Anna Glew. Canadian Slavonic Papers. Volume 63, Issue 1-2, 2021.
The urban landscape of independent Ukraine is characterized by the strong presence of Soviet-era memorials to the Great Patriotic War. The need to analyze the role of the inherited Soviet landscape in commemorative processes has become particularly topical with the addition of new war memorials, especially those commemorating the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-89) and the Russia-Ukraine conflict (ongoing since 2014). This article will seek to explore how the Soviet commemorative landscape (in particular, its memorials to the Great Patriotic War) impacts the spatial positioning of memorials to the Soviet-Afghan war and the Russia-Ukraine conflict, through a case study of the Poltava oblast (central Ukraine). The article will demonstrate that Soviet memorials to the Great Patriotic War laid the foundation for present-day understandings of the symbolic potency of the existing urban landscape, which is also shaped by the limited availability of centrally located sites.
Academic literature approaches the phenomenon of war commemoration from different perspectives, including (among others) the state politics of memory, grassroots memorialization, the visual language and symbolism of war memorials, and the re-examination of war narratives. At the same time, some scholars emphasize that research on war memorials should also take into account their positioning in the urban landscape. As Mariusz Czepczyński notes, “Landscape is one of the most visible and ‘communicative’ media, through which thoughts, ideas, and feelings as well as powers and social constructions are represented within a culture.” Indeed, by examining the symbolic dialogue of neighbouring commemorative objects, Shanti Sumartojo demonstrates that a memorial’s meaning is partially derived from its spatial context. The issue of the “clustering” of memorials within the same sites is analyzed by Quentin Stevens and Karen A. Franck, who explain that new memorials do not always fit neatly into existing commemorative precincts and narratives. The present article will build on the works of Czepczyński, Sumartojo, Stevens, and Franck, tracing the continued impact of the Soviet urban landscape on the positioning of post-Soviet war memorials in the Poltava oblast.
The data were collected during fieldwork in the Poltava oblast in 2018-20. They include spatial analysis of urban commemorative landscapes and interviews with local grassroots memory actors (war veterans and families of fallen servicemen) involved in the construction of new war memorials. Although the article will consider the involvement of local authorities, it will focus on grassroots memory actors as the main interested party (striving for recognition of their experience through commemoration) and the main driving force behind the construction of new war memorials.
Regional difference in historical memory in Ukraine is a topic that drives heated debates in academic literature. Thus, some scholars compare historical memories in geographically “polar” Lviv and Donetsk. Others insist on the importance of studying individual cultural-historical regions in order to break the widespread stereotype of “two Ukraines” (the nationalistic west and the pro-Russian east or southeast). In this regard, central Ukraine deserves particular attention. Although some important research has been done on various aspects of the historical memory of central Ukraine, to a large degree this region is still significantly understudied. The present article seeks to contribute to research on historical memory in central Ukraine.
Although the article focuses on only one oblast of central Ukraine (the Poltava oblast), this choice does not suggest that the inherited Soviet urban landscape in this oblast is significantly different from such landscapes in other oblasts in central Ukraine. Neither is such suggestion made in relation to the commemorative activity of the analyzed memory actors. Instead, the Poltava oblast should be seen as a representative case study. Confining the analysis to a single administrative oblast offers the opportunity to compare practices observed in towns and cities that are situated close to each other and have a similar historical background but feature different urban landscapes (in terms of both size and layout). Furthermore, it is important to recognize that the activity of grassroots memory actors is not carried out in a vacuum. Rather, they actively reflect on commemorative practices in other parts of Ukraine (as confirmed by several interviews). At the same time, it is also important to account for the interaction of grassroots memory actors within a given oblast. Thus, deciding on what would work best for them, grassroots memory actors typically compare how new war memorials are designed and positioned in the neighbouring cities and towns within the oblast.
The inherited Soviet landscape
During the decades of Soviet rule, the urban landscape in most Ukrainian cities, towns, and villages obtained a very characteristic structure. Specifically, key central sites (such as parks and squares) were used or created in order to place a range of commemorative objects, including monuments to Communist leaders and the October Revolution, and memorials to those fallen in the Great Patriotic War. As in other state socialist countries of central and eastern Europe, monuments to Lenin and the October Revolution were normally placed in dominant positions in the urban landscape. In the Poltava oblast, monuments to Lenin were typically placed near the main municipal buildings (such as the local council), or in a square that was easily observed by the residents in the course of their everyday lives. They were supplemented by monuments to the local Fighters for Soviet Rule, which dotted central areas of the cities, towns, and villages in visually and physically accessible locations. Such standardization and “sameness” of the urban landscapes “created a sense of cultural and historical commonality” for the Soviet citizens and inscribed power relations. Unlike in western Ukraine, where many Communist monuments were demolished in the early 1990s, in central Ukraine they remained mostly untouched until the nation-wide “Leninopad,” associated with the Euromaidan protests (2013-14) and the so-called de-Communization laws of 2015.
