Invisible Legacies and Rural/Urban Dynamics in Heritagization Process of Soviet-Era Collective Farm Buildings

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article concentrates on the role of social and spatial processes that influence how architectural sites of the past are deemed part of the cultural heritage. It will focus on the contested architecture of collective farms in post-Soviet Estonia. By analyzing urban–rural dynamics and mnemonic processes dealing with controversial historical periods, it will demonstrate the complex negotiations that are involved in heritagization processes. These complicated processes are illustrated by analyzing three case studies, which show how heritagization is a heterogeneous practice, negotiated on multiple levels in communities, on the collective and private levels, but also between the state and the private sector. The article argues that rural/urban representation and relational dynamics play an important role in heritagization processes. Though the collective-farm architecture was built during the ideologically contested Soviet period, the attitudes towards these premises are intertwined with multi-layered patterns of remembering, which are embedded in local social relations and community identity.