The Making of (Post)colonial Cities in Central Europe

Abstract

In her article Making of (Post)colonial Cities in Central Europe Agata Anna Lisiak discusses some of the transformations taking place in Berlin, Budapest, Prague, and Warsaw after 1989. Lisiak proposes that Central European capitals are (post)colonial cities because their politics, cultures, societies, and economies have been shaped by two centers of power: the Soviet Union as the former colonizer, whose influence remains visible predominantly in architecture, infrastructure, social relations, and mentalities and Western culture and Western and/or global capital as the current colonizer, whose impact extends over virtually all spheres of urban life. Furthermore, the cities under scrutiny are not only because they exist between the West and the East, but also because they are torn between the Soviet colonial past and the Western/global colonial present. The (post)colonial and in-between peripheral identities and locations of the Central European capitals complement each other and their analysis provides a relevant perspective on the transformation processes that have shaped and continue to shape the region after 1989. Agata Anna Lisiak, Making of (Post)colonial Cities in Central Europe page 2 of 9 CLCWeb: Comparative Literature and Culture 12.1 (2010):