In addition, many Ukrainian cities and towns inherited Soviet-era monuments to the national poet Taras Shevchenko, embraced by the Soviet authorities as an anti-tsarist, as well as to other renowned individuals (of both national and local significance). However, their location is usually less central: they can be found near libraries, schools, palaces of culture, or in less visible corners of alleys and parks. Despite the fact that commemoration of such notable figures was sanctioned by the Soviet authorities, most of them preserved their place in local and Ukrainian history and still constitute an important part of the urban commemorative landscape.
As for memorials to the Great Patriotic War, their location was determined both by the specific events commemorated and by broader strategic planning. Thus, in many cases the main memorial was constructed over a mass grave of Soviet soldiers. Such examples include Kremenchuk, where the Eternally Alive memorial marks the place of one of the city’s concentration camps for prisoners of war, which was set up by the Germans during the occupation (and operated from 1941 to 1943). In Poltava, the Soldier’s Glory memorial is located at the site where thousands of Soviet POWs and civilians were buried. Similar examples of memorials to the Great Patriotic War marking the sites of burials can be found in Chutove, Karlivka, Khorol, Kobeliaky, Kotelva, Opishnia, and many other cities, towns, and villages. Since many of these concentration camps and mass burials were often created within the boundaries of the city or town, this contributed to the prominence of the memorials marking these sites, which was also enhanced by careful city planning. Furthermore, many memorials to the Great Patriotic War can be found in the suburbs, at the cemeteries that became resting places of many other Soviet soldiers. In Myrhorod, for example, in addition to the centrally located large memorial, there are memorials at two cemeteries in the city’s outskirts. Despite their remote location, they are still easily visible to the city’s residents and visitors: the large metal statues face key roads and can be noticed from afar. There is, however, one more group of memorials that are less visible; although they, too, mark burial sites, these are dedicated to civilians killed by the Nazis. Although many of these civilians were Jews, such Soviet-time memorials did not specify nationalities. In order to find these memorials, one would need to know where they are and search for them intentionally. They are found in shaded, hidden corners or remote fields of the cities and towns; examples include the Skorbna Maty (Mournful Mother) memorial in Poltava and the Myrnym Zhyteliam (To Peaceful Residents) memorial in Myrhorod. In Khorol, the interviewed locals confirmed that they knew that the city’s Soviet-era memorial to civilians was located on the site where Germans killed local Jews. However, none were able to remember its exact location.
It is important to note that the majority of the Great Patriotic War memorials in the Poltava oblast were constructed during Leonid Brezhnev’s tenure as General Secretary of the Communist Party (1964-82). This period is associated with the active production of the “Myth of the Great Patriotic War,” which focused on the Soviet Union’s triumph over Nazism (while silencing the counter-memories of the anti-Soviet nationalist resistance, collaboration with the Nazis, and the crimes of the Soviet regime). Such triumphalist narratives are reflected in the design of war memorials. Although shortly after the end of the war local communities typically constructed memorials that expressed the people’s widespread mourning, in the Poltava oblast, just as in many other areas of the former USSR, many of these did not survive the test of time as they were poorly constructed, and they were later replaced by much grander memorials. At the same time, some small towns and villages of the oblast feature central memorials to the Great Patriotic War that were constructed in the 1950s, before the Brezhnev era – for example, in the villages of Vepryk (1956) and Kamiani Potoky (1958). Although they follow the same placement patterns as memorials of the Brezhnev era, they are featured in this article to a lesser degree. This is due to the fact that smaller towns and villages, where such memorials are often found, rarely construct memorials to the Soviet-Afghan war and the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
For the purposes of this article, the centrally located Soviet memorials to the Great Patriotic War in the cities and towns of the Poltava oblast should be described in more detail. Whether located on the sites of burials or not, they are easily accessible to the public. Often, they are surrounded by a spacious park that is regularly visited by locals for leisure purposes. Some of these memorials face a central road, and others are placed deeper in the park; however, most are easily noticeable. Almost all of them are executed as large, often grandiose structures. In Poltava, the Soldier’s Glory memorial includes a six-meter-high granite soldier holding a shield, standing next to a 22-meter-high obelisk. In Kremenchuk, the sculptural pediment of the Eternally Alive memorial is 40 meters long and includes 6.5-meter-high statues (five male soldiers and one young woman with a child). Even in smaller towns the main memorials to the Great Patriotic War are significant in size; they are commonly more than four to six meters high and consist of either a granite or marble stele with carved or relief images of soldiers (such as in Myrhorod and Karlivka), a metal statue on a pedestal (for example, in Dykanka and Lokhvytsia), or an obelisk (Horishni Plavni, Kotelva). Representations of armed Red Army soldiers dominate in memorials to the Great Patriotic War in the oblast. However, there are also examples where the main statue shows a strong woman solemnly mourning the death of the soldiers (such as in Zinkiv, Hadiach, and Chutove). In either case, the soldiers’ sacrifice and unquestionable heroism is the central theme expressed by the majority of Soviet memorials to the Great Patriotic War in the Poltava oblast, just as in Ukraine in general. Constructed as part of the Soviet Union’s wider politics of memory, these war memorials extol martyrdom in the name of the nation and focus on the grandeur of victory, which justified its cost in human suffering.
