While Robert Musil may have written that “the most remarkable thing about monuments is that no one notices them,” this is not the case during times of political unrest or when there is a perceived (or desired) rupture in historical time. The creation (or destruction) of memorials and monuments is always intimately bound up in power relations, and battles over history, identity, and authority are often played out in the memorial landscape of a country.
This is the case that we are currently seeing in Estonia. A Soviet-era World War II memorial has been the symbolic source of diplomatic tensions between Estonia and Russia for months. The attempted removal of this memorial just over a month ago sparked violent protests on the streets that killed at least one person and severely disrupted diplomatic relations between Estonia and Russia. Estonia gained independence from Russia in 1991 and has been a member of both NATO and the EU since 2004. The monument was erected by Russians in 1947 to commemorate the end of World War II and Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany. The desire to remove the monument was, as the New York Times reported, seen by Russia and Estonians of Russian descent as blasphemous and even tantamount to the glorification of Nazism.
Estonia’s increasing integration into the EU and alignment with Western Europe and also the proposed American missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic has allowed Russia to use “the fate of the monument …as a proxy for broader grievances with the United States and NATO generally.” (New York Times April 28). As Russia’s parliament called for the severing of relations or the imposition of sanctions on Estonia, thousands of people began launching what is now being called the first full cyber war on Estonia. (New York Times article May 29th) The attacks began on April 26 and have since grown in intensity. Well-organized plans for attacks on May 9th, Russians “Victory Day” (celebrating the end of World War II) were carried out, increasing internet traffic flow in Estonia to over 1000 times its normal rate and shutting down government and financial sites. While the attacks have come from as far as the US and Vietnam, it is widely believed in Estonia to be an assault by the Russian government.
The political appropriations of memorials and commemorative dates show how intimately memorials are tied to power relations and the symbolic presentation of a country’s national narrative (even in this case, where the memorial stands in a different country). Why is this particular monument the source of such controversy? Internal debates, such as the Russian-speaking ethnic minorities’ place in Estonia certainly play a role. On another scale, it surely has a lot to do with Russia’s intention to assert what as seen as its moral victory in World War II and also justify their long-time presence in their former territory. Many Estonians wish to symbolically sever their country’s ties with its former occupier as they move ever closer to the New Europe. One of the most time-honored ways of doing this is to dismantle memorial sites belonging to the old regime.
This particular case makes strikingly evident the fact that the memory and narratives of both the Second World War and the Cold War still carry enormous significance in the politics of history and memorialization today.
Report from May 29, 2007: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/technology/29estonia.html?pagewanted=1&hp
This is the case that we are currently seeing in Estonia. A Soviet-era World War II memorial has been the symbolic source of diplomatic tensions between Estonia and Russia for months. The attempted removal of this memorial just over a month ago sparked violent protests on the streets that killed at least one person and severely disrupted diplomatic relations between Estonia and Russia. Estonia gained independence from Russia in 1991 and has been a member of both NATO and the EU since 2004. The monument was erected by Russians in 1947 to commemorate the end of World War II and Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany. The desire to remove the monument was, as the New York Times reported, seen by Russia and Estonians of Russian descent as blasphemous and even tantamount to the glorification of Nazism.
Estonia’s increasing integration into the EU and alignment with Western Europe and also the proposed American missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic has allowed Russia to use “the fate of the monument …as a proxy for broader grievances with the United States and NATO generally.” (New York Times April 28). As Russia’s parliament called for the severing of relations or the imposition of sanctions on Estonia, thousands of people began launching what is now being called the first full cyber war on Estonia. (New York Times article May 29th) The attacks began on April 26 and have since grown in intensity. Well-organized plans for attacks on May 9th, Russians “Victory Day” (celebrating the end of World War II) were carried out, increasing internet traffic flow in Estonia to over 1000 times its normal rate and shutting down government and financial sites. While the attacks have come from as far as the US and Vietnam, it is widely believed in Estonia to be an assault by the Russian government.
The political appropriations of memorials and commemorative dates show how intimately memorials are tied to power relations and the symbolic presentation of a country’s national narrative (even in this case, where the memorial stands in a different country). Why is this particular monument the source of such controversy? Internal debates, such as the Russian-speaking ethnic minorities’ place in Estonia certainly play a role. On another scale, it surely has a lot to do with Russia’s intention to assert what as seen as its moral victory in World War II and also justify their long-time presence in their former territory. Many Estonians wish to symbolically sever their country’s ties with its former occupier as they move ever closer to the New Europe. One of the most time-honored ways of doing this is to dismantle memorial sites belonging to the old regime.
This particular case makes strikingly evident the fact that the memory and narratives of both the Second World War and the Cold War still carry enormous significance in the politics of history and memorialization today.
Report from May 29, 2007: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/05/29/technology/29estonia.html?pagewanted=1&hp
Leaving that monument in peace and focusing on integration policy and positive peace would have served Estonia and its people far better.