[HN Gopher] Concrete clickbait: next time you share a spomenik p...
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Concrete clickbait: next time you share a spomenik photo (2016)
Author : omnibrain
Score : 122 points
Date : 2024-09-08 09:34 UTC (13 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.new-east-archive.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.new-east-archive.org)
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > But now, argues Owen Hatherley, it is vital that we make the
| effort to understand what they truly represent
|
| Maybe this speaks of the weaknesses of abstract art when used for
| this. No one thinks of the Lincoln Memorial or Mount Rushmore or
| Taj Mahal or Arc de Triumph like this. In some sense, their
| memorial status comes out in the form itself. This is not the
| case with abstract art like the spomeniks.
| jitl wrote:
| When I first saw an image of the Taj Mahal, I had no idea it is
| a memorial, I thought/assumed it was a classical temple akin to
| the Parthenon. At least as a kid growing up in California it
| seemed classic but also abstract and alien compared to the
| strict right angles, rectangular platforms and formulaic
| columns of similarly revered but much older
| European/Mediterranean structures.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > I thought/assumed it was a classical temple akin to the
| Parthenon
|
| Despite not knowing the details, you knew it was designed to
| revere or commemorate something even if you did not know the
| details.
| jitl wrote:
| Sure, and I took the same from photos of obelisks, the
| Washington monument, and these Yugoslavian monuments. i
| thought you're arguing it's apparent from the form _what_
| is being commemorated /revered, versus the Yugoslavian
| monuments that are harder to read, and I am disagreeing
| with that.
|
| I think the only monuments that are actually obvious are
| literal selections like statues, or Lincoln Memorial which
| is labeled in large capital letters exactly what is
| commemorated and why.
|
| Otherwise all I can tell is "this building is special
| because its purpose is not easily apparent (and people
| don't seem to fit inside it?)"
| anamexis wrote:
| I don't think it's evident what the Taj Mahal or Arc du
| Triomphe commemorate from their form, either.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| It may not be clear _what_ they commemorate, but it is
| evident _that_ they commemorate.
| anamexis wrote:
| I don't think that's evident, either. There's plenty of
| ornate architecture that doesn't commemorate anything.
| croes wrote:
| I doubt that is true at least for the Taj Mahal and even
| the Arc de Triomphe.
| seanhunter wrote:
| If that's true about the Taj Mahal, it's true about the
| Spomenik also.
|
| So now what? You origintally made the point to try to
| distingish between the power of representative art vs
| abstract art (although I'm struggling to understand what is
| more representative about the Taj Mahal and the Arc de
| Triomphe than these also).
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| to me as Italian it is evident that Arc du Triomphe it's a
| replica and that's all I can say for sure about it
|
| Otoh it is quite evident to me that Spomenik monuments are
| there to commemorate something or they would be very
| different
| failuser wrote:
| Kind of true, but those are bad examples. Wait, is Taj Mahal a
| monument, not a palace? Also Mount Rushmore relies on knowing
| the faces on it, otherwise one might assume it's some local car
| dealers. Arc de Triumph is actually abstract, how would you
| know its purpose if you don't know the context?
| pvg wrote:
| You can just as easily interpret this as the power of non-
| representational art to express and deal with the
| incomprehensible. In this case it distinguishes these from
| simply monuments to great leaders or the dead of some glorious
| battle.
| seanhunter wrote:
| An obvious counterexample to this which speaks to the power of
| abstract art as a memorial is the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by
| Maya Lin which is an incredibly powerful piece of abstract
| public memorial art, and very near the Lincoln memorial so well
| worth a visit for anyone who finds themselves in that part of
| Washington DC. I personally admire Lincoln greatly but of the
| two I found visiting the Vietnam Veterans memorial a far more
| moving experience.
|
| Secondly I would say the fact that they provoke thought about
| what they represent (rather than say Mount Rushmore in
| particular which is a profoundly superficial public monument)
| is precisely part of the value of abstract art. The Lincoln
| Memorial says Lincoln was a great man. OK cool. Anyone who has
| studied American history knows that.