It should be emphasized that Ukraine (including the Poltava oblast) was an area that saw occupation, battles, and huge devastation during the Second World War. This produced powerful emotional connections to the war memorials built by the Soviet state. As Nina Tumarkin and Siobhan Kattago note, although Soviet memorials to the Great Patriotic War foreground narratives of heroism, they also express mourning, a characterization that applies to the monuments found in the Poltava oblast. Thanks to the interconnectedness of these narratives, after the collapse of the Soviet Union the memory of the Second World War continues to play an important role in both collective and individual commemoration in Ukraine, where many people remember the devastating impact of the war on their families.
After the dissolution of the USSR in 1991, the urban landscape in Ukraine underwent some significant changes. Over the first two decades of Ukraine’s independence, numerous new memorials and monuments were constructed as part of the wider process of re-examining Ukraine’s history. As a result, most cities, towns, and villages in Ukraine now feature objects commemorating the Chernobyl disaster (1986), the Holodomor (the man-made famine of 1932-33), and also the local soldiers fallen in the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-89) and other Soviet conflicts abroad. In the Poltava oblast, the topic of the Holodomor is highly important for residents: the region was severely affected by the famine of 1932-33, which has a strong presence in local collective memory. However, memorials to the Holodomor are constructed in less central areas of cities and towns, often marking known sites where the victims of the famine were buried (for example, in Kremenchuk, Lubny, and Myrhorod). In other words, their addition to the urban landscape was not affected by the saturated landscapes of the central areas of cities and towns, where the majority of inherited Soviet commemorative objects are located. Similarly, although many cities and towns constructed new memorials to commemorate the victims of the Holocaust, they are also not centrally located. The Chernobyl and Afghan memorials, on the other hand, provide an important basis for tracing the Soviet legacy in the commemorative landscape of independent Ukraine. Their construction provides an excellent case for examining how the placement and design of new memorials is affected by the already existing urban landscape. Although the present article focuses on memorials commemorating violent conflicts (the Soviet-Afghan war and the Russia-Ukraine conflict), it is important to stress that their construction should be considered in the context of wider processes of urban commemoration, in which commemoration of the Chernobyl disaster plays a significant role.
Memorialization of the Soviet-Afghan war
The issue of adding new war memorials to the urban landscape became particularly topical when grassroots memory actors put forward proposals to commemorate the Soviet-Afghan war (1979-89). According to the Ukrainian Union of Veterans of Afghanistan, more than 3000 soldiers from Ukraine died in this war. After 1991, many Afghan veterans in Ukraine formed veterans’ unions and actively lobbied for the construction of Afghan memorials in their cities and towns. In the Poltava oblast, the construction of such memorials began in the late 1990s and continues to this day. Although they no longer faced the opposition of Soviet authorities, in many cases the veterans had to find the funds for such projects themselves; this also meant that they themselves decided what kind of design they wanted to use. In the Poltava oblast, the issue of funding had a clear impact on the size and design of such memorials: most of them consist of a large stone with a memorial plaque (for example, in Velyka Bahachka, Hrebinka, Karlivka, Novi Sanzhary) or a granite stele with a simple inscription (Hradyzk, Dykanka, Shyshaky). Those memorials that have a more complex design often feature an image or sculpture of a soldier who has just left the field of battle and mourns over his comrades (Lokhvytsia, Myrhorod, Poltava). There is nothing heroic in these figures; some are shown with their arms resting on a rifle (Semenivka, Hlobyne), others are reading letters from home and even smoking (Horishni Plavni, Kremenchuk), or simply looking back at their viewers (Kobeliaky, Reshetylivka). The inscriptions tell of trauma and loss: “Afghanistan is a pain in my soul” (Lubny, Zinkiv), “Afghanistan – why do I feel sadness and pain when I hear this word?” (Khorol). The Afghan memorials in the Poltava oblast deliver the narrative of mourning and show a soldier as an ordinary person rather than a hero, and thus they depart from the triumphalist narrative template established by Great Patriotic War memorials. Some of the veterans involved in commissioning the memorials explained that they were mourning over the loss of their comrades, but they also wanted to emphasize that they were true to their military oath and did their best to obey orders, even though the war itself was unjustified. Such narratives were common for the post-Soviet commemoration of the Afghan war, which was characterized by emphasis on the ideas of duty, honour, and comradeship.
