Memory tourism in a contested landscape: exploring identity discourses in Lviv, Ukraine

Abstract

The study explores divergent representations and cultural identity in a historically contested landscape. The first form of representations includes politically amended place marketing. It is analysed how public discourse on a city’s development and regeneration articulates inscriptions of local authorities to pursue political-economic agendas. The second form of representations is diaspora’s imaginary of a pedigree place that derives from genealogical research and travel. In this way, genealogy enables counter-memories to uncritical marketing and ‘alternative’ voices in recast of local history. A contested landscape is conceptualized through politics of past to reflect stakeholders’ present-day concerns. The empiric study is conducted in Lviv, a city with complicated past and national identity due to shifting powers. The fieldwork comprises the ongoing marketing campaign in Lviv launched in connection to the Euro-2012, and the Polish, Jewish and West-Ukrainian diasporic representations. The findings show how the nationalistic and the Eurocentric meta-narratives embed the identity discourses of Lviv official élite, and how diasporic texts suggest a genre of resistance to the marketing scripts.

Keywords:

• identity
• place marketing
• genealogical tourism
• historiographic representations
• Lviv
• critical discourse analysis

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Tunbridge and Ashworth (1996, p. 29) in their turn use the term disinheritance to denote historical experiences that are marginalised, distorted or ignored in the process of history and heritage appropriation.

2. The Holocaust-era story of Jews who hid from Nazis in the sewer system of Lviv featured in 2011 Agnieszka Holland and David F. Shamoon’s film ‘In darkness,’ based upon a true story of a survivor, Krystyna Chiger, and her book ‘The girl in the green sweater: A life in Holocaust’s shadow.’

3. Another landmark Jewish site in Lviv, Turei Zahav synagogue founded in 1582 and known as Golden Rose, has been evoked in a similar mediatized campaign. Located centrally within Unesco vicinity, the Golden Rose is now being conserved under ‘The space of synagogues: Jewish history, common heritage and responsibility’ project involving Lviv City Council, Lviv Center for Urban History and the German Organization for International Cooperation (GIZ) as a financial patron.