Lenin in Antarctica. Public Space and Monumental Narrative at the Pole of Inaccessibility
Lenin in Antarctica. Public Space and Monumental Narrative at the Pole of Inaccessibility

Summary/Abstract: In 1958, a team of Soviet Antarctic researchers set up a research station close to the Southern Pole of Inaccessibility. Less than a month later, the research team abandons the station but not before installing on its structure a golden bust of Lenin, made of plastic.Ever since, the place has been visited by other Soviet research teams, but also by American,British and Norwegian Antarctic explorers. In 2007, the research station had been completely buried under snow, while Lenin’s bust was fully visible and some “visitors” took some selfies with the “monument”. At the intersection of the logic of politics and geopolitics (of marking the Soviet presence in Antarctica) with the logic of the monumental narrative, the 1958 act of the team of researchers puts into question - or even into predicament - the concept of “public monument” and points to the problematization of a potential public space that is both fictional and symbolically appropriated,

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