| mikrl wrote:
| Perhaps that was intentional, or came from a collective
| subconscious desire to commemorate, yet also to forget and move
| on.
|
| Interwar abstract art such as cubism had twisted and distorted
| figures, some was a reaction to the twisted and broken bodies
| of the veterans of WW1. Hitler hated that style of art because
| he saw it as disparaging veterans, war-glorifier as he was.
|
| It would make sense that a 'progressive' regime would want to
| break with traditionalism and create its own novel style of
| monument. You see this trend in a lot of postwar aesthetic
| movements, like the failed housing projects of modernism. They
| don't glorify anything; they exist imposingly and have a strong
| bias to function. Yet this itself is dehumanizing in its own
| way.
|
| Tl;dr: traditional aesthetics glorify the nation and the state,
| including its human flaws. Abstract art tends to dehumanize
| itself as a way to avoid these flaws, especially in the wake of
| major human catastrophes.
|
| The Soviet and Fascist styles of art which glorified the party
| and its base straddles both sides.
| jameshart wrote:
| I don't know about that - do you know which triumph the Arc de
| Triomphe commemorates? Isn't it just as much seen in a meme
| form as an example of just 'grand classical European
| architecture', divorced from its Napoleonic imperialistic
| origins and not considered in terms of the fact that the French
| defeat of Russia and Austria at Austerlitz, at the cost of
| thousands of lives, and leading to the fall of Vienna, which it
| was commissioned for, was not a politically neutral event.
|
| Does the fact that the French tomb of the unknown soldier from
| World War I was created beneath it change the meaning of the
| arch?
|
| It seems to me it's a pretty complex, abstract object whose
| story isn't easily reduced to a simple meme either.
| polypodiopsi wrote:
| To me the authors accusatory tone seems misguided and, indeed,
| clickbaity (people love to hate)- which is a shame, since the
| information about the architectural sculptures called spomenik
| the article offers is pretty interesting. I believe that the
| interest in the purely formal qualities of thise "spomeniks" is a
| proper appreciation. Getting people interested by these offers an
| entrypoint into a deeper engagement with their historical
| background and the representational purpose. "its great that
| pictures of spomeniks are circulating, you might wonder what the
| meaning of those seemingly alien structures in the nowhere
| actually is" would be the proper cause for propagating these
| information imho. Its actually remarka le about these memorials
| that they manage to get their image circulating.
| Oarch wrote:
| I agree. If you're familiar with the author this is quite
| typical of his output.
| peterstjohn wrote:
| If you think that of Owen's output, for heaven's sake I fear
| for you if you ever read a Jonathan Meades article...
| izacus wrote:
| It bothers me more than it should that he calls them
| "spomeniks", because that's literally just a word meaning
| "monument" in the local languages.
|
| It's like someone going "did you know American monuments are
| known as monuments locally?"
| grujicd wrote:
| While that's true that we use word spomenik for all
| monuments, I think outside of Balkans it's now recognized as
| a word describing specific abstract and grandiose type of
| monument. So world (or Internet community at least) took our
| word and appropriated it to mean something else.
|
| Anyway, if someone visit one of Balkan countries and ask to
| see spomenik, expect locals to be confused and would not know
| what exactly you mean.
| pvg wrote:
| _Pametnik_ would like to have a word!
|
| More seriously, I think you're exactly right about the
| adopted internet-English meaning of 'spomenik' and the
| article is right to make a distinction between this
| particular (and much more interesting) variety and your
| more generic strictly-regime-sponsored concrete artblob.
| izacus wrote:
| Hence why I said "bothers me more than it should". Language
| lives and I know english took upon a certain meaning. It
| still tickles my brain wrong :)
| debugnik wrote:
| This is common with loan words, though: Sahara, chai, manga,
| naan, salsa... They're all generic words which non-native
| speakers attach context to.
