The Legacies of Others. Dealing with Historic Cityshapes in Soviet Lviv and Communist Wroclaw

JVF Conference Papers

In this presentation I would like address one issue and relate it to two cases.

The issue is how a new image and city’s identity is created after a radical change of authorities and population and what is the relation with built environment in such project. Two cases are both similar and different. Lwów/Lviv and Breslau/Wrocław changed its state affiliation due to the war and their population almost completely changed, because of Holocaust and post-war deportations. At the same time, Lviv cityscape survived extraordinary well. The material fabric had suffered little damage, while the population has changed dramatically. On the whole, Lviv has preserved in 90% undestroyed becoming rather an exception in the eastern and central Europe. In Wroclaw destructions of material fabric varied from 90% to 40% depending on the area. The central part had about 70% of destruction.

The city was almost completely repopulated after expulsion of German inhabitants.

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