The Valley of the Fallen in Madrid was built in the 1940s by order of dictator Francisco Franco and, was in part, built by forced labour from political prisoners. Its aim was to be a mausoleum for victims of the Civil War from the Francoist side but at the end… Read More
The Yasukuni Shrine, originally established in 1869, became controversial after the Second World War when 14 Class A War Criminals were enshrined at the site. Aside from the 14 war criminals, over 2.5 million souls are preserved at Yasukuni. Visits by Japanese leadership to the shrine have resulted in difficult… Read More
The Statue of Peace in Seoul, South Korea, is among the most iconic and contested statues dedicated to ‘comfort women’, a euphemism for women who were sexually exploited by the Japanese military during the Second World War. Since its unveiling in 2011, the statue has been a source of ongoing… Read More
The Monument to Absence commemorates the 1968 Tlatelolco Massacre when governmentforces opened fire on a student protest at Mexico City’s Plaza de las Tres Culturas (Square of theThree Cultures). The monument was created in collaboration with the Executive Commission forAttention to Victims (CEAV) and the University Cultural Centre Tlatelolco (CCUT). Read More
On June 22, 2020 the statue of Townsville’s founder and namesake Robert Towns was vandalised by the smearing of red paint on his hands to symbolise blood. The vandalisation formed part of a wider movement in Australia to confront the nation’s colonial past. Robert Towns and Townsville as a city… Read More
The Monument to Humanity was a 30-metre statue that played a prominent role in the skyline of the city of Kars. In the wake of the 2011 Turkish General Election, the then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan paid a visit to the city of Kars and, during a campaign stop, declared… Read More
In 2019, Singapore commemorated its bicentennial and the 200th anniversary of the arrival of Sir Stamford Raffles to its shores. The innovative approach to addressing the statue of Raffles and the state’s narrative regarding his legacy sets this case apart from other colonial-era figures around the globe. Singapore’s historical narrative… Read More
In the wake of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) protests of 2020, the statue of the founder of the British colony of Penang, Francis Light came under increased scrutiny and public vandalisation, which sparked both heated and starkly polarized debates on social media. This case offers insight into Malaysian decision-makers… Read More
The removal of the Stalin statue from the central square in Gori represents a top-down policy implementation approach to a contested historical monument. Such implementations of Georgia’s Freedom Charter illustrate the legal framework under which symbols, monuments and names of sites related to the Soviet past become reconfigured. However, positions… Read More
The Monuments to the Odessa Founders features prominently Catherine II of Russia and the men who assisted in the creation of the Russian Empire’s new southern frontier in Ukraine. The monument was inaugurated in 1894, but the start of communist rule in Ukraine prompted a series of removals and replacements… Read More