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Urban commemoration and literature in post-Soviet L'viv: a comparative analysis with the Polish experience

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Uilleam Blacker
Uilleam Blacker*
Affiliation:
St Antony's College, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
*
∗Email: uilleam.blacker@sant.ox.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article analyzes how the Poles and Jews who disappeared from the western Ukrainian city of L'viv as a result of the Second World War are remembered in the city today. It examines a range of commemorative practices, from monuments and museums to themed cafes and literature, and analyzes how these practices interact to produce competing mnemonic narratives. In this respect, the article argues for an understanding of the city as a complex text consisting of a diverse range of mutually interdependent mnemonic media produced by a range of actors. The article focuses in particular on the ways in which Ukrainian nationalist narratives interact with the memory of the city's “lost others.” The article also seeks to understand L'viv‘s memory culture through comparison with a range of Polish cities that have faced similar problems with commemorating vanished communities, but have witnessed a deeper recognition of these communities than has been the case in L'viv. The article proposes reasons for the divergences between the memory cultures of L'viv and that found in Polish cities, and attempts to outline the gradual processes by which L'viv‘s Polish and Jewish pasts might become more widely integrated into the city's memory culture.

Keywords

L'vivHolocaustmemory studiesUkrainian literaturePolish literatureurban commemoration
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 42 , Issue 4 , July 2014 , pp. 637 - 654
Copyright
Copyright © 2014 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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