Memoralization of the military conflict in the Donbass in monuments

DOI: 10.33876/2311-0546/2021-54-2/340-354

Abstract

The author reconstructs and analyzes the processes of memorialization of the military conflict in Donbass, namely on the territory of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics. The article is based on the author’s own observations of commemorative practices in Donbass and analysis of open sources (media, social networks, blogs, etc.). The author systematizes memory places locations according to the time of creation and spatial localization. Due to political, economic and social isolation of Donbass, the commemorative function is exclusively assigned to the local community, and the community preserves the memory about the event creating visual objects. The visual objects-symbols that arose in Donbass in 2014-2020 are represented by memorial plaques, commemorative signs, monuments and memorial complexes. Memorials do not depend on the status of the deceased, age group or the number of dead. The determining factor is the fact of violent or tragic death. Spontaneous memorialization is temporally short and hardly represented as the pilgrimage to the place of tragedy can often be dangerous.

For Citation: Komar, I.V. 2021. Memoralization of the military conflict in the Donbass in monuments. Herald of Anthropology (Vestnik Antropologii) 2: 340–354.

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