Removed from their context, the strange concrete monuments dotting the landscape of the former Yugoslavia can seem abstract, inscrutable, even “alien.” Called “Spomeniks” after the Serbo-Croatian word for “monument,” the massive sculptures were virtually unknown to the rest of the world before photographer Jan Kempenaers documented them with these striking photographs between 2006 – 2009.

With renewed interest came the spread of misinformation, as some claimed the monuments were Communist propaganda. But in truth, they weren’t displays of patriotic nationalism; they each commemorated specific local events, often antifascist uprisings by local citizens. Though many of them were built by and for the victims of fascist regimes, they’re often seen online alongside Nazi monuments with no references to their true meaning.

Now, artists and activists from the countries that formerly made up Yugoslavia are fighting to clear up those misconceptions, and it’s important that we listen, says author Owen Hatherly at the Calvert Journal in a piece called “Concrete Clickbait.” 

In many cases, the monuments were commissioned, funded and chosen locally, and their aesthetic reflects a shift in Yugoslavia towards an interest in modernism. In an age of rising international neofascism, these monuments have much to tell us, argues Hatherly, and “deserve better than to be glimpsed for a few seconds on Tumblr.”

“For Tihana Pupovac, a major problem is also the depoliticized 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, or to why the artists and communities thought they were appropriate – which, once, they evidently did. ‘If we want to revive whatever we think can be found of politics in the aesthetic of these monuments, we have to go past nostalgia and past the sheer fascination.”

“Because, again, these monuments in themselves are not that unique, what was unique was the lived historical experience of socialism. And I think this is what lacks crucially from Kempenaers’ work. You can see this in the way he presents his work in former Yugoslavia and his total oblivion of the problem of anticommunism. And this makes him incapable of grasping the situation with these monuments today’, which in Croatia, is currently acute, not only with many of the monuments crumbling, but with a right-wing administration openly nostalgic towards the Ustaše and intent on burying whatever anti-fascist legacy might remain today.”

Erasing the context of the monuments also erases the scale of the atrocities that occurred in Yugoslavia, activists argue.

“’Yugoslavia was the fourth highest country in Europe in terms of civilian casualties’ during the Second World War [says Pupovac], and was also, along with Greece, the only country with a resistance movement – the multi-ethnic, Communist-dominated Partisans – that was large and strong enough to liberate the country almost without help from the Allies. The federal Yugoslavia that came out of this broke with Stalin and the USSR in 1948, and instituted a ‘self-management socialism’ of extreme complexity and decentralization.”

“This is what disappears in the Spomenik photos – as she puts it, ‘our lived historical experience of a revolution becomes only a cultural artefact’. [Architect and writer Dubravka] Sekulic argues that ‘a better way to engage with these monuments would be to use them as a tool to re-connect to the near past in which, as a society, we did not see space only as a commodity.’”

Read more about the meaning and history behind specific monuments at The Calvert Journal.

Top: Spomenik #1 (Podgarić); all images by Jan Kempenaers

Nobody could ever accuse the Soviets of being too modest in the scale of their monuments and colossal sculptures, and they left no shortage of absolutely bonkers concrete and stone creations all over their former territories. In addition to their strange yet beautiful sculptural rural bus stops and all of abstract alien-like monuments they constructed in what was once Yugoslavia, the Soviets took pride in erecting colossal figurative statues that range from awe-inspiring to downright scary.

The Motherland Calls, Volgograd, Russia

The tallest statue of a woman in the world when pedestals aren’t counted in total height, The Motherland Calls stands 279 feet from the top of its plinth to the tip of its sword, positioned on a hill near Mamayev Kurgan, Volgograd. In 1967, when it was dedicated, it was the tallest statue in the world, period. Built to commemorate the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest clashes in human history, the statue is quite beautiful, but that elegant pose and the jaunty angle of the sword have proven to be a structural concern thanks to shifts in groundwater beneath it. Conservation work began in 2010 to ensure that the 7,900-ton creation remains upright despite not being fixed to its plinth.

