Authors

Discussion

Like many other Polish cities Lwów had a big Jewish community that almost disappeared after WWII. The paper engages with commemorative practices dedicated to the Jewish past of the city in contemporary Lviv. The commemorations carried out by the Jewish community are still strongly rooted in the Soviet memory culture but experienced some transformations in response to the current political circumstances. At the same time, new “commemorative entrepreneurs” created alternative ways of commemoration orientated to the European tradition of remembering the Holocaust. A special focal point of the presentation is on the history of local Jewish organizations that were founded on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union and afterwards.

This research is a part of a PhD project on the culture of commemorations in Eastern Europe. The focus of the dissertation is on organized assemblies linked to World War II and held annually in public and semi-public space on dates of historical or symbolic significance. The city of Lviv serves as an example of a place where contradictory historical narratives coexist, overlap, and complement each other, being influenced by the perception of violence caused by the Russian-Ukrainian war. The analysis of commemorative events conforms to a pictorial science and media-studies research perspective in an approach that adheres to Judith Butler's theory of performativity.