FROM THE CENTER TO THE «SLEEPING DISTRICTS»: ATTEMPTS TO CONSTRUCT THE EXTERNAL IMAGE OF LVIV AS A SOVIET CITY

Abstract

The attempts of the Soviet authorities to construct the external image of Lviv as a Soviet city are analyzed. It is argued that an important aspect of the transformation of any city is its visual changes. It is noted that during the period 1939–1941, and later in 1944–1991, the Soviet government sought to give a «Soviet face», first of all, to the center of Lviv. Simultaneously with this, in the so-called «sleeping districts» of the city – a kind of invention of the Soviet era – in Lviv, as in other cities of the USSR, residential quarters typical for the Soviet space were to appear, built with characteristic residential quarters with a uniform layout and standard social infrastructure. It is concluded that the implementation of the plan to transform, according to the Soviet definition, the «bourgeois» (European) appearance of the city of Lviv into a «Soviet» one turned out to be half-hearted. Thus, the Soviet project to create a «socialist model» center in Lviv was not successful: instead of the large area of the new center planned in the 1940s with Soviet monuments and administrative buildings, only a few buildings were built, and a 700-anniversary of Lviv Street was laid, which instead of the city center, it became an ordinary highway connecting the historic center with the new residential quarters of the northern districts of the city. It is noted that the process of residential development, which began in the 1950s, was more successful. As a result, being built with typical new buildings, Lviv’s suburbs got a Soviet image. At the same time, massive housing construction contributed to a partial solution to the housing issue, although often the condition of new buildings was not the best. It is noted that the cultural phenomenon of the Ukrainian-speaking «yesterday’s peasants» – the «new residents of city» – began to form on the outskirts of Lviv. They began to adapt to city life, adopting its culture, in turn influencing the natives of the city. At the same time, in the case of Lviv, it was not precisely about the Russification of the «new settlers», but actually their Ukrainization of the space of the city center and its outskirts. Key words: Lviv, image construction, Soviet city, Ukrainian SSR, USSR, architecture, city center, city outskirts.