Landscapes of Memory: Contested Built Environments and Politics in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, 1920s-2020s

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel deliberates on the enduring impact of monuments and constructed architectural and built landscapes within the context of three countries Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania—across three distinct political epochs: the era of independent nation-states (1920-1940), the period of Soviet occupation (1945-1990), and the post-Soviet transformations spanning from 1991 to the present day.

The three papers within this discourse analyze the genesis and current conditions of varioius attempts to commemorate historic events in monuments, buildings, and urban landscapes, as well as the societal attitudes towards them, encompassing issues of acknowledgment, collective remembrance, and socio-cultural complexities embedded therein. Through a comparative lens, the studies explore how the construction, interpretation, perception, and preservation of heritage are shaped by geopolitical ruptures. Moreover, the focus of these papers lies in the interpretation of the built environment from the standpoint of landscape construction and geo-aesthetics, and the conceptual evolution of memory policies alongside societal reactions to contentious heritage.

Sub Unit

• Geography, Urban Studies, Built Environments

Chair

• Marija Dremaite, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

Papers

• Post-Authoritarian Landscapes: Interpreting Built Heritage in Lithuania - Marija Dremaite, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

• Insurgent Landscapes - Megija Milberga, New York U

• Power, Representation, Reality: The Construction of a Monument to Estonia’s War of Freedom, 1918-1920 - Marie-Alice L'Heureux, U of Kansas

Discussant

• Epp Lankots, Estonian Academy of Arts (Estonia)