Soviet war memorials and global networks

The Second World War was the deadliest conflict in human history. The Soviet Union lost millions of soldiers in that warmore than any other country. They died both inside the USSR and fighting in other countries, from Austria to China. In all of those countries and even in some others, countless monuments commemorate the Soviet war dead. They were commissioned for a variety of reasons by the Soviet state and army and foreign governments and militaries, but also by many other official and unofficial groups. This project investigates how, in building and maintaining those monuments and others inspired by them, people have collaborated across borders. It studies Soviet military engineers who built monuments in Austria and Czechoslovakia immediately after the end of the war, and looks at how that experience shaped monuments later built in the Soviet Union. It examines how Soviet and post- Soviet sculptors and painters have specialized in a kind of art that appeals particularly to the tastes of military leaders and patriotic politicians, allowing them to export their works successfully even when they dont appeal to art critics. It also explores the importance of these monuments to the Russian- speaking communities that have emerged across the world since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Finally, it traces how the Soviet style of building war monuments inspired artists elsewhere in the communist world, especially in North Korea, and how it continues to be influential to this day in many countries in Africa and Asia. The project involves archival research, interviews, and analysis of online discussions in multiple countries. It is carried out in collaboration with colleagues who specialize in the study of the past and present of countries as diverse as Austria, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, North Macedonia, Israel, Namibia, Zimbabwe, and North Korea.

Memorials to soldiers of the Soviet Red Army who died in the Second World War are the most ubiquitous type of war memorial on the planet. They can be found in countries ranging from China to the United States. People from many countries were involved in their construction, and from the beginning, images of these memorials circulated internationally. Today they have become objects of violent conflicts: for example, one of the ways Russia justified its full-scale invasion of Ukraine was by claiming that such memorials are being destroyed there and are in need of Russian protection. This project studied Soviet war memorials as a transnational phenomenon from different perspectives. On the one hand it analyzed how such memorials have been depicted in history textbooks in different countries, leading to very different understandings of what they stand for and why they are important. On the other hand, it studied Russian policies regarding war memorials in the occupied territories of Ukraine. The project also used archival sources to study the construction and uses of Soviet war memorials immediately after the end of the Second World War. This research resulted in several articles in academic journals, essays for larger audiences, lectures and radio interviews, and a book: Mischa Gabowitsch and Mykola Homanyuk, "Monuments and Territory: War Memorials in Russian-Occupied Ukraine" (Budapest; Vienna; New York: CEU Press, 2024).