Paper short abstract:

The heritagization of political pasts is central to the reframing of such narratives and tourists have a key role to play. Focusing on Memento Park, Hungary, and Grutas Park, Lithuania, and elsewhere, we examine how figureheads of such regimes are displayed to diminish their former power.

Paper long abstract:

"ghosts" inevitably emerge: odd fragments of memory that wander homeless in the wake of social and individual efforts to render the past coherent. (Leshkowich, 2008:5)

In this paper we argue that the heritagization of political figures and pasts is central to the reframing of such narratives and that tourists have a key, if sometimes unwitting, role to play in the shaping of the emerging political imaginaries. Focusing on Memento Park, Budapest, and Grutas Park, Lithuania, but drawing on examples of other reclaimed large representational objects and buildings which, (re) shape historic narratives, such as Museum of Occupations, Tallinn, we examine how such spaces banish political regimes and the giant imposing statues of figureheads of such regimes to the 'basement of history', displayed to diminish their former power. We explore how tourists are implicated in these narratives, performing acts of playfulness such as posing with the large scale statues on display, in ways overtly disrespectful to the individuals depicted. We consider how these public spaces are set up for such encounters, with the emphasis on using humour and mocking tactics to keep them neutralised in the hearts and minds of locals who may chose NOT to visit. We determine that international tourists may act as a proxy for local non-visitors, performing disobedience, helping to raise, and erase the ghosts, to render them harmless.

Leshkowich AM. (2008) Wandering ghosts of late socialism: Conflict, metaphor, and memory in Southern Vietnamese marketplace. The Journal of Asian Studies 67: 5.