Another former communist-occupied country visited, another monument to the fallen photographed. How did communism's lofty ideal of equality become so twisted and evil, delivering oppression and brutality wherever it was (or is) practised? Having seen the poignant sculpture in Moscow commemorating Stalin's victims, and the collected skulls from the Killing Fields of Pol Pot's Cambodia, I wasn't expecting to find a similar memorial in the Czech Republic so moving. But death is only one way you can hurt people: how do you physically capture the dissolution of a man's spirit?
The Memorial to the Victims of Communism is located in Prague's Lesser Town, on the lower slopes of Petrín Hill (since my image and this post are geotagged, you can retrieve the exact coordinates). This work by Olbram Zoubek, Jan Kerel, and Zdenêk Holzel was unveiled in 2002 and is succinctly described in this passage:
It contains seven "phases" of a man living in a totalitarian state—from the first statue being a full man, up to the last statue where only a part of him remains. This evaporation represents the gradual physical and [psychological] destruction of a man who is ruled by any undemocratic regime. The man disappears due to censorship, secret police, no freedom of thoughts and expressions etc.
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The incredible dissolution of being
Very powerful imagery, I think reinforced by the shallow depth-of-field in this photograph which helps to blur the detail (and even the existence) of the more distant figures. It's not a great shot—taken in light rain and failing light—and I regret I did not have the opportunity to "work the area" with my camera some more. Looking with your eyes and your viewfinder are complimentary activities: one informs the other.
A bronze strip records the estimated numbers of political victims during 1948–1989, the communist era in the former state of Czechoslovakia:
205,486 arrested; 170,938 forced into exile; 4,500 died in prison; 327 shot trying to escape; 248 executed
Pause and reflect.
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