(Not) Noticing Dahl: New Practices of Visual Perception of Places of Memory in Urban Space

The object of this study is the visual perception of sites of memory in urban space. The subject of the research is the tactics of misrecognition of monuments in Luhansk. Using local sociological data from Luhansk, this article analyzes the phenomenon of misunderstanding sites of memory. It examines how respondents describe monuments to Afghan soldiers and Vladimir Dahl in an ironic or cynical style, radically deconstructing the key idea of ​​a given site of memory. Based on sociological research, it is revealed that visual practices underlie this interpretation. The author examines in detail the gap between the cultural ideal of Modernity, which demands the unconditional recognition of sites of memory, and contemporary practices of ironically rejecting the "universal" visual code offered by the memorial itself in favor of a local perspective. The research methodology is based on Walter Benjamin's existential phenomenology, which presupposes the interpretation of cultural and social events through the prism of lived personal experience. A necessary complement to the episteme of listening to urban whispers and collecting their fragments, which for Benjamin served as the key to understanding the city, is Michel de Certeau's methodology for describing the organization of everyday life. The main findings of the study lie in the identification not simply of misunderstandings of memorial sites in the urban environment, but in the respondents' particular desire for an emotional and visual recoding in accordance with their own cultural experience. A hypothesis is formulated that misunderstandings of monuments are not due to a lack of historical knowledge or respect for specific eras or historical figures, but to the organization of visual experience determined by everyday tactics and social practices. It is suggested that at the root of these practices of misunderstanding lies not simply a conflict of interpretations and a misunderstanding of the message of memorial sites, but a shift in the mode of vision and the prescription of meanings, a transformation of speculation. The novelty of the study is determined by the fact that the author, using the material of sociological research, problematizes the practices of visual perception of places of memory in urban space and proposes a model for explaining the phenomenon of "erroneous" vision.