Commemoration and Controversial Subjects

Recently we had a discussion in one of my classes about commemoration, celebration and nation building and a few questions came to mind. How do you represent controversial subjects in public history? Whose perspective do you ultimately take? How do you deal with these types of issues if you are working in a museum or writing a text for a monument or plaque? Is it possible to represent both sides of any historical subject in these sorts of mediums? Obviously these are very loaded questions, for which I do not have the answers. However, I would like to consider some of these issues, using an example I have studied and am very interested in.

Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union for over two decades. If there is a subject I think that is absolutely loaded with controversy, it is everything to do with this man. What I would therefore like to consider is the ways in which you would commemorate/represent this historical figure in public history.

To begin, I would like to point out some of the conflicting factors that surround this subject. First of all, Stalin and the Soviet Union are still within living memory for so many people. Therefore, we have to consider the audience, a good portion of which could have lived under the Soviet Union, or even during Stalinist rule. The second problem is that there are those who recognize that Stalin committed immeasurable atrocities, from executing people of the communist party to the formation of the Gulag system; he is basically responsible for the deaths of millions upon millions of his own people. Then there are those who argue that despite all this, he accomplished much when he was in power and some even now remember life to have been somewhat better when the Soviet Union existed, in particular, when Stalin was in power. One of the accomplishment’s that will forever be linked with Stalin is the industrialization of a primarily agricultural society. What is so remarkable about this transition is that he accomplished it more rapidly than any other country in the world ever has. Unfortunately, the cost of that success was the loss of millions of lives.

Visible throughout Soviet culture, during Stalin’s long reign of power, were many monuments erected in his honour. These monuments were considered a part of the Stalin cult that prevailed. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, many of these monuments were taken down. I only know of one which remains erected in Georgia, Stalin’s birthplace (although I am sure more exist). Other measures were taken, such as having Stalin removed from photographs.

These actions seem logical because of the atrocities he committed, which were largely concealed from the world. Why then are people considering re-erecting monuments of this tyrant? Part of the reason is that the quality of life in areas of the former USSR is poor. People in living memory of those times are remembering that things were better – they had free education, were guaranteed a job and so on. I recently read some articles stipulating that they want to reinstate monuments in Stalin’s honour commemorating things such as his contribution in the Second World War, as a way of connecting with a powerful past. This is something that often occurs when a society is trying to nation build. They look to a past, to a time when they were powerful, and try to revive it.

However, I wonder about the power a monument’s message carries? What meaning is produced by simply erecting another monument of Stalin? Then again what point were they sending by tearing one down?

It all depends on your perspective. Erecting a monument of Stalin, could represent power and growth, for those who believe that the end justified the means. It could also represent fear and murder, for all those who were victims of his tyranny. In tearing one down, you could be representing the end of that reign of terror, or you could be signifying the denial of its history. It all depends on your perspective, on your link to this history. Were you a loyal communist who prospered in those times? Or were you someone who was sent to the Gulag? And no matter which person you are, Stalin represents something very different. However, this is an extreme case that is difficult to grasp because on the one hand he did help the Allies win the Second World War. On the other hand, he went as far as to starve millions of Ukrainians during the Holodomor. For me, what cannot be argued is that Stalin played a huge role in the history of the twentieth century, and we cannot ignore it nor can you erase it.

All of these problems in representing Soviet history were something I encountered when I enrolled in an independent study course during my undergraduate studies. I was given the opportunity to produce a work of art based on any subject I wanted to pursue. I chose to research the paradox that surrounds Stalin’s rule of the Soviet Union. I understood that there were those people who believed he had accomplished a great deal, particularly with his industrialization project. Neither could I ignore the subservient voices of the survivors who bravely told stories of the absolute horror they experienced during those very same times.

The way that I approached the subject was to juxtapose the two views together in the form of a photomontage. I displayed images of industrial work and juxtaposed it with text that described the atrocities committed by Stalin and the communist party. I chose to contrast images with words, because the industrial success was a dominating physical element. What I felt was somewhat less evident were the crimes against humanity committed in order to achieve this creation, because so much of it was denied and hidden within the realm of the Soviet Union. Mostly what exist now are the testimonials of survivors, which are simply words that can always be disputed. In the end, I hoped that my art would showcase that the end did not justify the means. However, I tried to leave it up for interpretation.

