Russia’s Arlington?
The Federal Military Memorial Cemetery near Moscow
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
In June 2013, Russia’s first national cemetery was opened on the edge of Moscow. The draft plans from 2003 envisaged a park-like landscape cemetery which adopted elements of the Arlington National Cemetery in the United States. However, the results of the competition were quietly overturned. Instead of the space designed by the architects for quiet mourning and funerals for all ranks, sculptors created a cemetery in the Soviet monumental style for heroes and generals. The Ministry of Defence, which played a decisive role in the process, had no interest in breaking with tradition. The new cemetery pays homage to a pan-historical militarism in which the history of Russia is portrayed as a series of heroic victories.
(Osteuropa 5/2017, pp. 25–58)