Soviet Monuments

Croatia’s Podgaric Monument to the Revolution

Since the Romans and before, leaders created PR marketing campaigns by exporting large statues of themselves to outlying provinces. I think most historians would say that this practice helped unify a region. The Soviet Union also erected giant statues of Lenin and Stalin, but at the same time and maybe in reaction to western art, the Eastern Block countries started to build enormous abstract monuments.

I first started to learn about these monuments when I came across an article talking about the deterioration of Yugoslavian works. The pieces I have seen online are pretty incredible. Often they were build in the middle of nowhere to commemorate a historical moment that occurred there.

Monument to the Revolution - Croatia

Mitrovica Miners Monument

Tjentiste War Memorial

Tjentiste War Memorial

Monument of the Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship

Aragveli monument

Monument “Peace”, by sculptor Nugzar Manjaparashvili, 1970s. Nukriani, Georgia. Photo: Stefano Perego

I appreciate the fact that these monuments were creating a new kind of language.

I’ll write more about this later. Just creating a rough draft to come back to here.