian settlers and modem Ixil who claim «to be always here»? This paper presents a brief outline of the history of the Ixil Maya. It also presents results of some recent and preliminary studies conducted by Polish scholars in this region.

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