Composing Urban History and the Constitution of Civic Identities by J. J. Czaplicka B. A. Ruble (review)

Abstract

REVIEWS 775 the belief, shared by many of that generation in Europe, that they were contributingto the fight against Fascisttotalitarianism.Their disillusionment with the practice of Communism feeds Tismaneanu's, but at the same time theirparticipationin what the authorcalls 'thetragicadventure'of Communism , enables him to draw upon their witness. By doing so, he enriches this judicious and reflectivestudy. School ofSlavonic andEastEuropean Studies D. J. DELETANT University College London Czaplicka, J. J. and Ruble, B. A. (eds). Composing UrbanHistogyand the Constitution of CivicIdentities.Assisted by Lauren Crabtree. Woodrow Wilson Center Press and Johns Hopkins University Press, Washington, D.C., Baltimore, MD, and London, 2003. xiv + 430 pp. Illustrations. Tables. Notes. Index. ?43.00? THIS volume of collected essays, edited by Blair A. Ruble, director of the Kennan Institute at the Woodrow Wilson InternationalCentre for Scholars, and John J. Czaplicka, an art and culturalhistorian at Harvard University, addressesthe relationshipbetween urban histories,both as written texts and as inscribedin the built environment, and the constructionof civic identities. The editors'concern with understandinghow narrativesof urbanhistorymay foster -or, at times, disrupt the emergence of democratic, pluralistic, multiethnic and multiculturalmodern cities is not only intellectual but also ethical. The book is permeated with a sense of moral engagement, and the questions it raises and problems it addresses are timely and relevant. Only occasionally does the political message become intrusive and weaken the scholarlyintegrityand persuasivenessof the contributors'arguments. The editorshave broughttogethera diversecollection of authors,who offer thirteen complementary perspectiveson the main themes of the work. Eight contributions deal with the past and present of East and Central European cities undergoing structural, spatial and political transformations:Kaliningrad ,St Petersburg,L'viv,Prague,EastBerlinandRiga. Two chaptersanalyse cities which have experienced troubled histories and relatively successful transitions in the recent past: Vienna and Barcelona. Finally, three papers consider the cultural and political history of Washington, D.C. from the perspective of its African American population. These offer a salutary reminderto thereaderthatproblemsof urbangovernanceand socialcohesion resultingfrom difficulthistoricalexperiencesand fromthe legacies of the past leftboth in concreteand culturearenot thepreserveof the 'newly'democratic, post-socialistor post-Fascistcities of Europe. The editorshave taken the wise decision to group the contributionsnot geographicallyor chronologically,but in fourthematicsections ('The Archeology of the Local', 'The Instrumentality of Historical Images', 'Historical Alterity' and 'Transformations'),thereby making manifest the commonalities and shared concerns of individual chapters. The editors themselvesalso contribute two most stimulatingand engaging essayswhich open and close the book. They also offershortbut usefulprefaces 776 SEER, 83, 4, 2005 to each thematic sub-section. Ruble's introductionto the book, 'LivingApart Together:The City, Contested Identityand Democratic Transitions',setsout the work's core themes and moral concerns with exemplary clarity. When urban communities are 'divided by race, ethnicity, class, religion and other social fault-lines',he asks, how can they go about nurturing 'new pluralistic legends, memories and history' (pp. 2-3) or new 'inclusive local myths' (p. I)? His tentative answer is that they must find 'new ways of thinking aboutsocietythatrecognizeandacceptdifference'(p. 2).Asothercontributors demonstrate,often this involvesmobilizing and promoting popularinitiatives which emerge directly from the lived experience of the built environment. BrianLadd'sfascinatingchapteron EastBerlinin the late i 980s, forexample, relates how popular activism concerned with the deterioration of the urban environment, and especiallydecay of the housing stock, intersectedwith and fuelled political opposition to the Communist regime. Grigorii V. Golosov analyses how political interests in late-Soviet Leningrad and post-Soviet St Petersburghave mobilized around differentconceptions of the city'sidentity. Ilya Utekhin's contribution explores how inhabitants of Soviet communal apartmentsin the same city tell storiesof theirbuilding'shistoryas a means of regulatingand givingmeaning to often conflictualeverydayrelations. The process of fostering new civic urban identities also often involves asserting local traditions of diversity in opposition to national projects of normalization. This may entail re-writing urban histories to re-integrate in the narrative social groups hitherto excluded from or marginalized in the normative account (such as the AfricanAmerican population of Washington, D.C., the subject of the three chapters by John Michael Vlach, Howard Gillette Jr. and James A. Miller) or ethnic groups displaced or physically eradicatedand absentfromthe contemporarycity (suchas the formerJewish, German or Polish inhabitants of L'viv, Kaliningrad, Riga or Vienna). The revisedhistoricalaccount not only takesthe form of written texts (in...