The selected and authorized locations of Afghan memorials are a result of often prolonged and emotionally charged negotiations between the veterans (the main interested party) and local authorities (who are responsible for issuing official permits for the use of public land). Analysis of the locations of Afghan memorials in the Poltava oblast reveals the pronounced impact of the Soviet commemorative landscape. This article argues that its enduring agency is manifested in two important ways: first, the symbolic potency of different sites in the urban landscape, and second, the availability of such sites for commemorative use. Although these factors do not always lead to the same result, they are always at play in negotiations over the positioning of new memorials, as the next section will demonstrate.
According to Czepczyński, “Landscape, in a similar way to language, can operate as a representational system. Signs, names, buildings, places, and spaces can be read and interpreted as geosymbols.” When examining the placing of the Afghan memorials into the existing landscape, it is essential to take into account the symbolism of different sites that formed during Soviet times. Specifically, it is important to consider the relation between a site and the perceived recognition of memory. The need for recognition of memories is often an important driver of bottom-up commemorative projects, and scholarly literature discusses various means that help satisfy this need. Thus, Alex King explains that the very construction of a war memorial can be seen as a sign that the dead have been properly appreciated through the performance of appropriate actions. Moreover, memories are recognized through particular choices in the memorial’s design, as well as through the organization of public ceremonies. However, as Stevens and Franck note, the importance of a commemorated event can also be confirmed by the memorial’s placement in a key location. This article argues that the careful planning of the urban landscape during the Soviet period provided a frame of reference for memorialization in post-Soviet Ukraine. From the public’s point of view, if a memorial is allocated a key location, it means that this memory is taken seriously, recognized, and respected.
This phenomenon can be seen in Kremenchuk (population 225,000), where interviewed Afghan veterans explained that they put a lot of effort into obtaining permission to use a self-contained, well-situated park for their memorial because “their memory deserves the same level of respect as the Second World War.” For them, as well as for other Afghan veterans in the Poltava oblast, the official allocation of a key site for their memorial is seen as one of the signs that their memories are recognized. Deepening Stevens’ and Franck’s perspective, Sumartojo suggests that the spatial context of memorials is one of the indicators of the value of the commemorated memory to the state. Considering that the final decision on the allocation of a site has to be made by local authorities, recognition by the state does stand out as an objective of the veterans’ memorialization efforts. At the same time, a well-located site also ensures that the public will have easy access to the memorial, which maximizes the chances of the memory being preserved in the local community. In the Poltava oblast, only Kremenchuk and Poltava (the largest cities of the oblast) managed to turn a self-contained, pre-existing park into a dedicated Park of Internationalist Fighters and to use it as a place for their Afghan memorials. These two cities enjoy relative flexibility in terms of available space, especially because some of their neighbourhoods have their own self-contained parks. Both in Poltava and Kremenchuk, the Parks of Internationalist Fighters are located in popular and busy residential neighbourhoods, and they are regularly visited by locals. In these two parks, the Afghan memorials are not supplemented by any other commemorative objects and they enjoy exclusive attention from the public. At the same time, they are rather remote from the city centres, where the large memorials to the Great Patriotic War are situated. Due to their greater centrality, memorials to the Great Patriotic War continue to attract more attention, leaving the memory of the Soviet-Afghan war on the periphery.
In most cases in the Poltava oblast, however, the landscape inherited from the Soviet period is much more restrictive; cities and towns normally have only one park, which is located centrally and already includes a prominent Soviet memorial dedicated to the Great Patriotic War. Moreover, until the recent “de-Communization” other key locations (such as those near municipal and other public buildings) were occupied by Communist monuments. In their search for a suitable and available location, Afghan veterans would arrive at their city’s or town’s central park. The layouts of such parks were designed during the Soviet period to foreground the Great Patriotic War memorial. Thus, regardless of whether the Great Patriotic War memorial faces “outwards” onto a central road or is located deeper in the park, it invariably has a spacious path leading the locals to this site of memory. There is also normally a paved area in front of the memorial, which is used to accommodate large groups during the commemorative events regularly held at this location. Although such parks are often spacious, their layout makes it difficult to ensure that any new commemorative objects achieve equal prominence. Afghan memorials are usually located not far from the Great Patriotic War memorial; the central wide path acquired a small, paved “offshoot” where the Afghan memorial was placed. In such cases “path-dependency” acquires a literal meaning. Such proximity of local Afghan and Great Patriotic War memorials can be observed in many cities and towns of the oblast, including Kobeliaky, Opishnia, Myrhorod, Zinkiv, Kotelva, Hadiach, Novi Sanzhary, Dykanka, and Shyshaky.
