'At this side, a monument will be installed': Chisinau Monuments and Commemoration Practices Dedicated to Forced Soviet Deportations
Abstrakt
The article deals with the politics of memory in Moldova, emphasizing the memory of the forced Soviet deportations from Moldova in 1941-1951. The article aims to analyse contemporary Moldovan politics of memory and discuss it on the example of Chisinau monuments and commemoration practices dedicated to the forced Soviet deportations.
As the main theoretical concept for the analysis of the monuments serves Pierre Nora's term lieux de memoire, which is defined as the symbolic elements of the memorial heritage of any community (Nora, 1989). In the article, three monuments are discussed: 'Monument to the Bessarabians massacred by Bolsheviks', 'Monument in the Memory of Victims of the Soviet Occupation and Totalitarian Soviet Regime' and the 'Train of Sorrow'.