Memorialising the German Democratic Republic

自统一以来，东德的许多公共空间已经从冷战叙事中解脱出来，重新赋予了意义，从而使它们成为新类型的公共记忆。东德快速变化的纪念碑和纪念碑景观是塑造集体身份和记忆的核心，特别是在德国20世纪的两个独裁政权的背景下。虽然到目前为止，关于大屠杀和国家社会主义过去的纪念碑已经进行了大量的研究，但关于德意志民主共和国(德意志民主共和国)和社会主义遗产在这一景观中如何表现的详细工作很少--尽管对德意志民主共和国进行了广泛的历史研究，以及最近关于《奥斯塔基》和东德身份在文学、电影和消费文化中的表现的一些作品。拟议的项目旨在通过编写一本专著来填补这一空白，该专著将审查一系列关于东德纪念碑和纪念馆的深入案例研究。对城市景观的关注在前东德领土上尤为重要，因为民主德国政权非常重视纪念碑和城市空间，以促进集体社会主义意识和凝聚力的东德认同。与最近对非空间“记忆场所”的众多研究不同，本项目的重点回到了术语“场所”的主要物理意义上，强调了建筑环境和记忆之间关系的首要重要性。作为对与德意志民主共和国主要事件和主题有关的鲜为人知的古迹的重点研究(例如，1953年6月17日的社会主义标志、苏联特别营地、柏林墙和1989/90年的事件)，它将是该领域的第一个此类研究，将摆脱对柏林国家叙事的充分记录的关注。重点研究领域涉及四个领域：a)民主德国过去在塑造东德自然景观和构建国家和地区特性方面的作用；b)记忆的动因和纪念过程中关键模式的识别；c)时间和记忆之间的关系，以测试不同类型记忆的分类，并评估过去记忆文化对现在记忆结构的影响；d)纪念形式的限制和挑战，以及形式、位置和真实性对记忆产生的影响。为了调查这些问题，该项目将通过三种方式‘阅读’选定的古迹和相关的辩论。首先，它将通过审查古迹规划阶段的纪实记录来测试关键利益集团的动机；其次，它将通过当地报纸的报道、市民团体的活动以及公众与古迹的互动观察，来考察人们对古迹的接受和理解；第三，它将通过对艺术家、当地活动家和政治家的采访，调查各种相互冲突的集体记忆之间的相互作用。这些方法将确保案例研究从参与者和负责创建纪念碑的机构/团体的角度进行审查，从而突出“自上而下”和“自下而上”纪念碑之间的互动。这个项目是对当代德国纪念过程的及时调查，因为它将能够反映柏林墙倒塌和统一的二十周年庆祝活动，这两者都显著地塑造了嵌入纪念结构的叙事。现在也是在这一领域加强公众兴趣的重要时刻，这也是该项目更广泛影响的目的，该项目旨在让德国和当代历史的教师和学习者以及公共艺术领域的实践者参与进来。

Since unification, numerous public spaces in eastern Germany have been freed from Cold War narratives and been reinvested with meaning, thus making them available for new types of public remembrance. Eastern Germany's fast-changing landscape of monuments and memorials is central to the shaping of collective identities and memories, particularly in light of Germany's two twentieth century dictatorships. While much research has hitherto been carried out on memorials relating to the Holocaust and the National Socialist past, there has been very little detailed work on the way in which the German Democratic Republic (GDR) and the legacy of socialism feature within this landscape - despite extensive historical research on the GDR, as well as a number of recent works on 'Ostalgie' and manifestations of east German identities in literature, film and consumer culture. The proposed project aims to fill this gap by producing a monograph which will examine a selection of in-depth case studies of monuments and memorials in eastern Germany. The focus on the urban landscape is particularly significant on the territory of former East Germany, for the GDR regime placed great importance on monuments and urban space in order to promote a collective socialist consciousness and a cohesive East German identity. In contrast to numerous recent studies of non-spatial 'sites of memory', the focus of this project returns to the principal physical meaning of the term 'site', underlining the primary importance of the relationship between the built environment and memory. As a focused study of lesser-known monuments relating to key events and themes in the GDR (e.g. socialist icons, Soviet special camps, 17 June 1953, the Berlin Wall and the events of 1989/90), it will be the first of its kind in the field, and will move away from the well-documented focus on national narratives in Berlin. The key areas of investigation relate to four areas: a) the role of the GDR past in shaping both the physical landscape of eastern Germany and the construction of national and regional identities; b) the agents of memory and the identification of key patterns in the memorialisation process;c) the relationship between time and memory, in order to test the categorisation of different 'types' of memory and to assess the impact of past memory cultures on present structures of memory;d) the restrictions and challenges of memorial form and the impact of form, location and authenticity on the production of memory. In order to investigate these issues, the project will 'read' the selected monuments and associated debates in three ways. First, it will test the motives of key interest groups by examining documentary records from the planning stages of monuments; second, it will examine the reception and understanding of monuments through local newspaper coverage, the activities of citizens' groups, and the observation of public interaction with the monuments; third, it will investigate the interplay between conflicting types of collective memories through interviews with artists, local activists and politicians. These methods will ensure that case studies are examined from the perspectives of both the participants and the institutions/groups which are responsible for creating the monuments, thus highlighting the interaction between 'top down' and 'bottom up' memories.This project is a timely investigation of memorialisation processes in contemporary Germany, for it will be able to reflect on the twentieth anniversary celebrations of the fall of the Berlin Wall and of unification, both of which have significantly shaped the narratives within which memorial structures are embedded. It is also a significant time to build on public interest in this sphere, as is the aim of the broader impact of this project, which intends to engage teachers and learners of Germanand contemporary history, as well as practioners in the field of public art.