The proximity of Great Patriotic War and Afghan memorials makes differences in size particularly glaring. Because most Afghan memorials in the Poltava oblast were constructed using limited funds (collected or donated by veterans themselves), their size is rather modest: they are normally not more than two meters high. Although in some instances (for example, in Myrhorod and Hadiach) the Afghan memorials are larger and thus more noticeable, they still cannot compete with the grandiose scale of the neighbouring Great Patriotic War memorials. Such a phenomenon of added memorials can be observed not only in Ukraine; as Stevens demonstrates, no new commemorative precincts have been created in London, Berlin, or New York for at least the past five decades, and new memorials have to be woven into the existing landscape. According to Stevens, each new memorial contributes to ongoing redefinitions of priorities for collective memory and identity. In the analyzed cases in the Poltava oblast, the memory of the Soviet-Afghan war not only appears to be secondary in relation to the memory of the Great Patriotic War, but it also reinforces the dominance of Great Patriotic War memory. Although the size of the Afghan memorials contributes to this effect, to a significant degree it results from space limitations in the urban landscape inherited from the Soviet Union. The evidence supports Jeffrey Olick’s perspective on the dialogical nature of commemoration, in which “Commemorative images of the past not only reflect the commemorated event and the contemporary circumstances, but are path-dependent products of earlier commemorations as well.” If, for example, there was an opportunity to place these modest Afghan memorials in a separate, spacious, and equally accessible park, their dialogue with memorials to the Great Patriotic War would have a different character.
It is important to add, however, that the symbolic effect produced by the proximity of the Great Patriotic War and Afghan memorials can go beyond the hierarchization of memories as main and secondary. For example, in Myrhorod (population 40,000), authorities offered local veterans the use of a separate park. However, believing that the proposed location was too remote and inaccessible to the public, they insisted on adding their memorial to the centrally located Park of Glory – the location of a large Great Patriotic War memorial. Moreover, as one veteran explained in an interview, they wanted to expand the narrative of war: “We want to remind future generations that war brings nothing good and that it brings death, injuries, and tears of mothers.” The veterans tried to express this view through the visual language of their memorial: it features a bronze statue of a soldier who has just left battle with head slightly bowed, thinking about his comrades who did not make it. The inscription supports the narrative of mourning: “Afghanistan is a foreign land that took mother’s children, and the quiet sadness of this tear burns through the granite” (Афганістан – земля чужа, дітей у матері забрала, і пропікає ця сльоза граніт безмовної печалі). At the same time, they also noted that they wanted their memorial to be near “the heroes of the Great Patriotic War,” so that the Great Patriotic War memorial (constructed in 1965) and the new Afghan memorial (constructed in 2015) would jointly tell future generations about the lives of their “fathers, grandfathers, and great-grandfathers.” According to Sumartojo, the physical addition of new memorials to older ones can produce a legitimizing effect. In the case of Myrhorod, it is possible that by situating the Afghan memorial next to the Great Patriotic War memorial, the memory of the Soviet-Afghan war (which is seen as unjust and unheroic) receives a certain degree of legitimation. In other words, if the memorial to the unheroic war was officially added to the memorial of heroes, this may lend a certain respect to Afghan veterans.
Even so, the proximity of the Afghan memorial to the Great Patriotic War memorial in Myrhorod is subject to different interpretations (such as a focus on the less glorious aspects of war, an intergenerational, local history of military bravery, or legitimation of the unheroic Soviet-Afghan war), and it is up to the public to decide which narrative speaks most to them. In this regard it is helpful to bear in mind Olick’s warning that “Path dependence is never path-determination.” Although new memorials are added to the commemorative landscape in relatively pre-determined, path-dependent ways, their symbolic meaning and interpretation are not set in stone.
The cases analyzed above demonstrate that in the process of choosing the final location of Afghan memorials, both the availability of sites and their symbolic potency played a significant role. Whether the Afghan memorials were placed in a separate park or added to the existing, centrally located Great Patriotic War memorial spaces, both solutions were always path dependent on the commemorative landscape inherited from the Soviet period. Yet Afghan memorials, introduced to the urban landscape of the Poltava oblast, also prepared the ground for the second stage of path-dependent memorialization of war. The second part of this article will trace such path-dependency in the construction of new war memorials to the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
Memorialization of the Russia-Ukraine conflict
The onset of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in 2014 saw several initiatives to commemorate the fallen Ukrainian soldiers. As of early 2020, the conflict led to more than four thousand combat and non-combat deaths among the Ukrainian military and its affiliated units, and many of the fallen soldiers were from the Poltava oblast. New grassroots memory actors (veterans, families of the fallen soldiers, and other activists) now seek to commemorate those residents of the oblast who lost their lives on the front line. The majority of the memorials to the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the Poltava oblast were proposed by these grassroots memory actors, who also often played a key role in deciding the final design and location of these memorials. The new memorials are funded either by the memory actors themselves (Hadiach, Kremenchuk) or by local authorities (Kotelva, Lokhvytsia, Lubny, Poltava). Most of them are of moderate size (standing 2-3 meters high). Although they commonly express the narrative of mourning (just like Afghan memorials), the conflict itself and the soldiers’ experience are framed completely differently. Thus, the images and inscriptions on the memorials to the Russia-Ukraine conflict tell of the heroism of the Ukrainian soldiers and their sacrifice in the name of the nation. For example, some of the inscriptions read: “Eternal glory to Heroes who gave their lives for Ukraine” (Zinkiv), “He gave his life for the future of Ukrainians, protecting the integrity and independence of Ukraine” (Opryshky), “Heroes do not die” (Kremenchuk), “Glory to the defenders of Ukraine” (Lokhvytsia). Frequent images of swords and references to Cossacks (for example, in Myrhorod, Kremenchuk, Lubny, and Kobeliaky) link the present-day conflict to Ukraine’s historical struggles for independence, while also presenting Ukrainian soldiers as brave and noble warriors.