Therefore, I wonder if this sort of approach would work, if you were to represent Stalin. Would it help to juxtapose both his accomplishments and his crimes? Would it work in the way that it worked for me in my art? I do not know. In the end, how do you represent Stalin or any historical figure (Hitler, Mao Tse-tung) for that matter? Do you reject the production of monuments in honour of these historical figures? They are a part of history, but because of what monuments tend to represent (heroism and a place where we remember the dead); the creation of a new Stalin monument would be very contoversial indeed.

Photographs:

1) Soviet Montage by Kalyna Klymkiw

2) Stalin monument

3) A Stalin monument being destroyed

Further Reading:
http://www.voanews.com/english/2008-11-06-voa48.cfm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4926284.stm

Eerie or Historic

In the spirit of ghouls and ghosts, this year for Halloween I carved my pumpkins into rundown homes and cottages to represent a haunted village. This got me thinking about how people tend to relate to things that are old (historic) with ghosts and hauntings, and how museums and historic sites tend to maximize on the tourist opportunities around the Halloween season.

Let me provide you with some examples.

Black Creek Pioneer Village maximizes on this holiday by having Halloween inspired events at their living history museum located in Toronto:
http://www.trca.on.ca/Website/TRCA/ParksAndCulture/Graphics.nsf/Graphics/bcpv_whatson_pdfs/$file/2008HowlingHootenanny_Web72.pdf
http://allhallowseve.ca/.

The Royal Ontario Museum also had Halloween inspired events this year: http://www.rom.on.ca/news/releases/public.php?mediakey=jhmn8cj6ms.

There are also other tourist attractions, where one can get their fix for things scary and ghoulish all year round. For example, there are Ghost Walks offered within Ontario. Some places include Hamilton, Ancaster, and Niagara-on-the-Lake: http://www.ghostwalks.com/. There are also Haunted Walks offered in Ottawa and Kingston: http://www.hauntedwalk.com/.

While surfing channels on my television, I have often come across episodes of Creepy Canada, a television show that supposedly is devoted to telling the eerie stories of ghost sighting and haunted landmarks found within Canada. http://www.tv.com/creepy-canada/show/33052/summary.html

If you search in Google books “Canadian Ghost Stories” (http://books.google.ca/books?um=1&q=canadian+ghost+stories) an abundance of sources will appear. Many of the stories found within these books are often attached to museums and historic buildings. These books are usually found well stocked in book stores and souvenir shops throughout Canada. And I cannot deny that I own one such book called, "Ontario Ghost Stories" (I purchased it when I went camping many years ago, in order to read it by the campfire).

In the process of telling these scary stories, no matter whether it is in a museum, at a ghost walk, on the television, or in a book, you will come across some aspect of history.

I find all of this very interesting, because it seems that society has a fascination with things that are scary. I rarely meet people who do not enjoy a good horror flick or dressing up for Halloween. However, what I am particularly interested in is why we have a fascination with attaching the scary to the historic and how this concept is used for tourism purposes. Consider how many of us have at one time or another imagined that a historic building is haunted? But let’s be honest, how legitimate can these stories of woman in a white dress appearing in the window of an old building, really be? How historically accurate are these stories? I think that because there is such a wealth of stories out there, that they have become less unique and, in a sense, far less believable.

Despite this, these sorts of attractions, like the ones at Black Creek Pioneer Village, still remain popular and I think that the people who have organized events based around Halloween are simply taking the opportunity to market their sites. They understand what people enjoy and what people are entertained by and in the process they get to tell a bit about history to a public that might be otherwise uninterested. It is a way of motivating the public to learn something about local history and in order to connect with people that are not particularly interested in history can take some creativity. I will admit that I have often wanted to attend some of these events, because I myself find them enticing and unique, which is why I thought this subject might be something interesting to consider.

Side Note: Do you ever wonder if some of those stories are true, not that I am admitting to believing in such things ;). However, if you were to ask me, I might tell you that I once lived in a house that was built on the site of a very old building and it had its share of eerie occurrences. All I am going to say is imagine waking up to all your dresser doors open to their fullest, knowing very well you did not open them that way and neither did anyone else in the house…it makes you wonder…

On that note ;), I hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween!

Imagining History or Historical Imagination

Recently we had a discussion in one of my classes about the Prince Edward Island National Park and the infamous Green Gables.

