Overview

From the very first weeks of Russia’s large-scale attack on Ukraine in February 2022, Russian soldiers, politicians, and proxy administrators expended considerable effort interacting with monuments on newly occupied territory. Why did the invaders care enough about war memorials to divert scarce resources to destroying, maintaining, or building them amid a massive war? Why did they remove some memorials and spare others? What was the point of commemorating past victories and defeats while bombing Ukrainian cities, and how did commemorative ceremonies in the occupied territories change over the first year of the war? What was the broader impact of monument-related practices beyond the local settings in which they occurred? And what does the Ukrainian case teach us more generally about how memorials to past wars can be used to justify new conquests? These are some of the questions this book explores, based on fieldwork in occupied Ukraine and online research.

Full Product Details

Author:   Mischa Gabowitsch ,  Mykola Homanyuk
Publisher:   Central European University Press
Imprint:   Central European University Press
ISBN:  

9789633868225

ISBN 10:   963386822
Pages:   238
Publication Date:   06 May 2025
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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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 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. Conclusion Goalposts of a shifting frontier Decentering perspectives on war memorials Acknowledgments Index of places in Ukraine Index of names Bibliography About the Authors

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Author Information

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. 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).

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