The issue of obtaining a suitable site for these new memorials has become even more acute than for the Afghan veterans; after all, by 2014 the local urban landscapes had become even more saturated with commemorative objects. It is, however, important to note that the Euromaidan (2013-14) and the “de-Communization” laws of 2015 led to significant changes in the urban landscape. As a result of both unauthorized and official demolitions, most of the Communist monuments in the Poltava oblast have now been removed. Although this, in theory, vacated some of the most easily accessible and visible sites in the urban landscape, in reality the future of these sites continues to be the subject of heated debates, as both the public and the authorities find it difficult to decide what to do with them. Some cities and towns of the oblast simply turned the former sites of the central Lenin monuments into neutral areas, transforming them into flowerbeds (Hadiach, Reshetylivka), a fountain (Khorol), or a paved square (Kremenchuk). Less commonly, the pedestal was turned into a temporary memorial to the victims of the Euromaidan protests (Poltava), decorated with Ukrainian symbols (Lubny, Novi Sanzhary, Pyriatyn), or even transformed into a monument to football (Pervozvanivka). Most of the pedestals of former Lenin monuments, however, are still present in the landscape (such as in Horishni Plavni, Hradyzk, Myrhorod, and Opishnia) and continue to be a part of nation-wide debates on the symbolism of such sites. Overall, in other words, the physical removal of Communist monuments has not provided space for new memorials.
As with the Afghan memorials, the impact of the Soviet landscape on the positioning of memorials to the Russia-Ukraine conflict works through a combination of two main factors: the availability of sites and their symbolic potency. It should be stressed that at this stage the impact of the Soviet landscape is not only direct but is further magnified by subsequent developments (in particular, Afghan memorials), which were themselves shaped under its influence. The next section will examine how such an “accumulated succession of commemorations” (to use Olick’s conceptualization) is manifested in the Poltava oblast.
With the emergence of new memory (of the Russia-Ukraine conflict), the issue of recognition has been raised once again. Memory actors seeking to commemorate the Russia-Ukraine conflict emphasize that their memorials should have a key site (easily accessible, visible, and reasonably spacious) as a sign that their experience is recognized and respected. Moreover, they hold that the accessibility, visibility, and size of such sites should be comparable with the sites of other key local memories. For example, in Novi Sanzhary (population 8000), the veterans of the Russia-Ukraine conflict are currently campaigning for a dedicated site for their memorial:
Look, the Chernobyl liquidators have a small but separate alley. It has roughly 300 square meters, but everyone knows that this is their territory and their memorial. The Afghan memorial is in the WWII park, but it has its own corner, and that is where Afghan veterans gather. The memorial to the victims of the Holodomor also has a separate territory. Do not the soldiers of the ATO (Anti-Terrorist Operation) deserve a separate space? Sorry for saying this, but do they not deserve a separate “coffin”?
In Novi Sanzhary, the local authorities insist on adding a memorial to the Russia-Ukraine conflict to the existing park where the Great Patriotic War memorial (constructed in 1970) dominates the landscape. It remains be seen whether the veterans’ request for a separate site will be met. However, very similar arguments have been advanced by grassroots memory actors in other parts of the oblast, where such memorials have already been constructed, and it is important to examine the results.
