From Czernowitz to Chernivtsi : Remembering pre-WWII Cultural Diversity in a post-Soviet Western Ukrainian city

After World War II, the ethno-demographic structure of many cities in eastern and central Europe was fundamentally changed as a result of genocides, ethnic cleansing, deportations and migrations. The cultural diversity that had been characteristic of many of those cities was radically reduced, as new inhabitants tried to find their place in the cityscapes. In focus of this thesis is the memory work of contemporary elites in post-Soviet Chernivtsi specifically in relation to the lost cultural diversity of the pre-WWII city. The thesis asks to what extent the city’s lost pre-WWII cultural diversity has been accepted into elite narratives about Chernivtsi’s past, and whether some aspects of this diversity can be said to be more foregrounded or disregarded. Furthermore, it asks to what extent the memory work of local elites is connected to the creation of a local post-Soviet identity for the city in the post-Soviet period. The thesis shows how narratives celebrating local pre-WWII cultural diversity have permeated local memory work in the city during the period of study, while simultaneously in local discourse the most difficult aspects of that past often are avoided.