The Albanian lapidar survey

Abstract

During the communist dictatorship, the Albanian regime erected a large number of so-called lapidars in virtually every village, town, and city of the country. These concrete monoliths functioned as monuments commemorating a variety of “martyrs of the nation” fallen during the National Liberation War (1944–5) but also monumentalized the presence of the Party of Labour of Albania throughout the land. Their function as markers of commemoration as well as social progress is clearly shown in the Viktor Gjika's 1984 “cine-poem” Lapidari. The ubiquity of these unique monumental structures and their relative opacity in the current cityscape – neither demolished nor maintained, but largely fallen into disrepair – makes them emblematic of the undigested nature of Albania's communist past.
In 2014, research bureau for the arts and humanities The Department of Eagles (Departamenti i Shqiponjave) initiated the research project Albanian Lapidar Survey, involving research into the construction and topography of all lapidars in Albania and their historical context, as well as the documentation and geotagging of all remaining lapidars in Albania that could still be located by means of archival sources or interviews. Contrary to various artistic projects implemented in other post-communist countries such as ex-Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, which focused on a certain aesthetic appreciation, if not glorification of past monumentalities, the intention of the Albanian Lapidar Survey was both generic and encyclopaedic in nature, with the intent of making these cultural artefacts accessible to future research through an online database and an open access catalogue.
The final results of the Albanian Lapidar Survey were published in 2015 in a three-volume publication Lapidari by punctum books.