Visual Memory and Oblivion

Monuments and Conflicts in Urban Spaces in Central and Eastern Europe from the Nineteenth Century to the Present Day

Robert Born, Barbara Murovec, Barbara Kristina Murovec, Robert Born, Ada Raev

• Publisher: Böhlau Köln
• Year: 2026
• Edition: 1
• eBook ISBN:
  9783412529093
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: History of Art

Over the past three years, monuments have been toppled or re-coded around the world, the latest against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine. The contributions in this volume address the complex network of relations between monuments – memory – city in Central- and South-Eastern Europe from a long-term perspective. Their focus is on the significance and use of (national) art from the nineteenth century onwards, especially during the Second World War and in the individual (socialist) countries. The critical examination of the different visual articulations of historical memory and of different complexes of "dissonant heritage" follows a multidisciplinary approach, including art history, cultural memory studies, historical visual studies, literary criticism, architectural history and heritage protection. The case studies on cities located today in Croatia, Georgia, Germany, Italy, Northern Macedonia, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia and Ukraine were written by: Robert Born (Oldenburg), Daria Brasca (Milano & Zürich), Dragan Damjanovi? (Zagreb), Irene Giviashvili (Tbilisi & Florence), Donata Levi (Udine), Nenad Makuljevi? (Belgrade), Barbara Kristina Murovec (Florence & Munich), Patricia Po?ani? (Zagreb), Milan Popadi? (Belgrade), Helena Rožman (Krško), Giovanni Rubino (Rome), Anke Schlecht (Nürnberg), Svetlana Smol?i? (Belgrade), Dirk Suckow (Berlin), Iain B. Whyte (Edinburgh), and Tanja Zimmermann (Leipzig). Erscheint zugleich als Bd. 72 in der Reihe Veröffentlichungen des Zentralinstituts für Kunstgeschichte in München.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Body
• Barbara Kristina Murovec / Robert Born: The Visual Politics and Public Monuments of Cities
• Daria Brasca / Donata Levi : Conflicting Memories in Trieste . The Case of the Holocaust Memorials
• Svetlana Smolčić Makuljević: Jewish Heritage in Bitola between Memory and Oblivion
• Dragan Damjanović: The State, the Opposition and the Commemoration of the National Past. Public Monuments in Croatia in the La e Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Centuries
• Patricia Počanić: Public Art for a New Socialist City. Monuments, Sculptures and Temporary Interventions in Novi Zagreb
• Milan Popadić: New Belgrade’s Ušće. From No-Man’s Land to (Not So) Public Space
• Barbara Kristina Murovec / Helena Rožman: Forgetting the Unwanted Past by Visualising a New Local Identity. Public Monuments i Krško
• Iain Boyd Whyte: Berlin: Reichskanzlerplatz – Adolf-Hitler-Platz – Benito-Mussolini-Platz – Reichskanzlerplatz (again) – Theodor-Heuss-Platz. The Story is in the Names
• Anke Schlecht: “Auf Wiedersehen”. Two Fountains for the Nuremberg Hauptmarkt and the Ongoing Transformations of Public Space
• Tanja Zimmermann: Feuilleton and Kinetic Perception of Saint Petersburg in the Early Nineteenth Century . A Stroll Along Nevsky Prospect and Its Places of Remembrance
• Irene Giviashvili: The Cult of Stalin and the Remodelling of Gori
• Giovanni Rubino: Ode to Labour and the Working Class. Dino Basaldella’s Ear of Ravne
• Nenad Makuljević: Autocracy and Urban Identity. The Monument to Stefan Nemanja in Belgrade
• Dirk Suckow: Somewhere Under the Rainbow or The Constructed Politics of History. The Peoples’ Friendship Monument in Kyiv
• Contributors