Vilnius memoryscape: razing and raising of monuments, collective memory and national identity.

Abstract

This article attempts to analyse collective memory formation (the study of monuments, memory, and public space) through the lens of semiotic landscape. A theoretical focus on power relations in “monumental politics” (Czepczyński, 2008; Forest, Johnson & Till, 2004; Gordon, 2001; Kaufman, 2001), the concept of memoryscape (Clack, 2011) and Van Gennep’s sociological concept of liminality (Van Gennep, A., 2004) and a methodological approach that “treats space as a discursive as well as physical formation” (Jaworski, A., Thurlow, C., 2010) are combined to examine the process of monument destruction, creation, and alteration in post-Soviet Vilnius.