Memorial Landscapes of the Fall of the Soviet Union

• In Event: Space and Place in the Cultural Representations of/in the Global East

Abstract

It is generally assumed that the collapse of the Soviet Union was a peaceful and non-violent process, but this is not entirely true. In some of the Union republics, the unrest that began in 1988-1989 degenerated into bloody clashes between demonstrators and Soviet troops, resulting in many deaths. These include the so-called "Night of Spades" in 1989 in Tbilisi, Georgia; "Black January" in 1990 in Baku, Azerbaijan; the events of January 13, 1991 at the television tower in Vilnius, Lithuania; and the "Barricade Events" in Riga, Latvia, which lasted from January 13 to 24, 1991. The presentation would address not only the spatial representations of these events, but also how these memorial sites have become focal points of collective identity and the source of political exploitation by certain political groups to monopolize the memory of these tragic days.

Authors

• Parvin Ahanchi, Baku Higher Oil School (Azerbaijan)

• Rasa Cepaitiene, Lithuanian Inst of History (Lithuania)