Decoding Symbolic Space: the “Monumental Fall” in the Baltic States

Abstract

The article cosiders the phenomenon of the "monument fall" in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia and outlines the main stages of this process as well as the key factors that have intensified the dismantling of Soviet memorial heritage and contributed to the spread of vandalism against it. The "monument fall" began in the first half of the 1990s when, in the absence of a legislative framework providing protection and legal status for memorial objects, numerous acts of vandalism and isolated cases of demolition of monuments by official decision were carried out in the Baltic States. The second wave of demolition actions (from 2014) took place in different circumstances, when memorial legislation was already in place (from the second half of the 1990s), the international cooperation between Russia and the Baltic states regarding the protection of Soviet memorials could be seen, and on the domestic political level Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia supervised the condition of the monuments. Like the previous one, the third wave (from 2022) was related to the aggravation of international relations against the background of the Russian-Ukrainian crisis, and here the particular feature was the change in legislation by the Baltic states authorities with a general vector towards stripping Soviet memorials of their special status and legalising their dismantling. At the same time, the "monument fall" in the Baltic states poses something of a paradox: the cleansing of the collective memory of Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians from the Soviet presence, aimed among other things at consolidating these peoples, is accompanied by the destruction of memory of their representatives, who in one way or another were identified with the Soviet presence in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.