There were two things I was obsessed with as a child. The first was the Phantom of the Opera. At a very young, age I knew every word to every song off the CD and could even hit the high note at the end of the song: The Phantom of the Opera (seriously!). And this was all before I even went to see the musical. The second was Anne of Green Gables, although through the films not the books I am sorry to say. As a child, I remember being very excited to visit Green Gables, which if you look on the Parks Canada website is a National Historic Site within the Prince Edward Island National Park.

It is funny, because I remember approaching Green Gables, noticing that there were aspects of it that were different from the way I ‘remembered’ it (again simply from my memory of the films). Once I entered the house, I could not understand why things were not as they had been represented in the films. I honestly remember making comments such as, “this isn’t what Anne’s room looked like” and “the living room was not set up this way” etc.

Despite these technicalities, which merely an only child with a huge imagination and a freakish attention to detail would notice, I still enjoyed visiting Green Gables. I was a child nonetheless, and I liked the idea of pretending for the day that I was immersed in another time, with other characters, who I felt I knew like I knew my closet friends. My childish innocence and imagination allowed me to enjoy it.

However, some have argued that this historic site is not representative of history in the typical sense, because the building that is now referred to as Green Gables was altered in order to embrace the characteristics of the house found within L.M. Montgomery’s fictional novels. This house did inspire the Green Gables known to us in those stories; however the actual house never had green gables (they needed to paint them in order for it to match to the ideal). Thus, the natural landscape that was there was altered to conform to a history that was not even based on a factual story, but a fictional one (at least that is what is argued).

L.M. Montgomery created characters and a story that gave a sense of who the author was, as well as what life was like for people in the maritime provinces of Canada during the period represented in the stories. In essence then, the park is meant to be an imaginative place as well as function as a place to memorialize a woman, her books and her characters, while also representing the time period in which these stories were set. In other words, we are forgetting that the park is a celebration of a wonderful author, who captured a particular era through her novels and became famous throughout Canada and the world because of it.

Let us consider something for a second. If you go to an art gallery there are many paintings that have captured various periods in history. Art historians consider this a wonderful window into the past. How is this any different from what has been done in the Prince Edward Island National Park? Green Gables (and the books for that matter) are like the painting; it is giving us a window into L.M. Montgomery’s creative mind (an important historical figure), and it is doing so in order to tell her story as well as portray a particular period. Therefore, it is simply presenting history in a different form. The house in the Prince Edward Island National Park is the house that inspired one of the most important pieces of literature in Canadian history, and in order to tell that story, it needed to be altered.

In one of my history classes on the First World War from a Canadian perspective, one of our first readings was to look at L.M. Montgomery’s, Rilla of Ingleside (the eighth instalment of the Anne series). We had a few other readings for that week that focused on how Canadians reacted to the possibility of war and its declaration in August 1914. If I remember correctly, the other readings focused on how people in urban centres reacted to the news. There was a sense in those readings that people were aware that war was coming, and that huge amounts of people gathered in the streets in anticipation. In Rilla of Ingleside, we get more of a sense of how rural Canadians reacted to the prospect of war. They seemed indifferent to the idea that the assassination of some Duke could have anything to do with them across the ocean. And many were shocked when they finally found out that war had been declared, and that they were going to be a part of it. At the end of the class discussion, the professor asked us which one of these readings we felt best represented the Canadian reaction to the war in August 1914. The general consensus was that Rilla of Ingleside best represented it as most of the population lived in rural communities. The professor went on further to tell us that it is noted that when Rilla of Ingleside was first published in 1921, the publishers deemed it a very accurate account of what it had been like for Canadians in the First World War. And this is a fictional novel we are speaking about. This just proves how important these novels are in the history of Canada.

As Public Historians we are constantly going to struggle with representing history as accurately as possible, while preserving as much as we can. However, in this case I think that the history has been captured. The story or theme is based on L.M. Montgomery and her novels, like Rilla of Ingleside, which is considered to be a fairly accurate portrayal of what it was like for Canadians in the First World War. Therefore, the fact that the house that inspired Montgomery has been altered has, in a sense, given us a glimpse into her imagination (a concept she promoted in her protagonist, Anne). This is no different than the artist who chooses to portray a particular episode in history through an artistic medium (think of Pablo Picasso’s Guernica). The canvas and house are one in the same; they are the settings that have been transformed in order to preserve a moment in time.

Photograph: Take a guess who that is...;)