Sensuous (Re)Collections

The Sight and Taste of Socialism at Grūtas Statue Park, Lithuania

Bibliographic Data

ID4364587
AuthorsGediminas Lankauskas (Concordia University, corresponding author)
Year2006
Volume1
Issue1
Pages27-52
Publication date2006-03-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueThe Senses and Society (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1745-8927 • E-ISSN: 1745-8935
PublisherInforma UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.2752/174589206778055682
OpenAlexW2093265202
LanguageEN
Citations received14
References cited33

The present paper is about Grūtas, a Lithuanian park—museum featuring recuperated Soviet-era artifacts. This museum is examined as a locus of public memory where the nation's socialist history is invoked through visual representations (recovered statuary) and by implicating the sense of taste ("Soviet" drinks and dishes served at the museum's café). The paper suggests that seeing the Socialist past at Grūtas activates memories of trauma and loss, while tasting that past summons up more nostalgic reminiscences. It is further argued that this museum constitutes a visual and gustatory critique of Lithuania's increasingly commodified and "modernized" present. It is also proposed that collective memory in today's Eastern Europe affords a productive ethnographic site in which to investigate the ongoing systemic transformations in the aftermath of communist rule

Aesthetics · Art · Art history · Astronomy · Communism · Political science · Sight · Socialism · Statue · Taste · Visual arts · Art, Politics, and Modernism · History · Law · Memory, Trauma, and Commemoration · Polish-Jewish Holocaust Memory Studies · Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub