World War II memorial in Lõupõllu. Author Edgar Viies. Photo: National Register of Cultural Monuments / Keidi Saks, 2018
Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine has triggered debates about the Russian and Soviet heritage both globally and in Estonia. This has been accompanied by the toppling of monuments, as well as social conflicts and polarisation. The aim of the project “How to Reframe Monuments: Rethinking Dissonant Heritage in Estonia through Case Studies” is to bring together expertise and skills from different fields to offer solutions, which would allow not to dismantle the dissonant heritage, but to place it in a new, critical framework. We see an acute need for concrete case studies to develop practices for reinterpreting heritage through cross-disciplinary collaboration: artistic research and memory studies, heritage conservation and digitization, and spatial interventions. To this end, the project will draw on the one hand on international experience and comparisons, and on the other hand bring together academics and local stakeholders through. Taken as a whole, this will help to generate new knowledge and skills for dealing with complex heritage at different levels.
Principal investigator: Linda Kaljundi
Senior research staff: Riin Alatalu, Karsten Brüggemann (Tallinn University), Hilkka Hiiop, Uku Lember (Tallinn University), Kristo Nurmis (Tallinn University)
Other research staff: Maria Hansar, Kirke Kangro, Andrus Laansalu, Anu Soojärv, Gregor Taul, Andres Uueni
Financed by the Estonian Ministry of Culture
Period: 2024–2026
See in the Estonian Research Information System