Cultural Identity Politics in the (Post-)Transitional Societies

Cultural policies, identities and monument building in Southeastern Europe
Conventions in representations are limiting possibilities of expression. As in the language
of rituals, where certain pairs of words reappear and gestures are repeated to enable
better mnemonic function, the same occurs with monument practices: certain visual
codes, details, a way of constructing gives significance to a monument. The decision to
create “a horseman”, or a standing or a sitting figure, 14 gives a different message to the
population, as does a chosen gesture or lack of one.
The crucial decision of policy makers to decide whether a monument should represent
a person, an event, or contemporary social values was solved through a return to realistic
representation in the 1990s, demonstrating the insecurity of the newly created states in
their own values and showing their wish to create an understandable, readable message
to their own society, and also to “the other”. Thus, the language of official sculptural
representation demands respect for a certain number of conventions regardless of the
event or personality. Repetition in visual formulas seems not to disturb contemporary
“elites”; on the contrary, it is reassuring that the message they mediate will be understood
and accepted.
As a conclusion, the national-ethnic-based dimension in Southeast European cultural
policies is still predominant, in spite of the fact that the majority of countries have
signed the UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of
Cultural Expressions and are participating in the programmes on intercultural dialogue.
Monument policies in the newly created Balkan countries were part of renationalization
policies, recreating (inventing) specific identities based on certain traditions and chosen
“memories”, and creating the conditions to enable the message to be widespread among
both the community members and members of other communities, focusing on dividing
memories, values and practices. Thus, a plurality of narratives was developed, but still
relying on the main one and the same historical narrative of independence (glorious
heroic past). It is obvious that cultural policies are still identity- and ethnic-based
policies which neglect the citizen and their right to culture as an individual human right.
14
Authority is “choreographed” by the position of the body (Connerton, 2002: 101).
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