| literallycancer wrote:
| Yeah, people obsessed with Russia, and sometimes even normal
| experts studying Russia tend to use Russian words that way.
| toddmorey wrote:
| Yeah what's the name for this accusatory tone highbrow
| clickbait? There's a companion article on the shame you should
| feel about "ruin porn" because surely you feel "desire to gloat
| over the decomposing corpse of the West's former Communist
| enemy."
|
| I can say I've never felt that but have enjoyed the sort of
| x-ray view you get of the structure sometimes + imagining what
| it was like at full splendor. To me it's a combined feeling of
| wonder and loss.
| jitl wrote:
| I'm grateful to learn a more detailed and contextual history of
| these monuments; I've only appreciated them through the
| "clickbait" lens as "Tito's monuments" as the article says.
| jepix wrote:
| We took the chance to dig and reveal the backgrounds of spomenik
| while enjoying their extreme skateability on our skateboard
| magazine here: https://fotta.it/vol-2/num-7/novo-spomen-a-new-
| memory
| qup wrote:
| Nice website, nice article, kudos.
| jepix wrote:
| Thanks! We also shot a short movie of the Novo Spomen tour if
| you are interested here: https://fotta.it/vol-2/num-7/watch
| alfanick wrote:
| Thanks for sharing, very nice insight into the culture :)
| Tried to subscribe, my Stripe doesn't seem to work well
| with Apple Pay
| jepix wrote:
| It's not your Stripe >> Apple Pay. We only accept
| subscriptions for Italy as it would be too expensive
| outside the country. Sorry for that!
| nkko wrote:
| trivializing their purpose and the suffering they represent is
| selfish, the act of skateboarding on these monuments is deeply
| troubling
| jepix wrote:
| Well, actually it was not trivial at all and we had big
| internal discussions on how to do that properly and
| respectfully, taking the chance to let our readers (that
| follow skateboarding) know what lays behind these monuments.
| I do really understand what you write, but I am also grateful
| for having been able to discover history in that way.
| lores wrote:
| You respectfully skated over monuments to the dead? What
| culture do you come from, if I may ask?
| rospaya wrote:
| What are the ethics of skateboarding in a death camp or over
| graves of people that died fighting fascists? What's the
| skateability of Dachau? Does Treblinka need a half pipe so it's
| not forgotten?
| actionfromafar wrote:
| Hm, that made me pause. But it still feels different.
| Treblinka was not built to celebrate and commemorate a win
| against fascism.
| krupan wrote:
| I lived in and have returned to visit former Yugoslavian
| countries over the past 25 years and until just now had not come
| across these spomeniks. I'm glad I was able to learn the true
| stories about some of them at the same time. Overall I'm pretty
| disappointed in the weird vibe of the article. This statement was
| particularly confusing:
|
| "Yet not only in Croatia, but in France, the USA, Britain, real,
| open fascism - fences, walls, racial laws, deportations, camps -
| is once again mainstream."
|
| Deportation camps are once again mainstream in these countries??
| Are they? And "once again" as if they ever were mainstream? Did I
| miss something?
|
| That kind of makes me doubt everything else said in the article.
| Overall the article seemed to be very anti fascist (great!) and
| pro post WWII communist (not great) even seemingly celebrating
| Yugoslavia's defeat of the Allies?
|
| Anyway, I would love to see more simple explanation of each
| spomenik like this article gives for some of them (artist,
| purpose of the monument, dates, etc.). Anyone know where to find
| that?
| krupan wrote:
| And yes, I am aware that in Croatia there was actual Fascism
| complete with camps and everything around WWII times. And yes
| those other countries in the list also rounded up groups of
| people into camps at the same time period, but I would not have
| called what the US, Britain, and France did Fascist or
| mainstream back then, and I'm not aware of anything like it
| today.
| davedx wrote:
| Deportation operations and camps in the UK:
|
| https://www.rescue.org/uk/article/rwanda-plan-explained-why-...
