Monument as a marker: principles of functioning in public space

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Monument as a marker: principles of functioning in public space

Svitlana Nabok

Кандидат історичних наук

Kuras Institute of Political and Ethnic Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

While driving from Kyiv along the Kharkiv highway, nearly past the city of Boryspil, at the turnoff to Pereyaslav, a well-maintained hill with a stone atop captures the attention of travelers. On the stone, one can observe an inscription and a bas-relief, while adjacent to the stone sits a sculpture of a child. At the hill's base, a plaque with an engraved inscription commemorates: 'Here, on Petruseva Levada, in 1843-1947, Taras Shevchenko stopped while passing through Boryspil'. Upon crossing the city limits, travelers will undoubtedly notice another memorial marker - a substantial stone cross situated in a well-maintained area by the roadside. This memorial, fashioned to resemble an ancient Cossack cross, stands at the location where Vyacheslav Chornovil met his demise. Wreaths and fresh flowers are nearly always present nearby.

Continuing along the highway, travelers will encounter several less conspicuous memorials-crosses, stelae, and wreaths-occasionally affixed directly to trees above the road. While frequently blending into the landscape for the average traveler, these understated memorials, a familiar feature along roads not only in Ukraine but also worldwide, may easily escape notice and lack the power to spark curiosity. Nevertheless, they attract keen attention from researchers across diverse fields, including historians, ethnologists, cultural studies experts, religious scholars, road safety specialists, and legal professionals [1].

While some specialists study roadside memorials as a contemporary phenomenon, the concept itself is not exclusive to the era of automobiles [2]. In Ukraine, it predominantly manifests as 'roadside crosses' or 'figures,' drawing researchers' attention for over a century, primarily within ethnographic studies [3]. The tradition of marking specific locations, often near roads and linked to tragic events, has ancient roots and spans across Europe, later extending to other continents. Scholars trace it back to the ancient practice of burying individuals who died while traveling [2, 4], or associate it with commemorating premature or untimely deaths, whether in battle [5, p. 9], or due to accidents [6, p. 252].

These memorials can manifest at various locations, emerging at different times following the event and taking diverse forms. They may sprout within hours, adorned with flowers, candles, and photos at the scene of a recent tragedy, only to vanish or undergo significant modifications. Grieving families might erect these memorials after some time, or, as exemplified by the memorial on Petruseva Levada in Boryspil, the site can be commemorated many decades after the event. Nevertheless, they all share a common thread. In all instances, whether temporary or permanent, these memorials serve a unifying purpose: to distinguish a particular place from its surroundings and mark it.

The function of distinguishing, marking, and designating a certain place unites roadside memorials at accident sites and spontaneous memorials at the sites of recent tragedies, monuments at battlefields, and memorials erected on the occasion of events not related to bloody tragedies (such as the memorial to Shevchenko in Boryspil). It is likely that this function of monuments - marking, distinguishing a particular place from the surrounding space - is quite ancient [7, p. 39], if not their primary function. Over time, both the types of events commemorated by memorials and the forms that these memorials take have diversified considerably. For example, in the twentieth century, the use of memorial plaques or tablets became widespread, typically indicating the place (house) where the person lived, the purpose of the plaque, or important events that occurred.

The first such plaques were installed in the nineteenth century [8], and today they are widespread [9], displaying remarkable diversity. They range from stone, metal, or ceramic plaques with inscriptions to touch screens [10], and from busts and bas-reliefs on walls to small metal inserts in paving stones [11]. The prevalence, diversity, and at times, artistic value of monuments (memorials, memorial signs, and monuments in general) arouse considerable interest among researchers of various profiles and specializations. Many of them also delve into the functions performed by monuments: historians, ethnographers, cultural studies experts, art historians, and political scientists address this issue in their research. They mainly emphasize functions such as the preservation of memory [12, p. 122], the formation and maintenance of collective identity [13], occasionally noting educational purposes [14, p. 179], and even therapeutic functions [2, p. 375-376]. The range of functions attributed to monuments by different authors is far from being exhausted by the above. Each author emphasizes their own, sometimes not explicitly naming the less explored functions but underscoring their significance. For instance, in her study of monuments to Lenin in Central Ukraine, Oleksandra Haidai states that "the monument served an important function within the Soviet Union," describing it without explicitly naming it [15, p. 47].

