Denkmäler des Stalinismus und ‚Realsozialismus’ zwischen Ikonoklasmus und Musealisierung

Abstract

The collapse of the state-socialist regimes of Eastern Europe was followed by the dismantling of their monuments, which - as statues, mausoleums or other memorials - stood in the tradition of a strictly regulated symbolisation of power. The different forms of relating to and the actual handling of these monuments range from their simple dissembling, their reinterpretation as period pieces, and their incorporation into museum collections, to forms of ritual destruction through fire or beheadings, acts which are treated and analysed by the author in the manner of Pierre Nora's Lieux de memoire. Various examples from Berlin, Prague and Sofia serve to illustrate the changing memory content of the chief monuments of national or state-ideological collective memory.