|
| https://www.gov.uk/immigration-removal-centre
| hungie wrote:
| The U.S. is absolutely creating deportation camps, and there's
| a national zeal for evicting people here. It's, unfortunately,
| bipartisan.
|
| The conditions in U.S. camps are dire, children sleeping on
| bloody straw, smeared with feces. Families separated. Food,
| water, and shelter inadequate to sustain life in the deserts
| where these camps are.
|
| In Britain, the attitude is similar pro deportation, but the
| refugees aren't put into camps as far as I know. However, the
| buildings that they are in have been subject to attacks and
| arson.
|
| The "once again" probably refers to both the historical
| mainstream opinion that Japanese migrants should be moved to
| concentration camps within the U.S., and of course the
| mainstream beliefs in Nazi Germany.
|
| (Note, I'm not trying to draw any parallels between any of
| these camps. Please don't infer that I'm calling anyone nazis
| except the nazis. These examples can all exist and be over the
| threshold of "cruel" without needing to be compared to one
| another.)
| luckylion wrote:
| > The U.S. is absolutely creating deportation camps, and
| there's a national zeal for evicting people here. It's,
| unfortunately, bipartisan.
|
| I believe the point the comment was making is that no
| reasonable person would call the existence of walls or
| fences, or the deportation of illegal/undocumented immigrants
| fascist (even those who believe that free migration is a
| human right), or that "racial laws" are mainstream (except
| maybe in affirmative action, but it benefits PoC so the
| author of the article most likely wouldn't consider it a
| racial law).
| swiftcoder wrote:
| > no reasonable person
|
| How very no-true-scotsman of them.
|
| I think you'll find that quite a few reasonable people
| consider mass internments and deportations to be pretty far
| along the spectrum towards fascism
| luckylion wrote:
| I doubt that I'd consider them reasonable, unless your
| "fasiscm spectrum" goes from 0 to 100 and it's
| "somewhere". Then yes, _everything_ is on that spectrum,
| it's just that a lot of things are < 10 and some things
| are > 90 and if you say "well, they're on the spectrum
| towards fascism therefore they are fascist", I wouldn't
| label you reasonable.
|
| And if you think that deportations are > 90, you have no
| idea what fascism is.
| medo-bear wrote:
| In Croatia there arent any camps and the country is very
| peaceful. However there are plenty of neo-Nazis, especially
| amongst football supporters and even some political groups
| (part of the government). There are also some people that the
| government is too affraid to touch, given their war veteran
| status and public popularity. In the article bellow is a photo
| of one such person, called Marko Skejo. The picture tells a
| thousand words
|
| https://www.index.hr/mobile/vijesti/clanak/video-skejo-i-hos...
| mrkramer wrote:
| And there are a lot of people that write crap about Croatia
| around the Web just like you. There are neo-nazis even in
| Russia....so what we should do about that?! Get a grip.
| medo-bear wrote:
| Dude Croatia is a member of the EU. Do you really want to
| compare it to Russia? In Split there are Nazi murals that
| the government is too afraid to touch. This guy who tries
| his best to look like Hitler gathers dozens of idiots in
| Split every year to mark the commemoration of founding of
| the Croatian Nazi state and no one dares to do anything
| about it. I love Croatia, but this is a real problem
| mrkramer wrote:
| But Croatia is not a runaway wayward EU member, it has to
| comply with EU standards and EU laws. I mentioned Russia
| because Hitler wanted to annihilate "Slavic race" and
| Russian state and even there you have people glorifying
| Nazism.
| medo-bear wrote:
| Laws exist. The point is that the Croatian govermnent is
| very affraid to enforce them
| jq-r wrote:
| Or even worse, laws are selectively enforced.
|
| You've been downvoted in your root comment because people
| latch onto that neo-nazi definition but missing forest
| from the trees. The far right over here is powerful,
| organized and very vocal. The football matches are just a
| social overpressure valve so the fans are constantly
| fighting between themselves instead of taking to the
| streets to protest the political/economical issues. And
| the government likes it that way.
