Evelina Kukarela Receives 2026 AABS Undergraduate Paper in Baltic Studies Award

The Construction of Collective Memory in the Interaction of History and Cultural Policy in the Cēsis County: A Visual Discourse Analysis (1918–1940, 1944–1991, 1991–2025)

Monuments accompany individuals from childhood to adulthood, maintaining a continual presence within the urban environment. They serve as permanent reminders of the past, especially during national holidays and remembrance days, when they become focal points for commemoration and reflection. Monuments’ significance does not arise solely from their role as spatial media transmitting meaning across time, but also from policymakers’ efforts to frame, legitimize, and sustain specific monuments as sites within a society’s collective memory framework.

Using the visual discourse analysis framework proposed by Ahenk Yilmaz’s analytical steps, derived from The Art of Memory, alongside survey questionnaires administered to individuals who grew up in this municipality and interviews with regional historical and cultural policymakers, the results show that monuments continue to play an important role in shaping collective memory to this day. They operate as instruments of communication through which political regimes promote particular interpretations of history. Each category of the analyzed monuments serves a distinct role in shaping the region’s collective memory, reflecting shifts in how the past is understood and remembered. Monuments in Cēsis Municipality dedicated to the War of Independence and the Battle of Cēsis continue to evoke national sentiment, now aligned with the current political system. In contrast, Soviet-era monuments are associated with trauma and no longer integrate into contemporary collective memory. Monuments erected after the restoration of Latvian independence primarily fulfil an informative function.