From a comparative perspective, the article deals with two different attitudes towards two striking remnants left in former East Berlin by the Soviet Union: the Lenin monument by the sculptor Nikolai Tomskii and the statue of Nikolai Masalov by Evgenii Vuchetich in the War Memorial dedicated to the fallen Red Army soldiers in Treptower Park. Both monuments have survived the spontaneous iconoclastic attacks which accompanied and followed the fall of the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic, considered that the main target of such assaults was the most notorious of all Cold War relics, the Berlin Wall. The decision to remove the Lenin monument was taken by the city authorities and justified as a natural stage of Berlin’s reunification process and of the revolution triggered two years before by the fall of the Wall. Its dismantlement raised old resentments and strong protests, in which slogans reemerged from the demonstrations organized just before the collapse of the GDR. But the roles now seemed to be changed. The statue of Nikolai was removed from its original site too, but that happened more than ten years later, and for very different reasons: in order to be properly restored. The renovation of the sculpture, as well as of the whole ensemble in Treptower Park, was the result not only of a new geopolitical era in Germany (the Schröder-Putin friendship) but also of new historical, and economic circumstances. The German version of the nostalgia for the socialist past, the so-called Ostalgie, had turned into a rewarding business in the last years. Despite some pas faux, like the demolition of the Palast der Republik, the city authorities have been trying to preserve evidence of the city’s recent past not only as historical sites but also as tourist attractions.

Farewell Lenin – Good Bye Nikolai. Two Attitudes Towards Soviet Heritage in Former East Berlin

BERTELE', Matteo
2007-01-01

Abstract

From a comparative perspective, the article deals with two different attitudes towards two striking remnants left in former East Berlin by the Soviet Union: the Lenin monument by the sculptor Nikolai Tomskii and the statue of Nikolai Masalov by Evgenii Vuchetich in the War Memorial dedicated to the fallen Red Army soldiers in Treptower Park. Both monuments have survived the spontaneous iconoclastic attacks which accompanied and followed the fall of the socialist regime in the German Democratic Republic, considered that the main target of such assaults was the most notorious of all Cold War relics, the Berlin Wall. The decision to remove the Lenin monument was taken by the city authorities and justified as a natural stage of Berlin’s reunification process and of the revolution triggered two years before by the fall of the Wall. Its dismantlement raised old resentments and strong protests, in which slogans reemerged from the demonstrations organized just before the collapse of the GDR. But the roles now seemed to be changed. The statue of Nikolai was removed from its original site too, but that happened more than ten years later, and for very different reasons: in order to be properly restored. The renovation of the sculpture, as well as of the whole ensemble in Treptower Park, was the result not only of a new geopolitical era in Germany (the Schröder-Putin friendship) but also of new historical, and economic circumstances. The German version of the nostalgia for the socialist past, the so-called Ostalgie, had turned into a rewarding business in the last years. Despite some pas faux, like the demolition of the Palast der Republik, the city authorities have been trying to preserve evidence of the city’s recent past not only as historical sites but also as tourist attractions.
2007
3
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Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/3660396
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