https://www.spomenikdatabase.org/
Casual trivia: The film Last and First Men consists primarily of slow pans of Spomeniks.
Are there other respect issues at play here?
Maybe this speaks of the weaknesses of abstract art when used for this. No one thinks of the Lincoln Memorial or Mount Rushmore or Taj Mahal or Arc de Triumph like this. In some sense, their memorial status comes out in the form itself. This is not the case with abstract art like the spomeniks.
Despite not knowing the details, you knew it was designed to revere or commemorate something even if you did not know the details.
I think the only monuments that are actually obvious are literal selections like statues, or Lincoln Memorial which is labeled in large capital letters exactly what is commemorated and why.
Otherwise all I can tell is “this building is special because its purpose is not easily apparent (and people don’t seem to fit inside it?)”
Otoh it is quite evident to me that Spomenik monuments are there to commemorate something or they would be very different
So now what? You origintally made the point to try to distingish between the power of representative art vs abstract art (although I'm struggling to understand what is more representative about the Taj Mahal and the Arc de Triomphe than these also).
Secondly I would say the fact that they provoke thought about what they represent (rather than say Mount Rushmore in particular which is a profoundly superficial public monument) is precisely part of the value of abstract art. The Lincoln Memorial says Lincoln was a great man. OK cool. Anyone who has studied American history knows that.
Does the fact that the French tomb of the unknown soldier from World War I was created beneath it change the meaning of the arch?
It seems to me it’s a pretty complex, abstract object whose story isn’t easily reduced to a simple meme either.
Interwar abstract art such as cubism had twisted and distorted figures, some was a reaction to the twisted and broken bodies of the veterans of WW1. Hitler hated that style of art because he saw it as disparaging veterans, war-glorifier as he was.
It would make sense that a ‘progressive’ regime would want to break with traditionalism and create its own novel style of monument. You see this trend in a lot of postwar aesthetic movements, like the failed housing projects of modernism. They don’t glorify anything; they exist imposingly and have a strong bias to function. Yet this itself is dehumanizing in its own way.
Tl;dr: traditional aesthetics glorify the nation and the state, including its human flaws. Abstract art tends to dehumanize itself as a way to avoid these flaws, especially in the wake of major human catastrophes.
The Soviet and Fascist styles of art which glorified the party and its base straddles both sides.
"Yet not only in Croatia, but in France, the USA, Britain, real, open fascism – fences, walls, racial laws, deportations, camps – is once again mainstream."
Deportation camps are once again mainstream in these countries?? Are they? And "once again" as if they ever were mainstream? Did I miss something?
That kind of makes me doubt everything else said in the article. Overall the article seemed to be very anti fascist (great!) and pro post WWII communist (not great) even seemingly celebrating Yugoslavia's defeat of the Allies?
Anyway, I would love to see more simple explanation of each spomenik like this article gives for some of them (artist, purpose of the monument, dates, etc.). Anyone know where to find that?
It seems like it would be better to discuss immigration policy and enforcement directly (when someone wants to do that) rather than having meta-discussions about what category it belongs in.
https://www.rescue.org/uk/article/rwanda-plan-explained-why-...
The reason why I interpret it that way is simple: when fascists are actually in power, there's no such thing as "mainstream" anymore. Authoritarian rule means that there's only one correct way of thinking and behaving, and everything else is a crime or heresy or "evil", depending on the specific flavor of authoritarianism. "Mainstream", on the other hand, implies that there are other views and that they can be discussed.
/sarcasm
> Authoritarian mean there’s only one correct way of thinking and behaving, and everything else is a crime or heresy or “evil”, depending on the specific flavor of Authoritarianism.
Oh wait, that sounds exactly the like the United States. If you don’t believe what 95% of the “mainstream” media is pushing you’re labeled all sorts of things. The biggest on is conspiracy theorist, when all it take is ~ 6-9 months before the conspiracy theorists are proven correct. Let’s not get into how often the terms racist, fascist, and nazi are thrown around when people of opposing views disagree. Somehow it’s almost always the one side slandering, due to lack of argument.
https://www.index.hr/mobile/vijesti/clanak/video-skejo-i-hos...
You've been downvoted in your root comment because people latch onto that neo-nazi definition but missing forest from the trees. The far right over here is powerful, organized and very vocal. The football matches are just a social overpressure valve so the fans are constantly fighting between themselves instead of taking to the streets to protest the political/economical issues. And the government likes it that way.
The conditions in U.S. camps are dire, children sleeping on bloody straw, smeared with feces. Families separated. Food, water, and shelter inadequate to sustain life in the deserts where these camps are.
In Britain, the attitude is similar pro deportation, but the refugees aren't put into camps as far as I know. However, the buildings that they are in have been subject to attacks and arson.
