Rites of Place: Public Commemoration in Russia and Eastern Europe

Introduction

 Introduction Julie Buckler and Emily D. Johnson Changing times demand new symbols, rituals, and public spaces. During the twenty-plus years since the collapse of the Soviet Union, governments, civic groups, religious authorities, and private interests across Eastern Europe and Eurasia have worked to preserve, restore, reclaim, and reshape reemergent sites seen as central to collective memory. As part of this process, familiar landscapes have taken on unexpected new functions, long abandoned rites have resurfaced, and activities formerly considered central to state culture have been reconceived or eliminated. Buildings destroyed long ago have been re-created at great expense and with painstaking attention to detail; victories and tragedies that seemed all but forgotten have found reflection in new commemorative practices. Let us look at one central and particularly striking example.Red Square, the great open space abutting Moscow’s Kremlin, has served for centuries as Russia’s most important public gathering place. Red Square has been a key site for ritual expression of the relationship between the Russian people and their political and religious leaders. From the circular stone platform known as Lobnoe Mesto near the southern end of the square, heralds proclaimed the edicts of Russia’s rulers, rebels faced execution, and during the mid-1570s, Tsar Ivan the Terrible famously performed public penitence for the excesses of his reign. Until the beginning of the eighteenth century, on Palm Sunday, the tsar led a donkey bearing the Russian patriarch across the square as part of a religious procession, a rite understood by many to illustrate the primacy of church over state.  julie buckler and emily d. johnson Two major cathedrals were built on the square to commemorate key military victories: the iconic Cathedral of the Intercession of the Virgin on the Moat, known popularly as St. Basil’s, was commissioned by Ivan the Terrible to honor the capture of the Kazan Khanate and thus the end of Mongol rule over Russia; the Cathedral of Kazan, financed by Prince Dmitri Pozharsky, memorialized the expulsion of the Poles from Russian territory and the installation of the Romanov dynasty in 1613. Later constructions on the square, including the late nineteenth-century Historical Museum and Trading Rows, served a different monumentalizing function: built in the pseudo-national style preferred by Russia’s last two tsars, these buildings echo and rework the architectural forms employed to such spectacular effect in St. Basil’s, projecting a carefully constructed, ideologically charged image of “Russianness.” During the Soviet era, Red Square accommodated new rituals and re- flected different values. Immediately after the Bolsheviks seized power in Moscow, the new government ceremonially interred in the Kremlin walls the bodies of those who died during the struggle, an act that, inasmuch as it defied Orthodox canons of burial, seemed calculated to strip the surrounding area of its old ritual significance and subordinate it to the new symbolic order. Following Lenin’s death in 1924, this trend accelerated: a mausoleum was constructed to hold the mummified body of the great leader, transforming Red Square into the chief holy site of what amounted to a secular religion. Just as devout Muslims strive to participate in the annual pilgrimage known as the hajj at least once before dying,so good Soviet citizens were taught to long for a glimpse of Lenin’s body. Red Square served as the site of the victory parade that marked the end of World War II in 1945 but also witnessed pivotal human rights demonstrations during the late Soviet period. Red Square has changed dramatically since the end of the Soviet period in 1991. Structures torn down in the 1930s to improve the flow of traffic during military parades, including the Cathedral of Kazan, the Resurrection Gates at the northeastern entrance to the square, and the Chapel of the Virgin of Iversk, were all reconstructed during the 1990s. Their presence , along with the reconsecration of St. Basil’s Cathedral, has helped to revive Red Square’s significance as a center of Orthodoxy, highlighting the greater prominence of religious faith in contemporary Russian civic life. In contrast, the Lenin Mausoleum, although still open to visitors, has seemed increasingly marginal to life on Red Square.The long lines of eager pilgrims snaking toward it have largely disappeared, along with the goose-stepping honor guard that once flanked its entrance.Moreover,Lenin’s tomb no longer functions as an official dais on state holidays: in 2008,when the Russian [3...