Perpetual Fire ( ): Thoughts on contemporising monuments
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| Perpetual Fire ( ): Thoughts on contemporising monuments | |
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Peeter Linnap | |
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I remember a joke stating that the Perpetual Fire burning
in Tõnismägi was open from 9 am to 6 pm on weekdays and
from 10 am to 6 pm on weekends. This witty idea operated
as an image that was supposed to ‘let off steam’ from the collective
trauma, thus easing the constant presence of an alien
ideology cast in bronze in our urban space. The inorganic
and inane object is still there, but its chief features, the symbolic
values, have as good as disappeared.With hindsight, it must be admitted that our Perpetual Fire indeed turned out to be temporary, in fact quite temporary indeed. It managed to burn for a mere few decades before it was discovered that we do not actually have the necessary gas to ‘feed’ the monster; so we would have had to pay the Russians who erected the monument in the first place! Too much adrenaline and emotions have prevented any rational discussion of the topic of monuments – but an imaginary comparison with some other cultural space reveals the whole piquancy of the situation. Try to imagine, for example, the Poles diligently preserving a fascist monument or, even worse, the Dutch putting up a monument in Rotterdam to commemorate a heroic German pilot who just happened to bomb the town flat. Or imagine American Indians taking flowers to the Columbus monument. And so on. The logical tautological conclusion certainly is that such a monument must be simply ‘taken down’. Besides similar scenarios we could also think along the lines that any kind of destruction is really bad. What’s more, it is not possible to wipe out the history of culture through deconstructing methods, or even demolition, whether we like it or not. So, as we already have an imported memorial of a ‘fraternal nation’, its future should not be connected with the frustrating dualism of take it down or leave it. Since the two nations have already been in contact, it might be assumed that both sides will remember. And this completely inevitable collective and bilateral memory should be celebrated equally, meaning bilaterally. |
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I have in mind here an ‘export-type gesture that would
enable even the most convinced fans of the bronze soldier
to experience, first-hand, that things have indeed been a bit
one-sided so far. There is, however, another way: instead of
taking something away, why don’t we in fact add something.
But not what the previous supporters of the ‘adding theories’
have recommended, ie let us add something to Tallinn. This
would be pure egoism! A totally new level in thinking would
be if the Estonian state, as an act of goodwill, established its
own monument in a Russian town with which we have some
historical contact. Moscow would be the most worthy place,
the more so in that, in the past, Estonia and the other fourteen
fraternal republics were in the habit of exchanging shops
named after cities: the Moscow shop in Tallinn and the
other way round. If, however, the metropolis is not willing to
accept this innovative idea, we could make do with Pskov.
We have, after all, historical connections with that town –
during the War of Independence Estonian troops marched
into that small town and arranged some parades there. Our
‘military oldies’ would certainly love to make regular trips
to Pskov in order to celebrate their heroic deeds, just as the
people, medals clinking, do in Tallinn. This is how we could
produce a symmetrical, equal situation: ‘they to us and we to
them’. Most laudable.Monuments, therefore, must be dealt with in a contemporary manner, considering recent knowledge of symbol economy. Stone memorials leave behind an astral body, a virtual monument that lasts in people’s memories. A stone memorial, taken down, will be more significant for it. More martyr-like. War of Independence monuments, for example, survived their physical absence in the form of mental images and memories, and were re-incarnated in material as soon as circumstances permitted, although, on the level of images, they were probably better ‘made’ than in the street. Similarly, the bronze soldier who emerged in the limelight in 2006 is quite wretched and unfinished, as the Perpetual fire has been removed from its ensemble. What about making the monument a bit more contemporary with those bored policemen currently keeping an eye on Alyosha? The grim helmet-clutching soldier with a striped ribbon reading ‘the police’ encircling him, and a group of little green men around him? In this way, the monument would really be contemporised, and a number of new layers of meaning would appear. To make this possible, we should give those pairs of policemen currently wandering around the monument a fixed salary; in the end it would be cheaper than to keep paying for imported gas. Besides, ‘cops and monuments’ sounds infinitely more contemporary. Peeter Linnap (1960), PhD, photographer, critic and theoretician of photography. Professor and Head of photography department at Tartu Art College |
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| Estonian Art 2/06 (19) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2006 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 | |
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