Installation “Breakthrough”, Implementation and Memorialisation of the “Cold War” in the USA

Abstract

Using the installation “Breakthrough” as an example, the article examines the widespread in the United States assessments and methods of memorializing the results of the Cold War. The authors note that the thesis of a US victory in the Cold War was central to official US political rhetoric in the early 1990s. This is confirmed by the politics of memory — in particular, the creation of the installation “Breakthrough”, the establishment of the commemorative medal “Cold War Victory Medal”, etc. The fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 is considered the most symbolic event of the end of the Cold War. One of the fragments of this wall is called “The Breakthrough”, it is now in Westminster College in Fulton (Missouri), where W. Churchill in 1946 pronounced his famous speech and where (in a symbolic sense) the Cold War began. Installation “Breakthrough”, being a symbol of the beginning and end of ideological confrontation, carries a certain ideological message — it is a “breakthrough to freedom” and victory in the “cold war”. However, by the early 2000s, when passions subsided in society and wider access to not only American, but also Soviet archival documents was opened up, more ba-lanced assessments of the causes and results of the Cold War began to appear in American scientific circles. Some American historians started talking about the common victory of the USA and the USSR over the ideological confrontation, which could develop into a dangerous “hot war.” Globalization also influenced the perception of the outcome of the Cold War: this confrontation is assessed by some American researchers as a natural stage in the development of international relations, which led to a new redistribution of centers of influence on the map of the “multipolar” world.