Commemorative vigilance between totalitarianisms: Slovakia’s 'Victims Warn' sculpture, from counter-monument to anti-monument

Abstract

Near the end of World War II, a diverse coalition of Slovak political parties and citizens orchestrated an insurrection against the Nazi occupiers and their Slovak client government. While it ultimately failed to liberate Slovakia, the narrative of the Slovak National Uprising of 1944 become central to the Slovak memory wars which have followed. Virtually all post-war political regimes have sought either to uphold the legacy of the uprising or to attack it as an anti-state action. Such memory wars extend to monumental commemorations of the uprising—most notable is Jozef Jankovič’s 1969 monument entitled 'Victims Warn'. The monument’s surreal, humanistic style and counter-monumental social message offended communist sensibilities and it was quickly removed. Since its restoration to the central courtyard of the Slovak National Uprising Museum in 2004, it now increasingly functions as an anti-monument to nationalist political narratives, including those related to NATO, Russia, Ukraine, and the legacy of the wartime Slovak state. This paper tracks the monument’s transition from counter-monument to anti-monument, and also looks at commemorative vigilance issues that currently threaten to alter the monument’s original meaning, its spatial context, and Jankovič’s original artistic vision.