We found a match
Your institution may have access to this item. Find your institution then sign in to continue.
- Title
The nation in bronze and granite: Creating national monuments in post‐Soviet Bishkek.
- Authors
O'Shea, Moira
- Abstract
Scholars of nationalism have long looked to material forms of symbolic power to understand the politics and cultures of nations, and national monuments specifically have been studied as reflections of ideological programmes of political regimes. However, these approaches have paid insufficient attention to processes of creation. Given the importance of material symbols as sites through which the nation is understood, I argue that analysing the dynamics of creation expands our understanding of symbolic nation making. Using the case of Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and focusing on moments of creation and the actors involved in them, I build a conceptual framework for understanding the construction of national symbols on the ground based on three interconnected and co‐constituting dynamics: spatial, temporal and aesthetic/semiotic. Using this framework, I demonstrate how meaning and materiality are related to one another both as component and consequent in the creation of national monuments and how it is their very imperfection as material representations that provides the context for the nation to emerge as a category of discourse.
- Subjects
BISHKEK (Kyrgyzstan); KYRGYZSTAN; SOFT power (Social sciences); POWER (Social sciences); GRANITE; BRONZE; NATIONAL emblems; NATIONAL monuments; MATERIALITY &; art
- Publication
Nations & Nationalism, 2023, Vol 29, Issue 2, p648
- ISSN
1354-5078
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1111/nana.12934