| skybrian wrote:
| This all depends on what is meant by "fascism" and
| "mainstream." The author seems to have viewed immigration
| restrictions as fascist.
|
| It seems like it would be better to discuss immigration policy
| and enforcement directly (when someone wants to do that) rather
| than having meta-discussions about what category it belongs in.
| CodeMage wrote:
| The way I interpreted that sentence is not that fascism was
| established and flourishing back in 2016 when this was written,
| but rather that the fascist ideals and concepts were being
| openly pushed without (enough) sanction by the mainstream.
|
| The reason why I interpret it that way is simple: when fascists
| are actually in power, there's no such thing as "mainstream"
| anymore. Authoritarian rule means that there's only one correct
| way of thinking and behaving, and everything else is a crime or
| heresy or "evil", depending on the specific flavor of
| authoritarianism. "Mainstream", on the other hand, implies that
| there are other views and that they can be discussed.
| vuln wrote:
| Glad we've never had that in the USA
|
| /sarcasm
|
| > Authoritarian mean there's only one correct way of thinking
| and behaving, and everything else is a crime or heresy or
| "evil", depending on the specific flavor of Authoritarianism.
|
| Oh wait, that sounds exactly the like the United States. If
| you don't believe what 95% of the "mainstream" media is
| pushing you're labeled all sorts of things. The biggest on is
| conspiracy theorist, when all it take is ~ 6-9 months before
| the conspiracy theorists are proven correct. Let's not get
| into how often the terms racist, fascist, and nazi are thrown
| around when people of opposing views disagree. Somehow it's
| almost always the one side slandering, due to lack of
| argument.
| JoeDaDude wrote:
| The Spomenik Database for those inclined to learn a bit more:
|
| https://www.spomenikdatabase.org/
|
| Casual trivia: The film Last and First Men consists primarily of
| slow pans of Spomeniks.
|
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8015444/
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I am glad to learn this.
|
| From what I understand, the Ustase (I think they were Croatian),
| were so brutal, they sickened the Gestapo.
|
| Tito held Yugoslavia together, but that unity couldn't survive
| his passing. They've been fighting each other for so long, that I
| suspect the original reasons are lost in antiquity.
| pvg wrote:
| "ancient hatreds" is a readily-reachable trope in such contexts
| but it obscures far more than it clarifies. Plus in most such
| cases, it's usually oversimplifying and inaccurate to the point
| where it's best avoided. Ancient hatreds didn't cause, say, the
| Ustase.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I personally think they are meaningless, but they are used to
| justify current hatred.
|
| Tribalism is very human, and results in the worst fights.
|
| I grew up in Africa, and saw what tribal hatred looks like.
| Not pretty, but Africa doesn't have the monopoly on it.
|
| We have tribes all over Europe, and America. The behavior is
| exactly the same, everywhere.
| samastur wrote:
| I'll bite, how long?
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| I dunno. You'd probably have a better idea.
| samastur wrote:
| Sorry, I came off antagonistic in my first reply.
|
| I'm always open to be corrected, but as far as I know
| nations that formed Yugoslavia haven't actually fought each
| other meaningfully before WWI and even in that war
| Slovenians, Croats and Bosniaks were not involved
| independently, but as subjects of Austro Hungarian empire.
| There certainly wasn't the kind of animosity displayed as
| for centuries between France and England or France and
| Germany (as just two examples). It was really WW2 where one
| can observe the viciousness beyond fighting one's enemy.
|
| I have my own views why things went south so badly and I
| agree with you that it was inevitable for YU to fall apart,
| but I find the often expressed argument that people living
| in our parts always did this very unpersuasive.
