DOI Heft:
Nr. 1
DOI Artikel:András, Edit: Public monuments in changing societies
DOI Seite / Zitierlink: https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.31178#0052
Hungary, under the name of Intercultural Orienta-
tion. They initiated informai excursions for smáli
groups in the ex-socialist model town, once named
Sztálinváros. As they déclaré it in their project de-
scription, Ajr /o
J//7T7 1^/77 ^ 77^ rorATU AwA7
7oi/v/. 1IT 7j 7o K/w iA7^7 o/ 7A
/A^j* o/? /Př AKr o/ /Př 7<?w/ y/fi'f r^i%P'y^-
7A//. 7/jo// /A/ P'/Po Ar/PP/g 7o%w ^ÁPo//P 7<?//hr^ P/rPort
or //A/z/W /t%hP/Py p^rP/fý/Ač' A tw<? o/ o//r P/j)rP'
As they promise, "Pp j APo//P Po /or/u* o// r//p7'ooPAo A7AT
r^PPofpp^yoPo^<%P'iPo/ AgpPr".
With their other project — proposing to plant
wheat tnto the pedestal of the public statue of
NoworPon* by the same artist József Somogyi — they
provided not just mental support and solidarity to
fellow artists Little Warsaw, whose similar social
consciousness had come under attack, but they
simultaneously offered work for the unemployed
agricultural workers who "had lost their jobs" both
metaphorically and kterally after the fall of social-
isme On the walking tours, visitors are encouraged
to take pictures of statues, buildings and sites they
feel compelled by and to contribute their private
photos into a pool of photographs, an ever-growing
collective archive of the city. These amateur snap-
shots are transformed into "ofhcial" postcards of
the town [Fig. 5b], in which personal expériences
and the shared past are interwoven.
The dark side of the landscape is that in the shad-
ow of being busy with blocking and gate-keeping
memories of the past, and on the other side warning
against erasure, the extreme nationalst forces and
the church made an aggressive claim of the public
space. Although a process of dénationalisation did
get started with the very construction of the Euro-
pean Union, the States within still remain the spaces
for collective memory. Especially the newcomers
within the transnational formation are still obsessed
with their national, ethnie and religious homogene-
ity that is based on a self-contained understanding
of culture. Invented héritage and the distorting or
mythologizing of the past for htting it to the present
political needs are very much part of the memory
landscape, as well as part of the conflicts over the
public space, intended to be monopolized. In this
scénario of competing narratives about the past
and competing memories intending to establish a
hierarchy of suffering, memory could be used for
violation. The mythic, imagined past is frequently
mobilized against memories of different groups
whose memories are not considérée! in the homo-
geneous conception of culture. Therefore memory
sites are terrains for hght.
In Hungary, tons of statues dedicated to St.
Stephan, the hrst king of Hungary, who converted
the country into a Christian one, mushroomed in the
emptied out public space. Nobody actually protested
against this massive invasion, including those who
protested against Little Warsaw.
In contrast, the process enjoyed state support in
raising similar statues in towns with vast Hungarian
population even outside of the border, in neigh-
bouring countries, as in Komárno, Slovakia. The
planned ceremony of unveiling to be conducted
by the Hungarian president was obstructed, as the
"gesture" was rather perceived as interventionist ag-
gression in the internai affairs of another country.
On the other hand, in the time of the inauguration
of the T/. T7<yA<%// AA//<? the neuralgie question of the
site of the TT. Q/W MAAAA A%7//<? in Komárno
was brushed up as a reply from the Slovák national-
ism, as }án Slota and Anna Belousovová wreathed
the statue on the balcony of Matica slovenská. As
they interpreted the situation, they managed the
action in undeserving conditions threatening their
own life in the wind up on the ladder. As for the
rhetoric, the dramatized ritual was about to stir up
the Slovák nation and to gain control over the public
space wishing to put the authority for raising statues
into the hand of the government instead of the city
council. In both cases, the public monuments were
put mto service of opposing political interests, the
public space became a struggle held.
Along with a flurry of nationalism, racism, and
xenophobia in the region came Liane Lang's other
local art intervention, that of putting a plastic hand
into the beak of a mythical bird, Turul, the symbol
of the Hungarian extreme right wing [Eig. 6]. It was
perceived by them as an attack and o/
/M7TwAJETA, and the overwhelming response was
scapegoating; that is, anti-Semitism was mobilized,
and one of the Holocaust memorials was brutally
vandalized [Fig. 7].
