Freedom Square, Memento Park

The socialist statues of Budapest now lie outside the city, but they still have a lot to say about the production of urban space.

Memento Park reminds me of an empty amusement park. Out in the suburbs of Budapest, even from afar, you can see bits of the attractions peaking out above the walls. Towards the entrance, bright painted arrows with excited lettering point to the various sights. MAIN PARK this way, FILM SCREENING over here, don’t forget the GIFT SHOP on your way out.

Neither of the two times I’ve been has the park been crowded. On my most recent visit, there is one couple and a small family with a toddler wobbling around while carrying a balloon. So, there we stand, outnumbered by the bronze figures.

Memento Park is a collection of the statues removed from central Budapest after the end of socialism. Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin, abstract odes to a defunct system, Hungarian heroes and faceless workers, all have their presumably final resting place here.

The foundation of geographical theory is the idea that places are expressions of society in physical space, productions of the power relationships between people built into the environment. I think Memento Park interests me because it is an explicit recognition of this worldview. Regardless of how you view the socialist period in Hungary, you feel the power of ideas built into physical space when you walk through such a place.

This post is heavy on pictures and light on words. The power is in the images, so please do examine them. I’ll conclude with two thoughts though:

1. One of the most influential thinkers in urban studies, Henri Lefebvre, wrote about space as an overlap of what we perceive firsthand (spatial practice), what we conceive through our planning and reasoning (representations of space), and the complexity of actually-lived space (representational space). Here in Memento Park, how are our perceptions of the basic physical properties of gravel, brick, bronze, plants, and open air affected by both the design of the park and by the afterlives of everything that happened around these statues across forty-five years?

2. The last picture comes not from Memento Park, but Freedom Square in central Budapest. There, Ronald Reagan strides through the middle of a busy sidewalk. How does the contrasting placement of his statue affect one’s experience of the city?

“Eternal glory to the fallen heroes of the fight for the freedom and independence of the Soviet Union and the liberation of the Hungarian people.”

“With thanks to our Soviet liberators for the sake of freedom”

“Hungarian-Soviet Friendship Memorial”

“In this square, on March 18, 1919, the workers of Csepel demanded the freeing of Bela Kun and the other communist leaders detained with him. Here they created belief in the KMP program and worker power. On April 27, 1919, Bela Kun spoke to the workers of Csepel at a peoples’ assembly.”

“In memory of the Hungarian fighters in the Spanish international brigade 1936-1939”