The "once again" probably refers to both the historical mainstream opinion that Japanese migrants should be moved to concentration camps within the U.S., and of course the mainstream beliefs in Nazi Germany.
(Note, I'm not trying to draw any parallels between any of these camps. Please don't infer that I'm calling anyone nazis except the nazis. These examples can all exist and be over the threshold of "cruel" without needing to be compared to one another.)
I believe the point the comment was making is that no reasonable person would call the existence of walls or fences, or the deportation of illegal/undocumented immigrants fascist (even those who believe that free migration is a human right), or that "racial laws" are mainstream (except maybe in affirmative action, but it benefits PoC so the author of the article most likely wouldn't consider it a racial law).
How very no-true-scotsman of them.
I think you'll find that quite a few reasonable people consider mass internments and deportations to be pretty far along the spectrum towards fascism
And if you think that deportations are > 90, you have no idea what fascism is.
The "who" also matters when it comes to deportation. If we were just deporting folks who overstayed their visa, versus a policy of deporting refugees who took great risks to even reach the country, or folks who were raised (and sometimes even born!) in the US... I'd have more sympathy for the anti-immigration crowd.
It's like someone going "did you know American monuments are known as monuments locally?"
Anyway, if someone visit one of Balkan countries and ask to see spomenik, expect locals to be confused and would not know what exactly you mean.
More seriously, I think you're exactly right about the adopted internet-English meaning of 'spomenik' and the article is right to make a distinction between this particular (and much more interesting) variety and your more generic strictly-regime-sponsored concrete artblob.
I can say I’ve never felt that but have enjoyed the sort of x-ray view you get of the structure sometimes + imagining what it was like at full splendor. To me it’s a combined feeling of wonder and loss.
From what I understand, the Ustaše (I think they were Croatian), were so brutal, they sickened the Gestapo.
Tito held Yugoslavia together, but that unity couldn't survive his passing. They've been fighting each other for so long, that I suspect the original reasons are lost in antiquity.
Tribalism is very human, and results in the worst fights.
I grew up in Africa, and saw what tribal hatred looks like. Not pretty, but Africa doesn't have the monopoly on it.
We have tribes all over Europe, and America. The behavior is exactly the same, everywhere.
I'm always open to be corrected, but as far as I know nations that formed Yugoslavia haven't actually fought each other meaningfully before WWI and even in that war Slovenians, Croats and Bosniaks were not involved independently, but as subjects of Austro Hungarian empire. There certainly wasn't the kind of animosity displayed as for centuries between France and England or France and Germany (as just two examples). It was really WW2 where one can observe the viciousness beyond fighting one's enemy.
I have my own views why things went south so badly and I agree with you that it was inevitable for YU to fall apart, but I find the often expressed argument that people living in our parts always did this very unpersuasive.
The Balkans are mountainous. (In fact, "Balkans" was the name of a mountain range before it was the name of a region.)
France, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland, Ukraine and Russia (among other countries) in contrast lie on a large plain called the European plain, which makes invasions easier, so the governments there had to pay attention to military matters more. As an exception to this general rule, between 1945 and 1989 the world's 2 superpowers took a keen interest in Europe and one expression of this interest was to promise to come to the aid of their "side" of Europe is any country on their "side" was attacked, to which the countries of Europe responded by focusing on things other than military matters, which is a sign that the Europeans are not naturally warlike, but rather responding to incentives imposed by geography.
In the West, we have a term "Balkanization." I had assumed that it's fairly old.
[UPDATED TO ADD]
In Africa, many of the really vicious tribal wars, date from the colonial times.
The colonial powers leveraged old tribal animosity. It was a way to keep their colonies from concentrating on them.
Demagogues, conquerors, and dictators have always known how to leverage old resentments, and fan them into a conflaguration.
Like I said, this behavior is very human, and we're seeing it on this side of the pond.
> Monuments built by the Nazis stand alongside those built by and for their victims. It is comparable to placing a photo of Yad Vashem alongside images of Albert Speer’s Zeppelinfeld, as if they were the same thing.
Because they are the same thing. It’s grandiose architecture commissioned by 20th century autocrats.
> a major problem is also the depoliticised framing of the monuments. Left without any indication of what they commemorate, or even of who designed them, the results are “deliberately oblivious” to the anti-fascist struggle that they commemorate
As it should be. Don’t get fooled by the article author tentative to rehabilitate and separate socialist art from the rest. Totalitarian regimes are totalitarian even when they are communist.
Setting aside the fact that socialism and communism are not exactly the same thing, this simplification of yours is wrong.
Would you say that the Colosseum, the Altare della Patria, and the obelisk with the inscription 'Dux' referring to Mussolini, all monuments that can still be visited in Rome today, are the same thing because they were all built long before Italy was a democratic Republic?
