The Bridge Costa e Silva (named after the 2nd president of Brazil’s military dictatorship) in Brasília, Brazil, was inaugurated on February 6 1976, by the military president Ernesto Geisel, connecting the ‘Lago Sul’ neighbourhood to Brasília’s downtown. Its name has been targeted by local politicians and civil society groups since… Read More
In the summer of 2020, a monument to the victims of Stalinist political repression was unveiled in the city of Tayshet in Irkutsk Oblast, Russia. On July 4, 2020, the monument was vandalised and defaced, making the inscription illegible. During Soviet rule, the Gulag camp Taishetlag was located near the… Read More
On Vallabhai Jhaverbhai Patel’s 143rd birthday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi unveiled India’s tribute to him in the form of the world’s tallest statue. Standing at 182 metres, the Statue of Unity is almost double the height of the Statue of Liberty. It was revealed with military celebration and Hindu inaugural… Read More
The Mughalsarai railway station, located in Uttar Pradesh, India, was built by the East India Company in 1862 during the British colonial era. Since then, it has been one of the busiest railway stations in India, providing a vital link for trade between the northern and eastern parts of the… Read More
The ‘Victory Monument’ in Riga, imbued with the historical memory of World War II and thelegacy of Soviet rule, has been the subject of a long-standing contestation in Latvian society.While some view it as a symbol of Soviet victory against Germany in World War II, othersregard it as a symbol… Read More
During the 2011 Egyptian Revolution, the Headquarters of then-President Hosni Mubarak’s National Democratic Party were set on fire. While initially, the building was not intended as a monument, it acquired intense symbolic significance in the aftermath of the revolution. Consequently, the fate of the building in the post-revolutionary era became… Read More
The Skopje 2014 project, whose objective was to create a ‘homogenised space’ that showcased Macedonian history and culture, was decisive for installing the Sekenderbeu monument. Even though the monument was planned to promote unity between the different ethnicities of the country, the top-down approach and the narrative created remain contested. Read More
The project on Contested Histories primarily focuses on controversies over monuments, statues, street names, and other tangible representations of historical legacies. However, the project recognises that contested historical legacies can also include intangible heritage, such as music. In this blog post, Serena Jampel examines the role of music in political… Read More
On February 27, 2016, several Czech citizens started a petition to rename Prague’s Under the Chestnuts Square, the site of Russia’s Embassy in the Czech Republic, in honour of the murdered Kremlin critic, Boris Nemtsov. The Prague City Council finalised the renaming on February 27, 2020. In response, the Russian… Read More
The presence of the Lenin statue in the Indian town of Belonia has been a long-time subject of heated debate between the local Communist Party and the ruling Bharat Janatiya Party. After the BJP won seats in the area, unsettling the long-term rule of the area by the Communist Party,… Read More
Constructed in 1988, during Albania’s communist regime (1946-1991), the Qendra Ndërkombëtare e Kulturës “Pjetër Arbnori” (International Cultural Centre “Pjetër Arbnori”), best known as the “Pyramid of Tirana” used to commemorate Albania’s communist dictator Enver Hoxha. To many, it symbolises a dark period of Albania’s history, characterised by political oppression. Following… Read More
The largest Red Army memorial in the world stands 12 metres high at the centre of a popular city park. It includes Soviet flags carved in red granite, sixteen sarcophagi representing each of the Soviet Republics, and a quotation from Stalin declaring that ‘all now recognise that the Soviet people… Read More