Authors

Petra Hudek¹;  ¹ Institute of History, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Slovakia

Discussion

This paper explores the fate of monuments and memorials erected during the communist period in Czechoslovakia and their shifting meanings in the decades following 1989. The collapse of the communist regime was powerfully inscribed onto public space. Many statues of Lenin and other communist symbols were dismantled, replaced, or destroyed. However, numerous monuments, particularly those related to the history, remain in place, continuing to shape the symbolic and material landscape. The persistence of communist era monuments raises questions not only about memory and politics but also about materiality. The physical removal of these objects from public space does not result in their complete elimination; their ideological traces persist and continue to resonate in public debates.