The Difficult Fate of Witnesses to Empires

There was a time when it was safe to walk around the city, admire artistic masterpieces and delight in monumental buildings without any restrictions. Today, looking at the stucco molding on the house-museum of a famous benefactor of the past, it is quite easy to learn about the origin of his wealth, and entering a university building named after a scientific genius, it will be difficult to ignore the side effects caused by his invention. Even more so. Come to think of it, every meter of your daily commute home has its own story, often not a very pleasant one, and sometimes downright bloody. 

Tyrants, autocrats, and dictators create monuments, architectural styles, and other monumental markers of their existence as well as the most ardent religious adherents. The rulers of empires were well aware of the magical power with which majestic visual symbols influence their subjects, and therefore massively erected monuments in the territories of their colonies.

Metropolises collapse, but the monuments they created survive. Thus, in the realities of the former colonies, a logical question hangs like a burden: what to do with symbols, especially those that testify to the most tragic periods in the history of the state: to preserve, reconsider, or dismantle? 

Hitler bell

The bells on the tower of the St. James Protestant Church in the small town of Herxheim am Berg, Rhineland-Palatinate (Germany), are destined to become the subject of a wide-ranging debate. The religious community of the church offered to dismantle the rarity, which was installed in 1934, at their own expense. It was because of the decoration associated with the National Socialist era. The bell is decorated with a swastika and the inscription "All for the Fatherland. Adolf Hitler".

Local residents opposed the church's intentions to get rid of the "Hitler bell."

"The community needs clarity in understanding the direction in which we are moving," said Mayor Georg Welker. According to the local authorities, throwing away the bell would be "an escape from an adequate and balanced culture of attitude to memory."

By voting 10 to 3, the local council decided that despite the scandal, the bell would remain in the local church as "an impetus for reconciliation and a symbol of resistance to violence and injustice." 

Remembering means glorification 

In March 2015, a student named Chumani Maxwele brought a bucket filled with shit to the University of Cape Town, where there stood a statue of Cecil Rhodes, the British diamond magnate, colonial politician and avowed white supremacist. "There is no collective history here – where are our heroes and ancestors?" - Maxwele proclaimed and splashed the contents of a bucket onto the monument.

This single action stirred up the community. Students went on a full-scale protest. They covered the statue of Rhodes with graffiti and promised to dismantle it themselves if it was not removed in an official manner.

Erected in 1934, the bronze Rhodes was considered a highly artistic cultural object and occupied the very center of the University campus.

However, this did not protect it from criticism and obstruction.

Cecil Rhodes believed that Africans were a "subjugated race" and that white rule was the natural order. His ambitions for the colony he governed are made plain by the inscription from Kipling along the plinth: “I dream my dream / By rock and heath and pine / Of empire to the northward / Ay, one land / From Lion’s head to line.”

A few weeks after the Rhodes Must Fall protests, the statue was demolished. It had stood for more than 80 years, including two decades of majority black rule under the African National Congress (ANC), the party of Nelson Mandela. The protests and demolition of the statue came as a surprise to the South African establishment, including then-President Jacob Zuma and Archbishop Njongonkulu Ndungane, who once helped end apartheid.

Ottoman Minaret in Eger

The small town of Eger in Hungary is home to many architectural monuments. However, a special place in the historical ensemble of the city is occupied by the minaret. It is the northernmost Ottoman symbol that reminds of the times of Turkish rule in Europe. The geometric shape of the structure is a 14-cornered triangle, and the height of the building is 40 meters. The centuries-old tower has survived the centuries and is perfectly preserved. Inside the tower there is a high spiral staircase - 97 steps leading to a round balcony with iron railings, offering a spectacular view of the city.

The main highlight of the building is the spire of the tower. Despite the fact that for Hungarians the minaret is a reminder of the Ottoman Empire's rule here, the Islamization and extermination of most of the Hungarian nobility, the monument was not destroyed or dismantled. On the contrary, a compromise solution was implemented here that allowed preserving the historic building, leveling the painful context of its appearance. A cross, a sign of the Christian faith, was installed on the spire of the mosque, above the traditional crescent.

Ukrainian Motherland Monument

The unique Motherland monument in Kyiv, Ukraine, is the second tallest in Europe. The 102-meter-high sculpture weighing 500 tons is larger than the American Statue of Liberty and the Brazilian Jesus.

The monument was created in Kyiv during the Soviet era and dedicated to the anniversary of the Soviet victory in World War II. During its manufacture, a special method of welding seams was invented, the length of which is 30 kilometers. The woman with a sword and shield represented a mother who is waiting for her sons to return from the war. After gaining independence there were debates in Ukraine about the feasibility of preserving a large number of monuments created during the totalitarian regime.

After Russia's invasion of Ukraine, the realization of the catastrophic impact of propaganda and numerous Kremlin manipulations around the topic of World War II and Soviet-related history, the discussion of how to decolonize and de-Russify the monument reached a new level of urgency.

Discussions were held in the context of the contradictions between Ukraine's current ideological and political course and Soviet symbolism. There was even talk of complete dismantling. However, it was eventually decided to hold a poll on the fate of the tallest statue in Ukraine. Online voting showed that the majority chose the option of replacing the Soviet coat of arms on the Motherland shield. As a result of the unique installation work, the hammer and sickle on the 12-meter high surface was replaced with the Ukrainian coat of arms, the Trident.

Monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky

In 1989, after the fall of the Berlin Wall, a monument to Felix Dzerzhinsky, the founder of the Soviet punitive machine and one of the Red Terror organizers, was dismantled in Warsaw. Later, after the adoption of the decommunization law, the country began to massively eliminate traces of the Soviet past. In 2018 alone, 75 monuments were dismantled.

The dismantling of the monument to Soviet General Ivan Chernyakhovsky in Pieniężno sparked a lively debate. After the bust was dismantled, it was planned to be handed over to the Russian side, but in the end, it remained in the possession of the Polish Institute of National Remembrance as a reminder of the dangers of totalitarianism.

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History cannot be unambiguous. Just as in the life of an individual, painful tragedies happen to nations as often as periods of prosperity. Decisions on how to preserve the memory of such events or visual symbols can only be made by the society itself after discussions and exchange of arguments. At the same time, it is obvious that there are no "simple solutions" in the field of historical memory. For example, the demolition of monuments to totalitarian regimes without understanding the crimes they committed deprives society of the opportunity to draw conclusions and avoid the recurrence of terror in the future.