Alive American History: Сivil War of Monuments

Abstract

The article analyzes the origins and causes of public resistance in the United States about the issue of preservation of monuments, symbolizing the period of the Confederacy in the U.S. South during the Civil war (1861-1865). Indicates that the main factor in the confrontation was a victory in the presidential elections of 2016 of D.Trump, who in the minds of his Democratic Party supporters is associated with racial ideas of “white supremacy”. With the coming to power of D. Trump in the U.S. relatively powerful movement emerged, mainly in the southern States for the demolition and dismantling of Confederate monuments, which symbolize, in the opinion of left-liberal forces, the ideas and theories of superior and inferior races, who were believed to be sunk into oblivion after the adoption in the 1960-s of civil rights laws. Currently in the U.S. there are more than 1.5 thousand artifacts relating to or symbolizing the period of the Confederacy and glorify its military leaders. The specific histories of the dismantling of monuments of the Confederation in various States are outlined. However are considered and the counteractions of the opponents of dismantling the legacy of the Confederacy are considered, which created in the recent years the strong legal barriers for the protection of Confederate monuments under the pretext of protecting the cultural heritage of past historical periods. It is stated that in retrospect, the current wave of dismantling of the Confederate monument is to some extent а justified step because for the first 30 years of the twentieth century these monuments were erected as political symbols of the segregation-racist regime of apartheid established in 26 U.S. States after the adoption of the so- called laws of “Jim Crow” at the turn of XIX-XX centuries. In the conclusion it is stated that under the President D. Trump the severity of the problem of the removal/preservation of Confederate monuments and other monuments of the past American history will remain in the foreseeable future.