| Abstract [eng] |
Freedom Fighters’ Memorial at Lukiškės Square in Vilnius: Competing Discourses Analysis Monuments commemorating the traumatic events of the 20th century and their victims are the subject of heated debate in public space. The public debate broke out in reaction to The Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, The Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe in Berlin and various modern monuments in other countries. Conflicting processes of the memorial construction could be also tracked down in Lithuania. Opinions differed on the memorial to Romas Kalanta in Kaunas. The establishment of The Freedom Fighters’ Memorial in Vilnius Lukiškės Square, started in 1999, and has already become a sample of the so-called memory wars. The research examines an ongoing establishment of The Freedom Fighters’ Memorial. The 2012-2020 period covers two competitions organized by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania and one organized on public initiative. All of them aimed to choose the most suitable art project, but with no success. The projects that won the competitions caused dissatisfaction of various groups of the society and remained unimplemented. The Law on the Memorial Status of the Square, adopted in 2020, specified that a monument Vytis and a memorial to the freedom fighters should be erected in the square. Applying Ernesto Laclau and Chantal Mouffe’s discourse theory and using the cultural memory approach, as a theoretical framework, this paper analysis how and what cultural memories of the Lithuanian freedom fighters are articulated by competing discourses consisting of linguistic and non-linguistic practices. Statements of politicians, cultural professionals and the public in the media related to the understanding of the concepts of the monument and its functions are analysed as well as protests, projects of the memorial, rhetorical and physical vandalism, etc. The study allows to justify the initial insight that the antagonistic conflict is supported by different concepts of freedom, freedom fighters, state, and memorial functions as well as to explain differences of their meanings. |
