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The Petrified Utopia: Monumental Propaganda, Architecture Parlante, and the Question about (De)Materialisation of Monuments



Author(s)

Katarzyna Trzeciak

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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2015.01.004

The article examines the idea of monumentality (following Evgeny Dobrenko’s concept of “petrified utopia”) in Polish Socialist literature especially by analyzing Lenin’s “monumental propaganda” and its influence on literary thinking. Starting from some details about Lenin’s vision and plan, the article will further present how the act of transposition of a monument into texts¾the act of materialization monuments in literary signs¾causes some kind of monumental spectrality or dematerialization and as a consequence, the disappearance of art in Rancieran sense in which the art disappears when it becomes transparent for itself. To prove this thesis, the article will analyze two main architectural examples: Tatlin’s Monument to the Third International (as the great realization of Lenin’s doctrine) and Polish Palace of Culture and Science which was the theme of many Polish Socialist poems. In conclusion, the article will also present some broader perspective of modern architectural utopias and their spectrality.

monumental propaganda, sculpture, Monument to the Third International, spectrality, Architecture Parlante