"TA?rA /wzwry", a wondertul concept coined by
jan Assmann and utilized by Irit Keynan (a peace
46
tion. They initiated informai excursions for smáli
groups in the ex-socialist model town, once named
Sztálinváros. As they déclaré it in their project de-
scription, Ajr /o
J//7T7 1^/77 ^ 77^ rorATU AwA7
7oi/v/. 1IT 7j 7o K/w iA7^7 o/ 7A
/A^j* o/? /Př AKr o/ /Př 7<?w/ y/fi'f r^i%P'y^-
7A//. 7/jo// /A/ P'/Po Ar/PP/g 7o%w ^ÁPo//P 7<?//hr^ P/rPort
or //A/z/W /t%hP/Py p^rP/fý/Ač' A tw<? o/ o//r P/j)rP'
As they promise, "Pp j APo//P Po /or/u* o// r//p7'ooPAo A7AT
r^PPofpp^yoPo^<%P'iPo/ AgpPr".
With their other project — proposing to plant
wheat tnto the pedestal of the public statue of
NoworPon* by the same artist József Somogyi — they
provided not just mental support and solidarity to
fellow artists Little Warsaw, whose similar social
consciousness had come under attack, but they
simultaneously offered work for the unemployed
agricultural workers who "had lost their jobs" both
metaphorically and kterally after the fall of social-
isme On the walking tours, visitors are encouraged
to take pictures of statues, buildings and sites they
feel compelled by and to contribute their private
photos into a pool of photographs, an ever-growing
collective archive of the city. These amateur snap-
shots are transformed into "ofhcial" postcards of
the town [Fig. 5b], in which personal expériences
and the shared past are interwoven.
The dark side of the landscape is that in the shad-
ow of being busy with blocking and gate-keeping
memories of the past, and on the other side warning
against erasure, the extreme nationalst forces and
the church made an aggressive claim of the public
space. Although a process of dénationalisation did
get started with the very construction of the Euro-
pean Union, the States within still remain the spaces
for collective memory. Especially the newcomers
within the transnational formation are still obsessed
with their national, ethnie and religious homogene-
ity that is based on a self-contained understanding
of culture. Invented héritage and the distorting or
mythologizing of the past for htting it to the present
political needs are very much part of the memory
landscape, as well as part of the conflicts over the
public space, intended to be monopolized. In this
scénario of competing narratives about the past
and competing memories intending to establish a
hierarchy of suffering, memory could be used for
violation. The mythic, imagined past is frequently
mobilized against memories of different groups
whose memories are not considérée! in the homo-
geneous conception of culture. Therefore memory
sites are terrains for hght.
In Hungary, tons of statues dedicated to St.
Stephan, the hrst king of Hungary, who converted
the country into a Christian one, mushroomed in the
emptied out public space. Nobody actually protested
against this massive invasion, including those who
protested against Little Warsaw.
In contrast, the process enjoyed state support in
raising similar statues in towns with vast Hungarian
population even outside of the border, in neigh-
bouring countries, as in Komárno, Slovakia. The
planned ceremony of unveiling to be conducted
by the Hungarian president was obstructed, as the
"gesture" was rather perceived as interventionist ag-
gression in the internai affairs of another country.
On the other hand, in the time of the inauguration
of the T/. T7<yA<%// AA//<? the neuralgie question of the
site of the TT. Q/W MAAAA A%7//<? in Komárno
was brushed up as a reply from the Slovák national-
ism, as }án Slota and Anna Belousovová wreathed
the statue on the balcony of Matica slovenská. As
they interpreted the situation, they managed the
action in undeserving conditions threatening their
own life in the wind up on the ladder. As for the
rhetoric, the dramatized ritual was about to stir up
the Slovák nation and to gain control over the public
space wishing to put the authority for raising statues
into the hand of the government instead of the city
council. In both cases, the public monuments were
put mto service of opposing political interests, the
public space became a struggle held.
Along with a flurry of nationalism, racism, and
xenophobia in the region came Liane Lang's other
local art intervention, that of putting a plastic hand
into the beak of a mythical bird, Turul, the symbol
of the Hungarian extreme right wing [Eig. 6]. It was
perceived by them as an attack and o/
/M7TwAJETA, and the overwhelming response was
scapegoating; that is, anti-Semitism was mobilized,
and one of the Holocaust memorials was brutally
vandalized [Fig. 7].
"TA?rA /wzwry", a wondertul concept coined by
jan Assmann and utilized by Irit Keynan (a peace
46