Monument of the Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship, Turna Hill, Bulgaria

The blocky, cubist style of the figures on The Monument of the Bulgarian-Soviet Friendship is certainly distinctive, shared by a number of other Bulgarian monuments built in the same era (including the strikingly beautiful and bizarrely Transformer-like Shumen Monument). Unsurprisingly, the Russian soldiers on the right half of the monument stand taller than those of Bulgaria. Erected on Turna Hill, a historic battleground and the mass grave of soldiers lost to the Russian-Ottoman War, the monument was once covered in bronze elements that were quickly stripped and scrapped when the Soviet Union disbanded, and it’s been abandoned ever since. It’s made of over 10,000 tons of concrete and 1,000 tons of armature wire and was intended to be the end of a grand Communist boulevard that was never built.

Colossal Courage, Belarus

A stern stone soldier seemingly pops his colossal head out of a mound of stone to frown down at passersby visiting the ruins of Brest Fortress in Belarus, where the Red Army stubbornly held for days against a surprise Nazi attack in 1941 despite being dramatically outnumbered. A writer at CNN called the statue ugly and said it looked constipated back in 2010, and the nation of Belarus responded with outrage, noting that ‘Courage’ is a memorial to those who died. While most monuments in former Soviet territories are disused and sometimes disowned at this point, ‘Courage’ and Brest Fortress are a major point of pride for Belarus and remain a significant tourist attraction.

Superhero-Style Astronaut Sculpture, Moscow, Russia

Yuri Gagarin, Soviet cosmonaut and the first man in space, gets a superhero-style commemoration in the form of a 40-foot-tall titanium statue seemingly ready to shoot off into the sky. Erected on Moscow’s Leninsky Avenue in 1980, not far from Lenin’s own mausoleum, the statue features a 90-foot granite pedestal. Gagarin’s first-ever trip to outer space lasted only 108 minutes, and though he escaped death as a backup cosmonaut for the ill-fated Soyuz-1 in 1967, he ultimately died during a routine training flight in 1968. His ashes are embedded into the wall of the Kremlin of Red Square in Moscow.

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Staggering Statues 7 Monumental Wonders Of The Former Soviet Union

From war memorials to military sculptures, some monuments are in many ways the most captivating structures mankind creates. Perhaps they catch our attention because they symbolize our most violent moments or the extremes of victory and defeat that transcend everyday reality. Some of these structures commemorate turning points in history, wins and losses that changed the courses of countries or even entire continents. Others are simply awesome architectural designs worthy of appreciation in their own right. From around the world, here are twelve of the most memorable, unique and extraordinary war monuments and memorials in military history.

The Motherland Calls was the tallest building in the world when it was constructed, measuring 279 feet from the plinth to the tip of the sword. The monument commemorates the Battle of Stalingrad and was built by Yevgeny Vuchetich in Volgograd, Russia in 1967. The figure, which is 170 feet tall, is Valentina Izotova, a native of the city, who posed for Mother Motherland. The result is both impressive and imposing.

El Alamein is a city west of Alexandria and north of Cairo that played a major role during World War II including the November 1942 battle when Montgomery’s forces routed Rommel’s Afrika Korps and Winston Churchill said of this, “This is not the end, nor is it even the beginning of the end, but it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.” Shown above is the war monument that the Italian state built on a hill 5 miles west of the city to commemorate the thousands of Italian soldiers that died in Africa during WWII. There is also a German Military Cemetery situated on the Tel el-Eisa hill and a Commonwealth War Cemetery with graves of soldiers from various countries that fought from the side of Britain.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial was built in 1986 in Washington D.C. to honor members of the U.S. armed forces who served in the Korean War and viewed from the above it looks like a circle intersected by a triangle. The Field of Service (the triangle) is where visitors approach the monument for the first time and see the 19 stainless-steel statues representing ground troops on patrol. There is also a granite curb on the north side with the 22 countries of the United Nations that helped in South Korea, while on the south side there is a black granite polished wall.