Amid research in various fields related to monument studies, there exists a distinct scientific discipline known as monumentology, which directly engages with monuments. The research scope of this discipline is extensive, encompassing not only monuments and tangible cultural heritage objects but also intangible cultural heritage. Monumentology focuses on significant and valuable monuments from archaeological, historical, architectural, artistic, scientific, and cultural perspectives. These monuments must have retained their authenticity and, to a large extent, already possess or claim Monument Status (or Scheduled Monuments: [16]). In Ukraine, such recognition is typically granted upon inclusion in the relevant register [17, p. 26]. Notably, not all monuments meet these criteria; some, as mentioned earlier, are often temporary-arising spontaneously and may either disappear over time or undergo significant alterations. Nevertheless, within monumentology, researchers have devoted considerable efforts to delineate and categorize a diverse array of monument types and their functions.

When analyzing the functions of monuments within monument studies, it is common to differentiate their 'social functions.' Researchers define and describe these functions in various ways [17, p. 32-35; 18, p. 305], emphasizing, however, that they are not static [17, p. 32]. This assertion is quite appropriate, as each monument can serve not only one but multiple functions. The list of such functions may also vary for different types of monuments. However, within the scope of monument studies, with a focus on secondary (those deliberately created as monuments, memorials, and commemorative markers) and immovable (as opposed to movable, which includes documentary and objects of museum significance), it still seems plausible to identify several social functions relevant to monuments (memorials, commemorative markers, and monuments).

One of these functions can be considered marking. In the case of memorials (memorial signs), this function is one of the main ones: marking a specific place where an event took place, distinguishing a certain place from the surrounding landscape. Of course, not all monuments are erected according to the principle of memorials that directly mark the place of the event. However, the widespread presence of certain types of monuments, not necessarily erected to mark a specific location associated with the person or event they commemorate, suggests that the act of marking is inherent not only in memorials erected for particular places but also in those established for specific occasions in accordance with religious or secular traditions.

For example, the city centers of many ancient European cities and towns are adorned with various columns erected in honor of a particular significant and joyful event for the city. These columns became widespread in the Middle Ages, inheriting the Roman tradition of triumphal columns but with a modified touch: columns, sometimes actual Roman ones, were adorned with Christian symbols. They were raised to commemorate various events but primarily as a gesture of gratitude for the cessation of epidemics. Typically dedicated to saints, the Mother of God, or the Holy Trinity, these pillars can be found throughout Europe [19].

Notably, the Magdeburg Law Column in Kyiv, considered the oldest monument in the city, is dedicated to St. Volodymyr. Topped with a cross, the pillar was erected on the banks of the Dnipro River by the community in honor of the Russian emperor's confirmation of the Magdeburg Law for the city, as indicated by a separate plaque on the monument: 'At the expense of the Kyiv community for the affirmation of the ancient rights of this capital by the All- Russian Emperor Alexander I on September 10, 1802.' In addition to the plaque providing information about the joyful event, for which the community was erecting the gratitude column, there was also an inscription indicating the saint to whom it was dedicated: a separate plaque used to bear the inscription 'To St. Volodymyr, the enlightener of Russia' [20]. Such thanksgiving pillars-columns were usually installed at the initiative and expense of the community in the city center. In this way, the marker's 'effect' extended to the entire city, rather than marking a very specific place of an event.

The presence of such monuments (columns or the more widespread "figures" or "worship crosses" in Ukraine) serves, among other things, to demarcate territory as belonging to a community that upholds a specific religious tradition. Despite the antiquity of this custom, it persists, especially in the form of "worship crosses" erected on various occasions. For instance, in Melitopol, a similar memorial sign was installed at the city entrance "On the occasion of the 2000th anniversary of the Nativity of Christ" [21]. In 2018, a dispute arose over a memorial sign installed without proper permits and documentation. When the citizen demanded the removal of the unauthorized structure, the city parliament, led by the mayor, did not dare to dismantle it. Instead, they decided to create the necessary documentation, officially incorporating the 'self-induced construction' into the city's property.