In Kremenchuk, veterans of the Russia-Ukraine conflict insisted that their memorial be given a separate park, in recognition of the importance of this memory. The veterans’ argument echoed that previously voiced by Kremenchuk’s Afghan veterans: “We wanted to have a separate site, similar to the one used by the Afghan veterans.” “The Great Patriotic War lasted four years, and now it is commemorated with a grand memorial; this war has been going on for five years [… .] our soldiers deserve a serious memorial complex, and not just something basic.” For the veterans, strategic placement is key to ensuring that their memorial receives adequate attention. In the initial stages of the veterans’ discussions with the authorities, the latter suggested placing the memorial in a central park, where a large Great Patriotic War memorial was already located (constructed in 1951, reconstructed in 1989). The veterans strongly opposed this idea, arguing that their memory would get lost amongst other commemorative objects. In addition to the grandiose six-meter-high statue of the Warrior-Liberator, in the post-Soviet period the park acquired a range of smaller monuments that relate to local history (such as Stalin’s purges in the late 1930s and the assassination of the city’s mayor in 2014). When the first commemorative object (the Great Patriotic War memorial) was placed by the local authorities in this convenient location (a park right in the centre of the city, used by many locals on a daily basis), it established the conditions for the further transformation of this park as a local history site. The subsequent, smaller commemorative objects are now dotted around the main focal point – the Great Patriotic War memorial. Any new memorial placed in this park risks being lost in the landscape. As it happened, Kremenchuk had another available park that the veterans of the Russia-Ukraine conflict found suitable and comparable to other local parks with monuments in size and accessibility. After the veterans insisted on placing their memorial in this separate park, the authorities gave their official permission, and in 2016 the veterans erected their self-funded memorial there. Interviewed veterans are particularly pleased that this spacious park gives them an opportunity to organize large-scale commemorative ceremonies, which would have been impossible otherwise.
The issue of availability of sites and their symbolic effects also stands out in the city of Poltava (population 280,000). A group of grassroots memory actors (mothers of the local soldiers fallen in the conflict) insisted on placing their memorial in a separate park: “We wanted to have a park called Heroes of the ATO, similar to the city’s parks dedicated to the Second World War and to the Afghan soldiers.” Together with some municipal officials, they drove around the city to evaluate potential locations; however, none were deemed suitable, all being located in the suburbs far from the city centre and not easily accessible to the general public. As mentioned earlier, in 1997 one of the city’s key parks was dedicated to the memory of the Soviet-Afghan war, and this contributed to the present-day deficit of space. After long discussions, it was decided to construct the memorial to the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the central part of Poltava, in close proximity to the city’s main Great Patriotic War memorial (built in 1969). The memorial to the Russia-Ukraine conflict was funded by the local authorities and unveiled in 2018. It consists of a digital screen mounted on a two-meter-high granite stele. The screen features looped images of the local fallen soldiers. The difference between the visibility of the two neighbouring commemorative objects is striking. The Soviet Soldier’s Glory memorial is placed in a large, paved area and features a 22-meter-high obelisk and a six-meter-high granite statue of a soldier, and it is immediately noticeable to the public from one of the city roads bordering the park. By contrast, the memorial to the Russia-Ukraine conflict is hidden by the trees, visible only to those residents who decide to venture into the park. However, grassroots memory actors decided that this location would still give their memorial a higher chance of being noticed than in the suburbs. This story appears to bear out Sumartojo’s observation that “The availability of sites in crowded cities and the competition for other land uses can create outcomes that appear to be related to historical priorities, but instead are compromises.” In the city of Poltava, the selected location manifested such a compromise. “Overshadowed” by the large Great Patriotic War memorial, the modest memorial to the Russia-Ukraine conflict may appear to be of lower priority than its powerful neighbour. However, as demonstrated, this situation stems largely from the lack of available sites in the saturated urban landscape, a result of earlier spatial practices.
The striving for the recognition of memory does not always manifest itself in the pursuit of a separate commemorative site. This can be seen in the case of Hadiach (population 23,000), where local authorities offered veterans of the Russia-Ukraine conflict a location in the suburbs of the city, on a spot near the intersection of three busy roads. Most veterans strongly opposed this proposal, arguing that the place was not easily accessible and thereby presented difficulties for organizing commemorative events. Instead, they insisted on adding their memorial to the central park in Hadiach, stating that they wanted their memory “to be a part of the city’s history.” In the post-Soviet period, the park acquired a characteristic layout, which can be observed in several other cities and towns in the Poltava oblast. Specifically, it has a large Great Patriotic War memorial in the centre of the park (built in 1957), to which a spacious paved path leads; nearby, on smaller paved “islands” in the grassy expanse, monuments commemorate the Chernobyl disaster and the Soviet-Afghan war. Although the newer memorials appear as “satellites” of the Great Patriotic War memorial (the main focal point of the landscape), they are noticeable from one of the city roads bordering the park and are easily accessible.
After prolonged and heated debates, veterans of the Russia-Ukraine conflict received permission to add their memorial to the same park, which they did in 2019. However, adding a new object to the already saturated landscape proved to be a difficult task; in view of the lack of available space, it was placed deep in the park in a shaded alley, which means that it cannot be noticed from the adjacent city road. The installed memorial (a 1.5-meter-high granite stele) was funded by the veterans themselves, who hope that in the future local authorities will agree to provide funds for a large memorial. As of 2020, their modest object appears buried in the landscape. However, they still prefer this location to a separate, but not central and less accessible site. Writing about the phenomenon of “added” memorials, Stevens and Franck note that “Continued clustering amplifies the physical and representational potency of key sites. Memorials placed elsewhere are, implicitly, of lesser significance.” In the case of Hadiach, the clustering of memorials in the city centre was driven by the limited urban landscape and the convenient location of the central park, which Soviet planners structured around the Great Patriotic War memorial. When the Afghan and Chernobyl memorials were added, the park turned into a site of key local memories; by adding their memorial to this site, veterans of the Russia-Ukraine conflict sought to ensure that their experience is seen as worthy of being preserved in memory.
