A small nation in monuments : a study of ruptures in Estonian memoryscape and discourse in the 20th century

Abstract

This thesis examines the monumental landscapes and historical culture in 20th century Estonia. It considers a network of three major socio-political upheavals and mnemonic 'ruptures' in the society's path for an exploration of how memory places and the memories they represent survived, responded to, or drew upon the political changes. The study follows Estonian monuments to the War of Independence (1918-1920), and proposes discourse units such as freedom and nation as a basis for interrogating the processes of their construction, destruction, altering, and eventual reconstruction. It examines the mechanisms of a mnemonic rupture, and searches for breaks alongside continuities in its aftermath. More generally, the thesis proposes a triple-change argument for the investigation of an Eastern European memory landscape, and poses a question of cross-rupture permanences in such borderland memory sites.