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| Good point, and I appreciate the correction.
|
| In the West, we have a term "Balkanization." I had
| assumed that it's fairly old.
|
| _[UPDATED TO ADD]_
|
| In Africa, many of the really vicious tribal wars, date
| from the colonial times.
|
| The colonial powers leveraged old tribal animosity. It
| was a way to keep their colonies from concentrating on
| them.
|
| Demagogues, conquerors, and dictators have always known
| how to leverage old resentments, and fan them into a
| conflaguration.
|
| Like I said, this behavior is very human, and we're
| seeing it on this side of the pond.
| literallycancer wrote:
| Chris Marshall from New York Oblast :)
| ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
| We have a _lot_ of warring cultures in NY, so I guess
| "oblast" is appropriate.
| samth wrote:
| History is of course valuable to learn, but as a criticism of the
| work this is almost precisely the "turn to the camera and say
| that he's the same kind of communist I am" tweet made flesh.
| jonathrg wrote:
| The referenced tweet:
| https://x.com/Tormny_Pickeals/status/965640850578575362
|
| > Black Panther was a fine movie but its politics were a bit
| iffy. wouldve been way better if at the end the Black Panther
| turned to the camera & said "i am communist now" & then
| specified hes the exact kind of communist i am
| refulgentis wrote:
| I really appreciate you were able to recognize the tweet and
| give some context. I'm a bit slow, especially on Sunday
| mornings :) -- I still don't understand what OP means.
|
| Do you have any ideas? Maybe its commie talk to say these
| aren't related to WWII?
|
| Or maybe they find the article political?
|
| Seems pretty straightforward to me, guy from country says
| people from other countries turned something complex into
| something simple for clickbait, documents it.
| jonathrg wrote:
| I actually have no idea, I was hoping someone else could
| fill us in.
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| That's a political article masquerading as being about
| architecture and art.
|
| > Monuments built by the Nazis stand alongside those built by and
| for their victims. It is comparable to placing a photo of Yad
| Vashem alongside images of Albert Speer's Zeppelinfeld, as if
| they were the same thing.
|
| Because they are the same thing. It's grandiose architecture
| commissioned by 20th century autocrats.
|
| > a major problem is also the depoliticised framing of the
| monuments. Left without any indication of what they commemorate,
| or even of who designed them, the results are "deliberately
| oblivious" to the anti-fascist struggle that they commemorate
|
| As it should be. Don't get fooled by the article author tentative
| to rehabilitate and separate socialist art from the rest.
| Totalitarian regimes are totalitarian even when they are
| communist.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > socialist art from the rest. Totalitarian regimes are
| totalitarian even when they are communist.
|
| Setting aside the fact that socialism and communism are not
| exactly the same thing, this simplification of yours is wrong.
|
| Would you say that the Colosseum, the Altare della Patria, and
| the obelisk with the inscription 'Dux' referring to Mussolini,
| all monuments that can still be visited in Rome today, are the
| same thing because they were all built long before Italy was a
| democratic Republic?
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| > Setting aside the fact that socialism and communism are not
| exactly the same thing, this simplification of yours is
| wrong.
|
| Nothing to set aside and nothing wrong here. Socialist
| realism was the official art doctrine of the USSR - _guess
| what the second S is for_ - and it's usual to call all art
| commissioned by the socialist states as socialist art. Tito
| and his regime were definitely communist however. But let's
| brush aside this part of your comment.
|
| Would do you good to actually be right when you want to take
| this kind of tone, just saying.
|
| > Would you say that the Colosseum, the Altare della Patria,
| and the obelisk with the inscription 'Dux' referring to
| Mussolini, all monuments that can still be visited in Rome
| today, are the same thing because they were all built long
| before Italy was a democratic Republic?
|
| But certainly, yes, in more way than one.
|
| Obviously, contrary to the structures mentioned in the
| article and which are the object of my comment, they were not
| built at the same time so they share different architecture
| characteristics but they do share some common purpose.
|
| So yes, despite your argument being completely unrelated to
| what's being discussed, I wouldn't be shocked to see them
| juxtaposed in an architectural book for sure.
