Crimea Monuments Commemorating the Civil War: Mnemonic Actors – the Warriors of Memory

Abstract

The article presents a study of memory politics actors, taking the case of memorialization of recollections of the Civil War in Crimea in the post-Soviet period. Drawing on a range of sources including field materials collected during the 2023–24 research trips to the cities of Crimea, I attempt to trace the process of appearance of the new monuments that were dedicated to the events and figures of the Civil War, and that were established both during the period of Crimea’s accession to Ukraine and in the period after its incorporation into Russia in 2014. I argue that among the agents that can become major actors of memory politics, apart from the state and its affiliated structures possessing the necessary administrative and financial resources, there can just as well be local activists who seek to establish their own historical narratives in the public space out of unselfish motivations not necessarily related to the ideological support of power institutions (“mnemonic warriors”). Furthermore, they can act in cooperation both with individual representatives of the state (which is not a monolithic actor) and with large social structures such as, for instance, the Russian Orthodox Church which itself acts as an independent actor of memory politics directed towards the Civil War events.