photo by Jon Charest

The World War II Memorial is a national memorial to all Americans that fought the World War II and is located in Washington D.C. on the former site of Rainbow Pool between the Washington Monument and the Lincoln Memorial. It all started in 1987 with a proposal to build a WWII memorial that took about seven years to receive federal approval for construction. Out of more than 600 design submissions, a proposal by Friedrich St. Florian in 1997 and work on the monument began. The structure consists of 56 pillars (each one is 17 feet tall) and two arches, the “Atlantic” and the “Pacific”. Each of the 56 pillars is inscribed with one of the 48 US states from 1945 and the District of Columbia, the Alaska Territory and Territory of Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, American Samoa, and the U.S. Virgin Islands. It opened to the public on April 29, 2004.

The USS Arizona Memorial recalls the Japanese imperial forces attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, which became the starting point of the United States’ involvement in World War II. It was the worst naval disaster in American History, no less than 1,177 sailors died on the USS Arizona during the attack. The remains of the sunken battleship were turned into a memorial which is now the final resting place for 1,102 of the crewmen. There is an approximately 75-minute tour that includes a 23-minutes film on the history of Pearl Harbor and then a trip on the Memorial.

photo by Aldor

The Arc de Triomphe is a quintessential symbol of Paris that lies at the western end of the Champs Elysees in the center of the Place Charles de Gaulle also known as the Place de l`Etoile. It has been designed by Jean Chalgrin in 1806 and was dedicated to all those that fought in the name of France, especially in the Napolenian Wars. On the underside of the arc are the names of the Generals and the wars they fought in, while beneath lies the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Charles Godfroy flew a biplane through the Arc de Triomphe after the Victory Parade of 1919 that celebrated the end of World War I.

Tugu Negara is Malaysia’s National Monument (that’s what Tugu Negara stands for) and was built in Kuala Lumpur just near the House of the Parliament. The monument is dedicated to the heroic fighters who died for the country’s peace and freedom, against the Japanese occupation during the World War II and after. There are seven bronze figures that symbolize leadership, suffering, unity, vigilance, strength, courage and sacrifice. The “Tugu Negara” also symbolizes that it will preserve traditions (the left side) and will build the future (the right side).

The Women of World War II is an unusual monument in one critical regard. Most people think of war as a male-dominated phenomenon but there are some monuments that are dedicated to the role of women in wartime. The sculpture by John W Mills is located in Whitehall London to the north of Cenotaph and consists of 17 different clothes and uniforms that women during World War II had to wear at their jobs.

The Merchant Seafarers War Memorial is a sculpture by Brian Fell from 1996 dedicated to the Merchant Seamen of Cardiff Bay and Butetown. This work includes both a beached hull of a ship and a timeless face, along with an interpretative mosaic with inscriptions and portraits of local wartime seafarers by Louise Shenstone and Adrian Butler.

The Fortress of Brest is the second largest war monument in the former Soviet Union. Located in the city of Brest in Belarus the sculpture is a tribute to the famous “courage” defense against Germany that attacked the Soviet Union during the first days of World War II. Its size is impressive and the figure display a palpable toughness.

The Sydney War Memorial is located in the southern extremity of Hyde Park. Also known as the ANZAC War Memorial, this complex was designed by Bruce Dellit and Rayner Hoff to commemorate the Australian Imperial Force that fought during World War I. It was completed in 1934 and is supposed to be Australia’s finest Art Deco structure. You may want to visit it at night because the colors and the reflection in the nearby lake makes it even more beautiful in the evening. On the exterior the building has a cladding of pink granite and consists of a massed square superstructure punctuated on each side by a large arched window of yellow stainless glass.

The Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Monument lies in the center of Indianapolis, Indiana, lies a 284-feet tall monument built from gray limestone and bronze in a neoclassical style. The structure commemorates Hoosiers who were veterans of the Indiana war (1776 to 1865). The Colonel Eli Lilly Civil War Museum is located in the monument’s lower level while a 30-foot statue of “Victory” tops the obelisk. The view of the surrounding area from the 250-foot high observation deck is simply spectacular.