| peoplefromibiza wrote:
| > Would do you good to actually be right
|
| As the rule of this web site states _Please respond to the
| strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says,
| not a weaker one that 's easier to criticize. Assume good
| faith_
|
| As a matter of fact, I don't know about you, but I come
| from a communist political tradition which is different
| from the socialist one, the two split in 1921 you can call
| them both socialists but their stories are not _exactly_
| the same thing, notice the emphasis on exactly.
|
| USSR was a travesty of communism, it was state capitalism
| in disguise and some of the leaders of the communist party
| of my country told that to the Russians you can look up the
| most notable one, Enrico Berlinguer, his opinions and his
| acts of political bravery.
|
| To put it simply: Erich Honecker, Tito, Fidel Castro, Che
| Guevara, Mao Zedong, Joseph Stalin and Nikita Khrushchev
| had very different ideas on what socialism was and and how
| to implement it (and in fact we talk about Stalinism,
| Maosim, Titoism, all different ways to interpret the
| Marxism-Leninism which is the more correct definition
| here).
|
| you simply missed the context which is Europe of the past
| century, not the perceived idea of socialism through the
| modern media.
|
| > I wouldn't be shocked to see them juxtaposed in an
| architectural book for sure.
|
| You are wrong my friend.
|
| They are not the same thing because one represent the
| grandiose empire that once roamed on the same soil we
| Italians were born and raised on and its history span over
| 2 millenia, a lot of things happened to it and around it to
| the point that it is just a symbol of the city of Rome now
| and nothing else, the second it's actually named Vittoriano
| but it has become known as Altare della patria because
| after world war 1 the _Unknown Soldier_ was buried there as
| a memorial of the soldiers that died during the war, the
| last one is a vanity project of one of the worst dictators
| that ever lived and we kept it because our historians
| believe that even the history we don 't like preserve our
| shared memories and can lead people to not make the same
| mistakes of the past.
|
| The intent is as important if not more than just the
| architecture.
|
| Most of us Romans care more about the statue of Pasquino
| and Giordano Bruno than St. Peter's because they mean
| something to us and represent who we are and why we are the
| way we are, even though St. Peters is obviously a lot more
| popular. Another example is The D'Annunzio mausoleum and
| residence, Vittoriale degli Italiani, despite being a
| wonderful place to visit, it sparks controversy due to
| Gabriele D'Annunzio's association with and influence on the
| early fascist movement in Italy.
|
| Again intent and purpose have meaning too in arts.
| RandomThoughts3 wrote:
| Before I even bother replying, to come back to my
| original point, the fact that the communists are out in
| full force to defend the article confirms to me that the
| point of it is only tangentially related to art and as
| everything to do with Tito rehabilitation which is nearly
| as abhorrent to me as actually believing in communism.
|
| > USSR was a travesty of communism, it was state
| capitalism in disguise and some of the leaders of the
| communist
|
| Come on. Even for a teenager, that would be cliche.
|
| I don't really see anything in the rest of your comment
| which I really want to dignify with a detailed reply. It
| is an unconvincing answer to a point I never made
| considering being similar is not being the same.
|
| I'm genuinely amazed anyone could qualify the Roman
| Empire and its diverse history as grandiose however
| especially someone who fancies themselves communist (or
| maybe I am not and both actually come from the same lack
| of critical reading of history - would somehow make
| sense).
|
| I'm definitely not your friend however.
| pacija wrote:
| Ovene Srbine, neka si im rekao istinu svaka chast! Svi su ovi
| spomenitsi u setshanje na zhrtve fashistichkog terora, a ne za
| lajkove i klikove. Pobedili smo fashiste onomad, i pobeditshemo
| ikh ponovo!
| 082349872349872 wrote:
| I'm guessing that's the sr., not the hr. version? (certainly
| not the en.)
|
| PS. looking at the girl who accompanies Mme Dion from taxi to
| stage at the start of
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1CwpCNThO4 : was her outfit a
| yugoslav school uniform?
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