Authoritarianism Archives - Contested Histories

Ratko Mladić Mural in Belgrade

Contested Histories Admin — Mon, 24 Aug 2026 08:00:00 +0000

Painted on a residential building facade in Belgrade’s Vračar district in 2021, the image of Ratko Mladić, a convicted war criminal, quickly became the most controversial street piece in Serbia. To its supporters, Mladić is a national defender, but to many others, he is a symbol of cruel violence, traumatising war and blinding hate. The painted image sparked tensions and polarisation between the authorities, local activists, the general public and the ‘guardians of the mural’. This case study explores the difficult topic of dealing with a problematic recent past, unresolved memory politics, the failure to confront one’s own past and what a society can look like when it does not engage with its history in a critical way.

The post Ratko Mladić Mural in Belgrade appeared first on Contested Histories.

State College Carlos Marighella in Salvador

Paula — Mon, 13 Jul 2026 10:00:00 +0000

A state college named after the authoritarian President Emilío Garrastuza Médici (1969-1974) has officially changed its name to Carlos Marighella, a guerrilla fighter against the Brazilian military regime (1964-1985). The current name was chosen after the college held an election in 2013, which was preceded by a series of talks about the historical characters that could be honoured in the renaming. In February 2014, the government officially changed the name of the college from Médici to Marighella after decades of interest in change and frustration over the name Médici. This move has also sparked interest in similarly named schools to also attempt to change their names.

The post State College Carlos Marighella in Salvador appeared first on Contested Histories.

St. Vladimir Statue in Moscow

Paula — Mon, 29 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

On November 4, 2016, a statue of Vladimir the Great or Saint Vladimir, as he is known in Russian, was unveiled by President Putin in Moscow during the millennium commemoration of Vladimir’s death (958–1015). Known as Volodymyr in Ukrainian, he is a major historical figure in both Russian and Ukrainian memory politics and understood, by each, to be the founder of their states. Upon its unveiling, Putin sought to emphasise Vladimir’s role as a uniter of the Slavic people, and implicitly placed Russia at its core. This enormous statue was evidently meant to rival the statue of the figure in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, which has been there since 1853. This case study examines the significance of this monument in the context of memory wars with Ukraine and as part of the Russian state’s discourse of a 1000-year-old Russia.

The post St. Vladimir Statue in Moscow appeared first on Contested Histories.

Dolinka Museum for the Commemoration of Victims of Political Repression in Karaganda

Paula — Mon, 15 Jun 2026 10:00:00 +0000

The Karaganda Corrective Labour Camp (Karlag) was a Soviet forced labour camp located in the Karaganda region, in the central part of Kazakhstan, and operated between 1931 and 1959. The camp covered a vast area, at its largest, roughly the size of France. After its closure, the camp was left for the most part unfenced and unattended. The locals had reused many former camp buildings. After Kazakhstan gained independence, the government had little interest in commemorating former camps and also addressing the contentious Soviet legacy. In the late 2000s, an effort towards commemoration was made by the government with the creation of the two museums, Alzhir Museum and Karlag Museum in Dolinka. However, since then, the visitation levels have remained low, both for local and international tourists, arguably reflecting a lack of ownership and legitimacy given by other stakeholders, most importantly, local communities.

The post Dolinka Museum for the Commemoration of Victims of Political Repression in Karaganda appeared first on Contested Histories.

Puente Aranda Murals in Bogotá

Paula — Mon, 20 Apr 2026 10:00:00 +0000

The project ‘Open Museum of Bogotá: painting in the public space’ was organised by the District Institute of Arts (IDARTES) and Urban Development Institute (IDU), with the support of the Mayor of Bogotá, Claudia López. Part of the initiative aimed to decorate eleven bridges across Bogotá, using local artists selected by a public call. One of these murals, painted by Saint Cat Crew on a supporting column of the Aranda bridge at the crossroad of Avenue of Americas with Street 50 near the Military Club, provoked diverse reactions and criticism. Representing the cycle of violence on the streets, the mural depicted a policeman being awarded a medal over human skulls. Shortly after it was finished, Luis Mauricio Mayorga painted over the mural, which sparked debate regarding freedom of expression, censorship and misuse of public funds. This case examines the controversies surrounding artistic intervention in legacies of violence.