Nothing to set aside and nothing wrong here. Socialist realism was the official art doctrine of the USSR - guess what the second S is for - and it’s usual to call all art commissioned by the socialist states as socialist art. Tito and his regime were definitely communist however. But let’s brush aside this part of your comment.
Would do you good to actually be right when you want to take this kind of tone, just saying.
> Would you say that the Colosseum, the Altare della Patria, and the obelisk with the inscription 'Dux' referring to Mussolini, all monuments that can still be visited in Rome today, are the same thing because they were all built long before Italy was a democratic Republic?
But certainly, yes, in more way than one.
Obviously, contrary to the structures mentioned in the article and which are the object of my comment, they were not built at the same time so they share different architecture characteristics but they do share some common purpose.
So yes, despite your argument being completely unrelated to what’s being discussed, I wouldn’t be shocked to see them juxtaposed in an architectural book for sure.
As the rule of this web site states Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith
As a matter of fact, I don't know about you, but I come from a communist political tradition which is different from the socialist one, the two split in 1921 you can call them both socialists but their stories are not exactly the same thing, notice the emphasis on exactly.
USSR was a travesty of communism, it was state capitalism in disguise and some of the leaders of the communist party of my country told that to the Russians you can look up the most notable one, Enrico Berlinguer, his opinions and his acts of political bravery.
To put it simply: Erich Honecker, Tito, Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev had very different ideas on what socialism was and and how to implement it (and in fact we talk about Stalinism, Maosim, Titoism, all different ways to interpret the Marxism-Leninism which is the more correct definition here).
you simply missed the context which is Europe of the past century, not the perceived idea of socialism through the modern media.
> I wouldn’t be shocked to see them juxtaposed in an architectural book for sure.
You are wrong my friend.
They are not the same thing because one represent the grandiose empire that once roamed on the same soil we Italians were born and raised on and its history span over 2 millenia, a lot of things happened to it and around it to the point that it is just a symbol of the city of Rome now and nothing else, the second it's actually named Vittoriano but it has become known as Altare della patria because after world war 1 the Unknown Soldier was buried there as a memorial of the soldiers that died during the war, the last one is a vanity project of one of the worst dictators that ever lived and we kept it because our historians believe that even the history we don't like preserve our shared memories and can lead people to not make the same mistakes of the past.
The intent is as important if not more than just the architecture.
Most of us Romans care more about the statue of Pasquino and Giordano Bruno than St. Peter's because they mean something to us and represent who we are and why we are the way we are, even though St. Peters is obviously a lot more popular. Another example is The D'Annunzio mausoleum and residence, Vittoriale degli Italiani, despite being a wonderful place to visit, it sparks controversy due to Gabriele D'Annunzio's association with and influence on the early fascist movement in Italy.
Again intent and purpose have meaning too in arts.
> USSR was a travesty of communism, it was state capitalism in disguise and some of the leaders of the communist
Come on. Even for a teenager, that would be cliché.
I don’t really see anything in the rest of your comment which I really want to dignify with a detailed reply. It is an unconvincing answer to a point I never made considering being similar is not being the same.
I’m genuinely amazed anyone could qualify the Roman Empire and its diverse history as grandiose however especially someone who fancies themselves communist (or maybe I am not and both actually come from the same lack of critical reading of history - would somehow make sense).
I’m definitely not your friend however.
straw man
> Tito rehabilitation
again you're purposefully mixing anti fascism and Tito, I am Italian, I have no affiliation whatsoever with former Jugoslavia, I don't care about Tito, but I do care a lot about anti fascism which is a fundamental value inscribed in the Constitution of my Country thanks to the sacrifice of many good men like one of my grandfathers and both my grand grand fathers
> I’m definitely not your friend however.
You're saying it like I actually care...
> Black Panther was a fine movie but its politics were a bit iffy. wouldve been way better if at the end the Black Panther turned to the camera & said "i am communist now" & then specified hes the exact kind of communist i am
Do you have any ideas? Maybe its commie talk to say these aren't related to WWII?
Or maybe they find the article political?
Seems pretty straightforward to me, guy from country says people from other countries turned something complex into something simple for clickbait, documents it.
PS. looking at the girl who accompanies Mme Dion from taxi to stage at the start of https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1CwpCNThO4 : was her outfit a yugoslav school uniform?
Current mainstream global narative, along the lines of "Eurasia is in war with Eastasia. Eurasia has always been in war with Eastasia" is trying to convince me that the history I had been thought was a lie. So far I'm not convinced.
About PS: indeed, outfit looks similar (but not identical) to uniform of Yugoslav Pionir https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Pioneers_of_Yugosla...
"Sve ljude koji žele slobodu i mir!"
Now you've reminded me to try to rewatch Underground (1995), if only because it contained a lovely three(?) word compliment for our fascist brothers, repeated often enough during those 160 minutes that even though I was watching with english subtitles I had still learned the serbian original — but now my aging neurons no longer recall what those words may have been.