DEATH IN THE LANDSCAPE: A SPATIAL ASPECT OF THE MODERN TRADITION OF MARKING PLACES OF DEATH ON HIGHWAYS (A CASE STUDY OF THE RUSSIAN FEDERAL HIGHWAYS A 151, R 178, R 241)

Abstract

An important aspect of the study of cultural space is the analysis of ways and forms of commemoration and memorialization of road accident victims. The placement of traditional cemetery monuments in it, installed at the place of people’s death, transfers the symbolism of death from strictly defined places of cemeteries into public space and turns it into sceneries of death or landscapes of death. It is no coincidence that many of the motorists and professional drivers who use such highways say that it is like driving in a cemetery. This article is the first in Russia to analyze this modern phenomenon based on the material obtained from a survey of part of three federal highways (A 151, R 241, R 178). It is shown that in Russia roadside monuments are not limited to the Christian cross, and their locations are much more diverse than in Europe and North America. In general, there are two trends – to place roadside monuments as close to the highway as possible (on the roadside, slope, behind the bump or on it) and in or near the green zone (in the forest or forest plantation) and a transitional one – to place them in the roadside lane. In the first case, the choice of the location is conditioned by the desire to approach the place of death of a loved one as close as possible, the second case demonstrates the desire to protect the memorial sign, to place it in accordance with the tradition of cemetery, primarily rural cemetery, where trees on the graves played an important role. Our analysis shows that different types of roadside monuments have different effects on the formation of the cultural landscape along the highways. Memorials are the most striking examples of ‘cemetery culture’, they mostly reformat the roadside space into landscapes or sceneries of death. In turn, gazebos, flowerpots with live or artificial flowers that do not have traditional plaques and photographs of the dead, i.e. do not reproduce the cemetery tradition, do this to the minimum extent. Crosses, steles and obelisks as the most typical cemetery structures occupy, to a certain extent, an intermediate position between memorials and flowerpots and gazebos.