The post Puente Aranda Murals in Bogotá appeared first on Contested Histories.

Stone Flower at Jasenovac Concentration Camp

Paula — Mon, 23 Feb 2026 10:00:00 +0000

The Kameni cvijet (Stone Flower) monument stands to honour the victims of Jasenovic, the largest concentration camp run by the Croatian Ustaša government during World War II. It took several decades to be built, primarily due to contestations between the Croatian far-right and Jewish, Serbian, and Croat anti-fascist organisations that have continued into the present. These concern the nature of the camp, the number of victims who perished there, and whether those deaths can be properly considered genocide. The monument itself and the annual commemoration events held at the site have both become flashpoints for these conflicts, demonstrating the difficulty in honouring the memory of victims in sites whose histories remain unsettled.

The post Stone Flower at Jasenovac Concentration Camp appeared first on Contested Histories.

Bridge Honestino Guimares

Paula — Mon, 12 Jan 2026 10:00:00 +0000

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 the end of the dictatorship. After the establishment of the National Truth Commission in 2011, a body responsible for investigating human rights abuses committed by the dictatorship, popular initiatives to rename the bridge intensified. However, the Federal District’s Legislative Chamber only approved a bill renaming the bridge in 2015. The chosen name was Honestino Guimarães, a university student leader who went missing after being kidnapped by the dictatorship. However, antagonistic voices in society led to lawsuits that revoked the renaming. Until 2022, the Bridge was renamed several times, whether by the federal government or public initiatives, but the name of Honestino Guimarães was eventually consolidated by law with Bill 1967/2021, resignifying the story of the bridge.

The post Bridge Honestino Guimares appeared first on Contested Histories.

Victims of Political Repression Monument in Tayshet

Contested Histories Admin — Mon, 22 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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 city, making Tayshet a stop which all prisoners made on their journey to the Gulag. In the twenty-first century, President Vladimir Putin’s reconstruction of Stalin’s figure and Soviet patriotism provoked the emergence of many new monuments to Stalin and the vandalism of those commemorating victims. Monuments remembering the victims of the Stalinist era provide a physical and spatial rebuttal to heroic memories of Stalinism. This case analyses the ongoing clash between the unofficial rehabilitation of Stalin and the commemoration of victims of the Soviet system of repression, taking the monument in Tayshet as an example.

The post Victims of Political Repression Monument in Tayshet appeared first on Contested Histories.

Statue of Unity in Gujarat

Contested Histories Admin — Mon, 08 Sep 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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 rites. Modi’s public address named the monument as a symbol of his ruling party’s ideology – ‘one nation, one creed’. Far from unifying the country, the statue has fractured the nation with various criticisms of the project. This case will explore the political agenda behind its creation as well as the economic and social ramifications at the tribal, state, and national levels.

The post Statue of Unity in Gujarat appeared first on Contested Histories.

Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction in Uttar Pradesh

Contested Histories Admin — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 10:00:00 +0000

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 country. In February 1968, Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya, a right-wing Hindu nationalist politician, was found dead near the station under suspicious circumstances. After years of political pressure from Hindu nationalists beginning in 1992, the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) renamed the station as Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction in 2018. Opposition political parties and public intellectuals criticised this decision, citing a Hindu nationalist agenda of ‘rewriting history’ and marginalising India’s Muslims. Still, though there was criticism, this did not lead to any protest action. This case study illustrates the role of political regimes in the creation of contested public spaces.

The post Pandit Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Junction in Uttar Pradesh appeared first on Contested Histories.