In Praise of Odd Memorials

What we want in this moment should never be all we consider

Memorials matter. That’s a statement which I wouldn’t have thought would need to be made, particularly given all the sturm und drang around statues and other forms of commemoration over the last several years. And yet, whenever I mention memorials on Twitter, I always hear sneering dismissals. They’re lumps of metal. They’re useless. If someone objects to one, get rid of it. In fact — a few have actually suggested — get rid of them all.

I could respond that memorials are close to ubiquitous in human societies. In part, that’s because they are one way of making public statements about who we are and the beliefs we feel define us, which is necessary to give shape and meaning to the collective. But the impulse runs deeper. We are mortal, and we know it. Memorials make memory physical with the expectation that the object will outlive those who erect it. “We were here,” memorials are meant to say to the future generations we will not meet. “This mattered to us.”

But there’s a response that is simpler and stronger. Take a look at the picture below.

Although it is invisible behind an enormous pile of sandbags, that is a statue in Odessa, the ancient city on the Ukrainian coast of the Black Sea. Ukrainians are threatened with the destruction of their country and the murder of their people. And yet, as this Smithsonian story discusses, volunteers in Odessa and elsewhere put time, effort, and resources into protecting what some breezily dismiss as useless lumps of metal.

By their actions, Ukrainians have provided a more eloquent refutation of that nonsense than any words I can muster.

But now, let’s strip away those sandbags and reveal the statue.

Despite that gentleman’s senatorial attire, he is not a Roman, but rather the Duc de Richelieu. As you may have guessed, the Duc de Richelieu was very much not Ukrainian. He was a French aristocrat, born in 1766 to a famous and influential French family.

So why is there a prominent statue of a French aristocrat in Odessa? Glad you asked.

The duke had the usual upbringing and career trajectory for one of his station: married at the age of 15, took the Grand Tour, became a soldier. But then came the French Revolution and things got a little unusual.

Exiled, he went to Vienna. Then he joined the Imperial Russian army. At the time, the army was pushing the Ottoman Turks out of the lands on the northern and eastern shores of the Black Sea, so Richelieu had plenty of work. He fought well for the Russians. He was decorated and got to know the Czar personally. The Czar was fond of his new French friend so he made him governor of Odessa and, later, governor general of the region. That was in 1803.

In 1815, Napoleon met his Waterloo and the Bourbons were restored to the throne of France. The Duc de Richelieu went home. He died in France in 1822.

In the years that the duke was in charge of Odessa, the city had prospered, so the people of Odessa — or at least the people who put up the statue — thought they owed him remembrance. In 1828, long after the duke had left Odessa, and six years after he died in France, they erected this statue.

Personally, I love the fact that a prominent statue in Odessa honours a French aristocrat born in the 18th century. It’s an oddity. A wrinkle. A product of a very specific moment in time that only makes sense when you look closely at that precise moment. In a word, it is an anachronism.

II am not familiar with popular memory in Ukraine but I am reasonably confident that if you were to poll Ukrainians and ask them to list people who should be honoured with a statue in Ukraine today, the Duc de Richelieu would not make the top ten. Or top one hundred. Just as modern Americans would not choose the Marquis de Lafayette as the namesake of the prominent square directly across from the White House. And modern Canadians would not choose to put the name of the Duke of Wellington on the street that runs in front of the prime minister’s office, Parliament, and the Supreme Court.

But earlier generations, who saw the world differently, did make those choices. And now, when people visit Odessa, Washington DC, or Ottawa, they see a significant memorial to a somewhat surprising figure. The mismatch between the worldview of the living in that place, and the worldview represented by the memorials in that place, reveals something of how culture and memory evolved there. When I travel, I’m less interested in the likes of the Arc de Triomphe and the Washington Monument than I am in the curiosities of a place — like a statue honouring a French aristocrat in a city on the Black Sea. You can often learn much more from the anachronisms.

This isn’t a popular way of looking at memorials. In debates about which statues should be torn down and which erected, there is almost never a word spoken about other generations, past or future. All that matters is what we the living care about, what we honour, what we want in our public spaces. The fact that there were generations before us, who saw the world differently, and created memorials they cared about as deeply as we do ours, is almost never acknowledged. The fact that there will be future generations who will also see the world differently, and want to create memorials that reflect their thinking — and will have the power to tear down our memorials — also goes unmentioned. All that matters is what we laughably treat as the eternal now.

I’m not a purist about maintaining memorials. I wouldn’t want to live on Hitlerstrasse, after all. But I do think we should err on the side of keeping what exists and expressing ourselves through the creation of new memorials, if not to grant past generations the respect we hope future generations will accord us, then to allow memorials to accumulate over time, like the slow accumulations of silt that build a river delta — my favourite metaphor — and leave a record of the many generations that, collectively, made the place what it is.

We were here, the memorials say. This mattered to us.