Resistance by memory: what is memory activism

“Memory activism” is a recent term, and one that we are very fond of: the expression defines very neatly what we do at Memorial. We have put together a brief history of the term and what it represents.

Background

The term “memory activism” is a relatively new addition to the academic lexicon. Jenny Wustenberg, one of the leaders of memory studies, offers this definition:

strategic commemoration of the past to challenge (or protect) dominant views on the past and the institutions that represent them.

Memory activism deals with a “sense of the past” in the present, rather than trying to establish “what really happened.” At the same time, modern historians also understand that “objective knowledge” of the past is impossible to attain, and the attention of researchers has been increasingly directed toward the very means of producing and disseminating historical knowledge, including memorial culture. Thus, memory activism has become a subject of intense research interest in recent years.

The “activist turn” in memory studies, as it is called in the preface to the Routledge Handbook of Memory Activism, can be linked to the “culture wars” or “memory wars” in the United States and beyond. For example, one of the motives behind the “Black Lives Matter” protests in 2020 was to combat the commemoration of slavery and colonialism. Many monuments to Confederate generals who defended slavery during the American Civil War were then demolished by activists, and more were dismantled by local authorities amid a public campaign to reevaluate history. Similar conflicts have occurred and are still occurring, for example, in the UK around monuments to Cecil Rhodes and other colonial functionaries and businessmen.

The toppling of monuments is, of course, not a new phenomenon. The history of some monuments can serve as an illustration for developments in society: for example, the equestrian statue of Henry IV in Paris was destroyed during the French revolution in 1792, but after the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, it was recreated and put in its original place, where it remains to this day. However, the statues of the three Louis kings, also demolished during the Revolution, were never restored.

“Memory activism”, however, is a modern development. Historian Pierre Nora wrote that in traditional communities with their close horizontal ties, memory is “lived” as part of everyday life. In modernity, with the disappearance of such communities and the development of the media, public memory emerges, and institutions become its custodians. A tension appears between “grassroots” memory and institutional memory, which can be resolved in different ways.

Strategies of memorial activism

On the one hand, activism can be in conflict with “official” public memory, as in examples of monuments being demolished.

There have been many such situations in the post-Soviet space. The totalitarian states of the 20th century were particularly successful in constructing official memory: already in the first months of Soviet power, the Sovnarkom [Early Soviet government] ordered (by decree in April 1918) the removal from cities of “monuments erected in honor of tsars and their servants and of no historical or artistic interest,” and decided that work should immediately begin for new monuments. The document was signed, among other members of the Sovnarkom, by Lenin and Stalin. In a matter of decades, more monuments would be erected to these two men than to all the “tsars and their servants” combined.

In 1991, the demolition of the Dzerzhinsky monument in front of the KGB headquarters in Moscow (carried out by the mayor's office under pressure from the crowd) became one of the visual symbols of the advent of a new era. But, in Russia, the impetus to get rid of Soviet monuments and to return historical names to streets and cities proved short-lived. Toponymy is still a memorial list of Soviet figures whose merits have long been forgotten, and statues of Lenin keep dominating the average Russian cityscape. The function of these generic monuments haslong changed and now they no longer really point to the Bolshevik leader himself or even his ideology: they have become monuments to the Soviet past as such. This is why the destruction of these monuments, as well as the decommunization (and later decolonization) of toponymy, were an important part of the 2014 Ukrainian Revolution of Dignity, and why Russian authorities in Ukraine’s occupied territories have been restoring these monuments.

On the other hand, activist practices do not have to be directed against institutional practices, but can fill gaps in official memory or create an alternative agenda. Sometimes it is then picked up by institutions.

The Russian historian Alexander Etkind, who has written on memorial politics in the USSR and beyond, refers to the history of the memorialization of Nazi death camps: it did not begin at the official level immediately, but only after former prisoners, whom Etkind calls “memory enthusiasts,” began to build makeshift memorials from improvised means. Another example of the state following in the footsteps of activists is well known to those who lived in Russia in the 2000s and 2010s: the “Immortal Regiment” campaign, which started as a grassroots effort but was intercepted by the authorities and brought under state control, so that the authors of the idea themselves eventually disowned it. The difference between this situation and the one described by Etkind is quite clear: in postwar Germany, the authorities reacted to a newly emerged demand, while in Putin's Russia they appropriated a public initiative and co-opted it into its own agenda.

Is memorial activism possible in modern Russia?

In today’s Russia we do observe many memorial activist practices dedicated to Soviet history and to more recent events in the Russian context.

Perhaps the most common of them is leaving flowers and candles at memorial sites, in particular on important commemorative dates. Recently, monuments to the victims of the 1930s Great Terror across Russian cities have acquired a broader significance in the memorial activist context, one that is not exclusively tied to past atrocities but also to the crimes perpetrated by the current regime. After deadly attacks on Ukrainian cities or after the assassination of Alexey Navalny in prison, the act of laying flowers has been, for many, the only way to publicly express mourning and rage.

One memorial activist initiative that dates back several years is The Last Address, a campaign aimed at commemorating the victims of Soviet state crimes. Simple metal plaques are installed on buildings in  cities across Russia, carrying the names and dates of those who were arrested and executed.. Recently, many such  plaques have begun to disappear from buildings, in acts of vandalism.  In response to this, activists have created homemade replicas: using cardboard, wood, or even metal (more on this here).

Another form of public commemoration is when people gather to read aloud the names of people executed by the Soviet state. This has been linked primarily to two occasions. On August 5, the anniversary of the start  of the Great Terror, a reading ceremony has traditionally been held at the site of mass graves in Sandarmokh in Northern Russia. And on October 29, the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Repressions, the annual Returning the Names campaign is held simultaneously at memorial sites in different cities: here you can find more information on Returning the Names in 2024.