Since the nineteenth century, monuments-markers have become widespread, indicating the presence of not only a particular religious tradition but also secular traditions, primarily national ones, on a certain territory. Modern examples of these types of monuments are those dedicated to universally recognized prominent figures of a particular culture, such as monuments to Taras Shevchenko, which, according to the official website of the National Museum of Taras Shevchenko, currently number 1384 around the world [22]. Most of them are located in Ukraine, but the locations of others make it possible to draw a map of Ukrainians' settlement around the world. The vast majority of places where such monuments are installed are not directly related to Shevchenko's biography.

A similar example is the monuments to Pushkin, which are also scattered around the world in places where the poet never visited and may not have even known existed. Such monuments, which traditionally continue to be called memorials, fulfill the function of preserving memory only partially. For example, one of the monuments to Pushkin was erected in 2007 in Panama on the initiative of the International Federation of Russian Language Writers and with the support of the Russian Presidential Administration, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the Ministry of Culture and Mass Communications as part of the World Cultural Heritage, Fundamental Values and the Russian Language program [23]. The monument was unveiled in the presence of a delegation from Russia. It is, of course, possible to see the functions of preserving memory and maintaining collective identity in the erected monument, but mainly due to the tradition of perceiving sculptural monuments as memorials that immortalize an individual, bypassing the question of whose group identity and memory the Pushkin monument in Panama is intended to support and preserve.

The same perception somewhat obscures the function of this monument as a marker-a presence, a connection, a claim clearly outlined by the initiators of the installation regarding the contribution of the figure immortalized in the monument to world cultural heritage, as well as the sharing and dissemination in the territories where the monument is erected. It reflects the idea of the group that erects the monument about what constitutes world cultural heritage and fundamental values. To a certain extent, it is also about acceptance and recognition, at least by the group that approved the monument, of the proposed idea and confirmation of the established or existing relationship. It is likely that for the social group that initiates the installation of a monument, its function as a marker may be considered as the main one, or it may seem secondary, insignificant, or even go unnoticed altogether, depending on the specific circumstances. However, each monument bears the imprint of a certain cultural tradition within which it was created and corresponds to the cultural tradition supported by its creators and customers. Furthermore, the monument functions in public space, marking it as a space where this tradition is supported or at least does not deny the relationship with it.

Of course, the above will be relevant only if the cultural tradition within which the monument was created is known to the recipient. If the cultural tradition is lost or unknown to the recipient, then the interpretation of the monument and its identification with a certain cultural tradition takes place within the limits of the recipient's perceptions and knowledge. In addition, the symbolic meaning of a monument can be adjusted and rearticulated over time. For example, the first of the aforementioned thanksgiving pillars were originally Roman triumphal pillars, which were changed. During the Ukrainian SSR, the cross was dismantled from the Magdeburg Law Column, as well as from hundreds of other structures. The Soviet government deliberately eliminated markers of the spread of various religious traditions on the territory under its control. In 2013, the column was again 'corrected': the cross removed by the Bolsheviks was reinstalled at the expense of the city budget [24]. Some time later, the column underwent another alteration: a plaque announcing the installation of the column by the community in honor of the confirmation of Magdeburg law in Kyiv by the Russian emperor disappeared, and another, which dedicated the column to St. Volodymyr, had a reference to Russia painted over it [25]. Such metamorphoses are typical for monuments representing a subverted cultural tradition in public space, one that is rejected or denied either at the state level or at the level of public perception. In the case of support or ignoring of monuments representing an undermined tradition at the level of state or local authorities, such monuments become the objects of attacks by those groups that reject the cultural tradition represented by the monuments, if this tradition sharply contradicts the one supported by these groups. If the cultural tradition represented by a monument does not contradict the prevalent cultural tradition in society, then such a monument is perceived as a marker of interconnectedness and can legitimately continue to exist in public space.

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