Читать книгу Diversity in the East-Central European Borderlands - Группа авторов - Страница 6

Eleonora Narvselius

Abstract: The contributions to this special issue explore the multi-layered urban environments of East-Central European borderlands. They bring into focus the cityscapes of Wrocław, Lviv, Chernivtsi, and Chişinău, where the legacies of Nazism, Marxist-Leninism, and violent ethno-nationalism have been revisited in recent decades in search of profound moral reckoning and in response to the challenges posed by the (post)transitional period. While much has been written about the history of these cities, there is a dearth of knowledge about how their contemporary residents make sense of the cityscapes stripped of their historical populations, and how they deal with the history and memory of those populations. This introductory essay suggests a tentative approach to the analysis of engagements with the lost diversity in historical urban milieus full of post-war voids and ruptures. In particular, it tests the possibility of combining the theoretical propositions of Memory Studies with broader conceptualizations of borderlands, cosmopolitan sociality, and hybridity.