Ukrainian Intelligentsia in Post-Soviet L'viv

Narratives, Identity, and Power

By (author) Eleonora Narvselius

Publication date:

05 April 2012

Length of book:

432 pages

Publisher

Lexington Books

ISBN-13: 9780739164686

Intelligentsia assumes the right to speak in the name of the entire nation and to extrapolate its own tastes, values and choices to it. Therefore, intelligentsia’s voices have been in many ways decisive in the discussions about Ukrainian national identity, which gained momentum in the post-Soviet Ukrainian society. The historical and cultural cityscape of L’viv is an especially apt site for investigation of the nexus intelligentsia-nation not only in the Ukrainian, but in the East-Central European context. This borderline city, while not being a remarkable industrial, administrative or political centre, has acquired the reputation of a site of unique cultural production and a principal center of the Ukrainian nationalist movement throughout the twentieth century. Here the popular conceptions of intelligentsia have been elaborated at the intersection of various cultural, historical and political traditions. This study addresses Ukrainian-speaking intelligentsia and intellectuals in L’viv both as a discursive phenomenon and as the social category of cultural producers who in the new circumstances both articulate the nation and are articulated by it.

Introduction
Chapter 1: Approaching Intelligentsia
Chapter 2: Intelligentsia and Problematics of Culture, Nation, Class and Power
Chapter 3: A Historical Stage for Intelligentsia’s Projects: Polyethnic, Multicultural, Nationalist Daily L’viv
Chapter 4: Incarnations of the Protagonist: Old Intelligentsia—New Intelligentsia—Pseudo-Intelligentsia—Non-Intelligentsia
Chapter 5: Between Kham and Knight: The L’viv Intelligentsia’s “Others” and Alter Egos
Chapter 6: Intelligentsia’s Spaces in L’viv
Chapter 7: Empowering Projects of the L’viv Intelligentsia and Intellectuals after the End of Soviet Rule: Narratives about L’viv’s Centrality and Peripherality
Chapter 8: Empowering Projects of the L’viv Intelligentsia and Intellectuals after the End of Soviet Rule: Narratives about (Be)longing, Ambiguity and Cultural Colonization
Chapter 9: Opening a Pandora’s Box: Collective Memories and “Blank Spots” of the Ukrainian Past in Historical Narratives of the L’viv Intelligentsia
Conclusions: Intelligentsia in L’viv: The Power of Location and Narration

Eleonora Narvselius’s book tackles one of the most elusive social groups in a rapidly transforming social and physical landscape of a very unusual post-Soviet city. ... This book proves that, despite the economic cataclysms of the post-Soviet period and the intelligentsia’s significantly weakened social status, the group remains an important player in the post-Soviet cultural landscape. ... Narvselius’s book is the most extensive and sophisticated treatment of L'viv’s intelligentsia during the two decades that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is a must-read for anyone working on cities, social change, and cultural projects in post-Soviet Ukraine.