Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Cultural policies, identities and monument building in
Southeastern Europe
Milena Dragićević Šešić
Abstract
This paper deals with monument policies in Southeastern Europe in the period of
transition, nationalistic uprisings, wars and divisions. Exploring the reconstruction
of mem ories through official and populist monument projects the research will try to
prove the misuse of memories and historical representations as a form of hate speech,
and to deconstruct this manipulation of memories used to create a new “national”, ethnic
memory using monument as a strategic tool.
At the same time the research will explore how artists have challenged official policies
of “monumentalization” creating their own monument projects. Monuments as artistic
projects, permanent or ephemeral, are part of the culture of dissent, platforms for
debating major cultural policy issues.
This research will use the categories identified by Kodrnja and Slapšak, re-adapted and
developed for the needs of this study. We therefore identified three different models of
strategy and monument policy applied in different phases of postsocialist transition: the
model of anti-culture (destruction strategy, appropriation strategy, ignoring “the other”
and provocation strategy); the model of “culturalization” (monument building within
new identity policies, decontextualization strategy, musealization of the heritage of
others, “gratitude” strategy); and the model of dissent – creative dialogue (counter-culture
strategy, strategy of opposing within one’s own culture).
Keywords: cultural policies, monument policies, Southeastern Europe, historical
representations, memories, identities
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