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which could have influenced the process of othering of the monuments. All that
appears to be further away is seen as less known, more unapproachable, and, con¬
sequently, increasingly Other.
The height at which the statues were placed was also of some significance. It
was a completely novel solution to situate statues of Red Army soldiers on high
pedestals. It was the elevation reserved earlier for saints and national heroes, while
soldiers used to be commemorated by modest, nonfigurative memorials, not infre¬
quently related to tombs.'° “Upward movement’ modelled on the solutions coming
from “the homeland of the proletariat” was a conscious allusion to the power of
empires, but it was also related to the spatial patterns worked out by most cultures,
in which the vertical axis always played the most important role: “Whatever is su¬
perior or excellent is elevated, associated with the sense of physical height. Indeed
‘superior’ is derived from a Latin word meaning ‘higher’. (...) Of monuments this
is perhaps invariably true: a tall pyramid or victory column commands greater
esteem than a shorter one” (Tuan 1987: 54-55). On the one hand the height
reflected the relationships of power and subordination, and on the other hand con¬
stituted an effort directed at endowing visual representations with an element of
the sublime. The figures of Red Army soldiers placed on high pedestals could only
be seen from below. In this mutual relationship between the viewer and the object,
a sense of elevation of the object was created alongside a sense of belittling the role
of the viewer. The viewer took the position of one who sees less and thus knows
less, which in practice denotes someone of lesser importance. Emphasising a view¬
ers hierarchy of importance could have influenced the othering of the monuments.
It also appears that the size, and consequently, the monumentality of these statues
held some importance. The more the size of the object exceeds the normal size of
the human body, the more alienated such an object appears (Fig. 159).
Statues of the Red Army soldiers were always presented with the soldier in
Soviet army uniform. The uniform, on the other hand—often inspired by folk
and historical motifs—is often seen as a specific visual message, the basic aim of
which is to manifest the fact that a soldier dressed in this particular manner is the
protector of a given country (Rotter 2013: 419). Foreign uniform might have been
evaluated as one of the signs of Otherness. The affiliation to the Soviet Union was
additionally emphasised by other signs, such as the hammer and sickle, the red five¬
pointed star (for example on soldiers’ belts and hats), the USSR’s national flag. The
figures of Red Army soldiers were ‘armed’, most often with Soviet-made Papashas,
although communist propaganda promoted these monuments (or figures) as “sym¬
bols of peace”.'' Gun barrels were most often pointed upwards, in a gesture of vic¬
tory and triumph, or pointed forward communicating both power and readiness
'0 "This was related to the popularisation of the idea of the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which emerged
after WWI (Skiba 2004).
"This is why certain conceptions used the motifs of a child, a dove or an olive branch.