Such accumulation of memorials to the Great Patriotic War, the Soviet-Afghan war, and the Russia-Ukraine conflict in the same park can now be seen in Horishni Plavni, Karlivka, Kobeliaky, Kotelva, Myrhorod, Opishnia, and Zinkiv (in some cases they are also complemented by a memorial to the Chernobyl disaster). Commemoration of the Russia-Ukraine conflict in Ukraine is still in its early stages, and in the Poltava oblast some memorials remain in the planning stage. However, some of them will likely follow a similar pattern in terms of their positioning in the landscape; after all, the deficit of space will remain an acute problem across the oblast. However, as demonstrated in the case of Afghan memorials, the meaning of such memorial clusters is not pre-determined and depends on people’s subjective interpretations.
For example, in Opishnia (population 5300), the central park with the Great Patriotic War memorial (built in 1965) acquired a medium-sized memorial to the Chernobyl disaster (to the west) and a small memorial to the Soviet-Afghan war (to the east). When local veterans of the Russia-Ukraine conflict decided to build a memorial to their fallen comrades, they faced the difficult task of finding a suitable location. One of the grassroots memory actors related that
Opishnia is not that big […] at first we did not want to place our memorial near the Memorial of Glory. Plus, the Soviet-Afghan war is commemorated here also, and it was a war of aggression, just like the aggression we are facing now from Russia. In a way, our memorial and the Afghan memorial contradict each other. But we do not have any other place.
This situation is comparable to that in Zinkiv (population 9700), where memorials to the same four events are also clustered in the city’s central park. Objectively, Zinkiv’s limited urban landscape is the main reason behind this phenomenon. However, the main organizer of the campaign to construct a memorial to the Russia-Ukraine conflict (a local veteran) applies a positive interpretation to this clustering, stating that he sees this park “as a place saturated with the strength of the spirit.”
Although the urban landscapes of the Poltava oblast commonly feature very similar spatial organizations (clustering of memorials or separate dedicated parks), it would be incorrect to assume that they are driven by the same interpretations of the landscape and that they produce the same interpretations. Thus, if in Kremenchuk local veterans did not want their memorial to get lost in the cluster of local commemorative objects, the veterans in Hadiach deemed such a location to be preferable, as it facilitated integration into local history. Furthermore, the clustering of memorials to the Soviet-Afghan war and the Russia-Ukraine conflict is perceived by the memory actors differently: whilst in Opishnia it is seen as detrimental to the memory of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Zinkiv it is viewed as a driver of positive narratives. However, interpretations notwithstanding, in all the analyzed cases the inherited Soviet landscape played a significant role in the positioning of new war memorials in the urban landscape.
Conclusion
This article demonstrates that the urban landscape inherited by independent Ukraine from the Soviet period plays an important role in the memorialization of the Soviet-Afghan war and the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Whether a new war memorial is placed in proximity to an existing Great Patriotic War memorial or allocated a separate site, its placement is guided by the symbolic potency of different sites in the urban landscape and their availability. It should be stressed that these factors go hand in hand; they both play an important role in the selection of the memorial’s location by grassroots memory actors. The analyzed cases demonstrate that while striving for symbolic recognition, grassroots memory actors assign certain symbolic potency to different sites in the landscape, and this valuation should be seen as a legacy of Soviet spatial politics (which privileged central locations) and commemoration (which placed memory of the Great Patriotic War at the apex of social recognition). The lack of available space, associated with both the Soviet spatial practices and the particular characteristics of a city or town, activates this legacy. Moreover, as analysis of the memorialization of the Russia-Ukraine conflict shows, the inherited Soviet landscape not only directly affects the memorialization of more recent wars, but it also acts through the accumulated succession of spatial practices. At the same time, while different cities and towns may have very similar layouts of commemorative sites, the interpretation of their symbolism by memory actors is not pre-determined and can be guided by different interpretative frameworks.
This article helps elucidate the spatial and material aspects of path-dependent commemoration, which have previously been underappreciated in discussions of commemorative legacies. The continued existence of this (latent) Soviet legacy is particularly striking in Ukraine, where memory actors actively seek to distance themselves from the Soviet past. But path-dependence in the positioning of memorials is likely only one legacy among others. A promising direction for further research on the path-dependent nature of commemoration is the impact of Soviet memorials to the Great Patriotic War on the visual design of new Ukrainian war memorials. In addition, one might query the extent to which the very understanding of monumentality and the sociocultural functions vested in memorials continues to reproduce Soviet-era conceptions.