Two waves of rejection of Soviet monuments in Lithuania
ENDuring the 20th century in the Bolshevik Soviet Union, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany the Totalitarian regimes sought to take over and control all spheres of public life, including work, education, and leisure. Their main intention, according to Michel Foucault, was to try to purify and re-create both individuals (through discipline) and collectives (through biopolitics) and to make them obedient executors of their will. In the unprecedented realm of total control and social engineering, urbanism, architecture and applied arts had a special role to play in creating spaces and total institutions1, which would facilitate the realization of these intentions (Čepaitienė 2011). However, despite the obvious similarities in the aesthetics fostered by these regimes (Golomstock 1991), there was a significant differences based on unlike ideologies and final goals (Beyond Totalitarianism... 2009). Their duration, socio-political consequences and in particular, what could be called their "afterlife", also varied. The collapse of each of these regimes led to a radical change in the political systems and inevitably provoked complicated relations with the social environment and ideological signs created during their lifetime. The destruction, removal or ravage of the latter in the years of regime change and after, seemed a legitimate and restorative justice practice, without realizing that many authentic relics and works of art of the era were lost in this way. It was only later that some efforts were made to sum up and make them the part of national heritage values [...]. [From the publication]
- Nacionalinis pasakojimas versus lokalios istorijos : kultūrinės atminties raiška Lietuvos provincijoje / Rasa Čepaitienė. Atminties daugiasluoksniškumas : miestas, valstybė, regionas. Vilnius: Lietuvos istorijos instituto leidykla, 2013. P. 229-264, 580-581.
- Viešųjų erdvių transformacija Lietuvos miestuose / Rimantas Buivydas. Logos (Vilnius). 2011, 66, p. 132-141.
