Wars of Statues: Ius imaginum and Damnatio memoriae in the 20th century Latvia.

In Latvia outdoor sculpture functions as a medium of political communication. Transformations of political regime engendered the alteration of representation politics aimed at attesting the new power relations. Not always the authorities can topple down a monument and erect a new one to propagate an unambiguous political message. More subtle methods are exploited to depreciate the unwanted sculptures and to break in the public sphere with new political messages. This paper conceptualises the peculiarities of this kind of political communication in semiotic terms. Among the most popular practices are renaming of monuments, change or addition of inscriptions, circulation of new explanations, permitting of natural decay and banal vandalism, modification of environment around the sculpture, and its inclusion in rituals. Outdoor sculpture as a medium of political communication Latvia has experienced several waves of erection and destruction of monuments in the 20th century. The change of representation practice coincided with the political transformations in the state. As a part of the memory rewriting project, ostensibly the commemoration of persons and events asserted the regime change and legitimised the power relations. Sculpture’s peculiar role in political communication owes to th