Space, Landscape, and Memory

Abstract

This article examines the construction of the Monument to the Martyrs of the Railway Protection Movement in Shaocheng Park, traces the formation of public urban memory, and discusses the physical and psycho-cultural processes by which the revolutionary memory of the Sichuan Railway Protection Movement was concretized and visualized. This article describes the establishment of Shaocheng Park in Republican-era Chengdu and the construction of the monument, introducing how it was designed and shaped as a repository for public memory. It analyzes how the political practices of official and popular forces remolded Shaocheng Park as a space for public memory during the Republican era, revealing the complex power struggles and social relationships surrounding the control and use of this public space, against a backdrop of shifting political regimes. Within this context, it reviews how the historical memory of the Railway Protection Movement has been forgotten or passed on over the last century and illustrates the symbolism of the defined landscape of the park and its monument, as well as the function of the latter as a visible conceptual landmark and a link between historical events and local public memory.