The Production of Urban Identities in the Memorial Complexes of Murmansk and Rostov-on-Don

Abstract


 
 
 
 This paper discusses the construction of the urban identities in two Russian cities — Murmansk and Rostov-on-Don — located in Northern and Southern Central Russia respectively. This research investigates identity making, social memory and the redesign of the urban spaces of post-Soviet Russia. The paper examines the process of identity creation through the analysis of the memorial complexes in Murmansk and Rostov-on-Don and defines the predominate gender, historical and geographical narratives encoded in them. The memorial complexes chosen for the study are from Soviet and post-Soviet times, therefore the research examines to what extent the identities imposed during the Soviet era have been reproduced since. The paper deconstructs the monuments, approaching them from the perspective of human geography and revealing to what extent the identity of the Soviet North is connected with militarization and masculinity, how women are represented both in the North and South, and whether the Soviet past has been reconsidered in post-Soviet commemorative monuments. The paper compares this with the perception of the city and the chosen memorials by local citizens thorough surveys. It contributes to the ongoing debates on the Russian post-Soviet identity market, urban identity, power relations in the post- Soviet cities and the heritage of the Soviet ideology in the city environment.