Lviv – Wrocław, Cities in Parallel?: Myth, Memory and Migration, c. 1890-Present

Published by Central European University Press 2020

Lviv – Wrocław, Cities in Parallel?

Myth, Memory and Migration, c. 1890-Present

Edited by: Jan Fellerer and Robert Pyrah

https://doi.org/10.1515/9789633863244

Overview
Contents

About this book

After World War II, Europe witnessed the massive redrawing of national borders and the efforts to make the population fit those new borders. As a consequence of these forced changes, both Lviv and Wrocław went through cataclysmic changes in population and culture. Assertively Polish prewar Lwów became Soviet Lvov, and then, after 1991, it became assertively Ukrainian Lviv. Breslau, the third largest city in Germany before 1945, was in turn "recovered" by communist Poland as Wrocław. Practically the entire population of Breslau was replaced, and Lwów's demography too was dramatically restructured: many Polish inhabitants migrated to Wrocław and most Jews perished or went into exile. The forced migration of these groups incorporated new myths and the construction of official memory projects.

The chapters in this edited book compare the two cities by focusing on lived experiences and "bottom-up" historical processes. Their sources and methods are those of micro-history and include oral testimonies, memoirs, direct observation and questionnaires, examples of popular culture, and media pieces. The essays explore many manifestations of the two sides of the same coin—loss on the one hand, gain on the other—in two cities that, as a result of the political reality of the time, are complementary.

Author / Editor information

Pyrah Robert :

Robert Pyrah is Research Fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford

Reviews

Violeta Davoliute:
"The focus of the volume on the processes of memory in the localities of L’viv and Wrocław is an effective way to draw attention to the experience of large-scale historical processes at the local level, drawing on a repertoire of sources that would not otherwise be tapped. It will be of interest to students of a wide range of topics, including history, memory, urbanism, and mass population displacement in East-Central Europe and beyond." https://academic.oup.com/ahr/article/128/1/434/7098120

Heidi Hein-Kircher:
"Der vorliegende Band hinterfragt die übliche Parallelisierung beider Stadtgeschichten anhand dreizehn spannender mikrohistorisch argumentierender Beiträge. Ausgehend von dem Umstand, dass in beiden Städten aufgrund der tiefgreifenden demografischen Umwälzungen und Migrationserfahrungen erheblicher Bedarf an neuen lokalen Identitätsangeboten bestand, spüren die Beiträge dem Wandel von Erinnerungskulturen beider Städte aus einer bottom-up-Perspektive nach. Der Sammelband führt aktuelle Forschungen zur Geschichte beider Städte zusammen, die bereits seit den 1990er-Jahren durch die weitestgehende Zugänglichkeit der Archive einen Aufschwung erlebt haben. Für diesen „Boom“ in der Forschung bildete gerade die multiethnische Prägung der ostmitteleuropäischen Städte einen wichtigen Bezugspunkt, so auch im Falle L'vivs und (in geringerem Maße) Wrocławs. In konzeptueller Hinsicht knüpft der Band an einen gegenwärtigen, produktiven Trend in der historischen Forschung an, der die Mikrogeschichte ins Verhältnis zur Meso- und Makrogeschichte setzt. Auf diese Weise können Befunde der historischen „Vogelperspektive“ verifiziert, korrigiert oder ergänzt werden."

Philipp Ther:
“The myth and memory of a deeply connected and similar history of Wrocław and L’viv is certainly alive. The comparative volume tracks down the roots of this myth, the connections between the two cities through forced migration, and it shows the profound differences between them. The readers will better understand how Wrocław and L’viv have survived the devastations of the twentieth century and become buzzling cultural centers of Poland and Ukraine.”

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	v
Introduction Jan Fellerer Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
A Place Called Home? Nation, Locality and the “Parallel” Polish- Ukrainian Histories of Wrocław and Lviv Robert Pyrah Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
Population Movement and the Liberal State: The Polskie Towarzystwo Emigracyjne and the Regulation of Labor Migration from Lviv’s Hinterlands Keely Stauter-Halsted Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
Jews in Lviv at the Turn of the 20th Century: On the Road to Modernization Łukasz Tomasz Sroka Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	55
Beyond National: “Posttraumatic Identity” of Disabled War Veterans in Interwar Lviv Oksana Vynnyk Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
East Meets West: Polish-German Coexistence in Lower Silesia through the Memories of Polish Expellees, 1945–1947 Anna Holzer-Kawałko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
Tylko we Lwowie: Tango, Jazz, and Urban Entertainment in a Multi-ethnic City Mayhill C. Fowler Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
Impressions of Place: Soviet Travel Writings and the Discovery of Lviv, 1939–40 Sofia Dyak Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	141
Imperfect Metropolis: The Evolving Projections of Wrocław in Polish Feature Films Mikołaj Kunicki Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	169
The Bu-Ba-Bu and the Reorientation of Ukrainian Culture: The Carnival City and the Palimpsestual Past Uilleam Blacker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Memory, and Lack of Memory, of Others: The Image of the Jewish and the Polish Neighbor in Oral Reflections of Lviv’s Current Inhabitants Halyna Bodnar Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	219
City, Memory, and Identity: The Case of Wrocław after 1945 Barbara Pabjan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	257
Contemporary Lviv: Facing the Past—Reinterpreting the Past Katarzyna Kotyńska Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	291
Building Bridges Between Breslau and Wrocław: A Case Study from the European Capital of Culture Initiative, 2016 Ewa Sidorenko Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	311
Afterword: Central European Cities as Laboratories of Memory… and Oblivion—Lviv and Wrocław Contrasted Jacek Purchla Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	337
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349

Language: English
Publisher: Central European University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 364
Keywords: Communism; Cultural studies; Language policies; Memory politics; Minorities; Urban studies

eBook

Published: October 10, 2020
ISBN: 9789633863244