A Place of Sorrow or Triumph? Modern Practices of Commemoration on the Example of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church in Lubyanka

Abstract

The article examines the architecture of the Church of the New Martyrs and Confessors of the Russian Church on Lubyanka Square in Moscow (built in 2013–2017) as an instrument of memory politics in contemporary Russia. The author analyzes how the architectural and spatial solutions of the church construct a specific narrative about Soviet repressions, transforming traumatic grief into a triumphal image of spiritual victory. The theoretical framework draws on concepts of cultural memory (Aleida Assmann, Jan Assmann, Paul Connerton), the sociology of emotions (Martha Nussbaum), and semiotic approaches to architecture (Juri Lotman, Umberto Eco). Through the analysis of three interconnected dimensions—the concept of new martyrdom within church discourse, the symbolism of the construction site (demolition of historical buildings of the Sretenskii Monastery), and the architectural and artistic solutions for both the exterior and the interior—the author demonstrates that the church functions less as a memorial to victims and more as a monument affirming a new state-church mythology. A comparison with the Church of the New Martyrs in Butovo in southern Moscow reveals the variability of ecclesiastical interpretations of the past and the specificity of the “triumphalist” narrative embodied in the Lubyanka project. The article concludes that architecture operates as an active tool of memory politics, materializing ideological agendas and serving to adapt the “difficult past” to the imperatives of contemporary state consolidation.

Article in Russian