How Memory was Made: The Construction of the Memorial to the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad

The memorial "To the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle" was officially unveiled to the public on Oct 15, 1967. In the years that followed, descriptions of the site and the highlights of its construction were frequently published in Soviet newspapers, journals, reference works, and guidebooks...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:The Russian review (Stanford) 2009-07, Vol.68 (3), p.373-407
Main Author: PALMER, SCOTT W.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Bureaucracy
Collective Memory
Construction
Heroes
Homeland
Kurgans
Memorials & monuments
Memory
Monuments
Panoramas
Russia
Russian history
Sculptors
Soldiers
Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich (1879-1953)
Statues
Swords
War
War memorials
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Summary:The memorial "To the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle" was officially unveiled to the public on Oct 15, 1967. In the years that followed, descriptions of the site and the highlights of its construction were frequently published in Soviet newspapers, journals, reference works, and guidebooks. Subsequently hailed as a postwar symbol of the USSR's economic vitality and technical prowess, the construction of the "Memorial to the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle" more closely resembled the Pharaonic excess and organizational disarray that characterized large-scale projects of the prewar era. Yet hidden behind a massive facade of concrete and stone, the history of the "Memorial to the Heroes of the Stalingrad Battle" reveals that the final form of the USSR's most prominent war monument was not determined by the dictates of a dominant "discourse" but by ad hoc responses to administrative confusion, bureaucratic incompetence, and material shortages endemic to the Soviet system. Here, Palmer discusses the construction of the Memorial to the Heroes of the Battle of Stalingrad.
ISSN:0036-0341
1467-9434
DOI:10.1111/j.1467-9434.2009.00530.x