The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv : A Borderland City Between Stalinists, Nazis, and Nationalists

In __The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv__, Tarik Cyril Amar reveals the local and transnational forces behind the twentieth-century transformation of one of East Central Europe's most important multiethnic borderland cities into a Soviet and Ukrainian urban center. Today, Lviv is the modern metropole of the western part of independent Ukraine and a center and symbol of Ukrainian national identity as well as nationalism. Over the last three centuries it has also been part of the Habsburg Empire, interwar Poland, a World War I Russian occupation regime, the Nazi Generalgouvernement, and, until 1991, the Soviet Union.Lviv's twentieth-century history was marked by great violence, massive population changes, and fundamental transformation. Under Habsburg and Polish rule up to World War II, Lviv was a predominantly Polish city as well as one of the major centers of European Jewish life. Immediately after World War II, Lviv underwent rapid Soviet modernization, bringing further extensive change. Over the postwar period, the city became preponderantly Ukrainian—ethnically, linguistically, and in terms of its residents’ self-perception. Against this background, Amar explains a striking paradox: Soviet rule, which came to Lviv in its most ruthless Stalinist shape and lasted for half a century, left behind the most Ukrainian version of the city in history. In reconstructing this dramatic and profound change, Amar also illuminates the historical background to present-day identities and tensions within Ukraine. In The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv, Tarik Cyril Amar reveals the local and transnational forces behind the twentieth-century transformation of one of East Central Europe's most important multiethnic borderland cities into a Soviet and Ukrainian urban center. Today, Lviv is the modern metropole of the western part of independent Ukraine and a center and symbol of Ukrainian national identity as well as nationalism. Over the last three centuries it has also been part of the Habsburg Empire, interwar Poland, a World War I Russian occupation regime, the Nazi Generalgouvernement, and, until 1991, the Soviet Union. Lviv's twentieth-century history was marked by great violence, massive population changes, and fundamental transformation. Under Habsburg and Polish rule up to World War II, Lviv was a predominantly Polish city as well as one of the major centers of European Jewish life. Immediately after World War II, Lviv underwent rapid Soviet modernization, bringing further extensive change. Over the postwar period, the city became preponderantly Ukrainian--ethnically, linguistically, and in terms of its residents' self-perception. Against this background, Amar explains a striking paradox: Soviet rule, which came to Lviv in its most ruthless Stalinist shape and lasted for half a century, left behind the most Ukrainian version of the city in history. In reconstructing this dramatic and profound change, Amar also illuminates the historical background to present-day identities and tensions within Ukraine

The Paradox of Ukrainian Lviv reveals the local and transnational forces behind the twentieth-century transformation of Lviv into a Soviet and Ukrainian urban center. Lviv's twentieth-century history was marked by violence, population changes, and fundamental transformation ethnically, linguistically, and in terms of its residents' self-perception. Against this background, Tarik Cyril Amar explains a striking paradox: Soviet rule, which came to Lviv in ruthless Stalinist shape and lasted for half a century, left behind the most Ukrainian version of the city in history. In reconstructing this dramatically profound change, Amar illuminates the historical background in present-day identities and tensions within Ukraine.

Contents Acknowledgments Note on Terminology Archival Abbreviations Introduction Chapter One. Lviv/Lwów/Lemberg before 1939 Chapter Two. The First Soviet Lviv, 1939–1941 Chapter Three. The Lemberg of Nazism: German Occupation, 1941–1944 Chapter Four. After Lemberg: The End of the End of Lwów and the Making of Lviv Chapter Five. The Founding of Industrial Lviv: Factories and Identities Chapter Six. Local Minds Chapter Seven. Lviv’s Last Synagogue, 1944–1962 Chapter Eight. A Soviet Borderland of Time Conclusion: A Sonderweg through Soviet Modernity Bibliography Index "This book is a local and transnational study of the twentieth-century experience of a Central European borderland city with four key forces of European and global twentieth-century history: Soviet Communism, Soviet nation-shaping (here, Ukrainization), nationalism, and Nazism. It examines a fundamental layer in the making of modern Lviv by focusing on its World-War-Two and postwar transformation from an important multi-ethnic city (formerly known, mostly, as Lwów and Lemberg) into a Soviet and Ukrainian urban center"-- Provided by publisher.