Which of us from early childhood does not know what a monument is? The culture of memory distinguishes man from all other living beings on earth. Thanks to the ability to remember and store past social experience, society lives and develops.
But still, such a seemingly simple concept as a monument also needs to be defined. We will try to give it in this article.
Deciphering the concept
If we open an explanatory dictionary, we learn from it that the term we are studying has several definitions.
Firstly, a monument is called an object of cultural heritage in the broadest sense of the word. These are monuments of architecture or art, writing or history.
Secondly, a monument is any work of art that preserves the memory of certain events (for example, the Battle of Kulikovo or the Battle of Borodino) or people (monuments to Peter the Great, Kutuzov, Lenin, Dostoevsky, etc.).
Thirdly, there are monuments that are usually placed near the burial places of the dead. In Christianculture, such a symbol becomes a cross placed on the grave, or a tombstone with the name of the deceased and the dates of his birth and death.
Monumentology as a science
To understand what a monument is, helps the modern science of monuments, which pays special attention to the symbolic meaning of memory in the life of human society. Let's consider it in more detail.
This science assumes that all cultural objects of memory can be studied by highlighting certain criteria for their division into groups:
- Typologically, these cultural objects can be divided into monuments of nature, architecture, history, culture and art monuments, etc.
- If possible, these monuments are divided into movable (for example, paintings, statues, etc.) and immovable (for example, St. Isaac's Cathedral in St. Petersburg, the Louvre in France, etc.).
- In terms of ex altation of the object, monuments are divided into statues, triumphal columns, commemorative plaques, memorial complexes, as well as such a specific type of monument as the perpetuation of weapons of war (most often captured), these are guns, planes, tanks, etc.
What is a monument? The history of the appearance of the phenomenon
Even our distant ancestors began to build monuments. These include such ancient structures as the Egyptian pyramids for the burial of the bodies of the pharaohs and their families, the pyramids of the Indians of pre-colonial America, the tomb mounds of nomadic peoples, and so on.
Such structures were willingly erected by the inhabitants of the AncientGreece and Rome, using them in the ex altation of emperors and gods and in the glorification of military leaders.
In medieval Europe, it was customary to erect monuments to monarchs and build majestic temples, which were the greatest monuments to God the Creator.
This tradition has been preserved in the European culture of modern times. Therefore, each of us knows what a monument is, because modern humanity is surrounded by numerous monuments of past eras.
Monuments and political ideology
Very often the transition of society to a new type of social structure is accompanied by the demolition of old monuments of former political idols and the installation of new ones. And, as a rule, not ancient monuments erected several centuries ago are destroyed, but statues of those who were ex alted only recently.
Our contemporaries remember very well how 25 years ago cultural objects of the Soviet era were successfully destroyed in the country: statues of Lenin and his entourage were demolished, and steles and statues of members of the white movement and all those who suffered from Bolsheviks.
The culture of memory is a very important phenomenon for humanity, not without reason one of the wise men said that those who build monuments think about the future. Memorial buildings give us all a moral lesson, they are the bearers of certain values and traditions. Therefore, probably, the culture of monuments will be alive as long as people live on earth.
