The Sign-Symbolic Level of Urban Identity of the Inhabitants of Industrial Cities of the Southern Urals

Abstract

The article deals with the comprehension of the phenomenon of urban identity in general and its sign-symbolic level in particular. By urban identity in the context of the presented scientific text, we mean a set of authentic features and characteristics, inherent in a particular city, that perform an attributive function, allowing to differentiate it from other cities; the process and result of a person’s identification with the city, based on the acceptance of its identity, on the emotional entry into the space of its material and sign-symbolic environment. The sign-symbolic level of urban identity assumes personal mastering of the city’s semiotic environment, its inclusion in the space of the event and emotional experience of its inhabitants, transformation of the objects of the city’s sign-symbolic space into a set of “memory places”.The author of the article conducted a culturological study of the urban identity of the residents of industrial cities of the Southern Urals (semi-formalized interviewing method; the array of respondents — 270 people), including its sign-symbolic component. Its specific features are culturocentricity (predominance of man-made sign-symbolic objects over natural and mixed ones); commemorativeness (dominance of memorial objects — memorial sculpture and sculptural compositions, museums, ethnoparks, historical buildings, other monuments of historical and cultural heritage — over objects of other types); retro-orientation (predominance of objects temporally associated with the past, mainly with the Soviet period); monotony (limited range of objects chosen by residents of one city); syncretism (identity of objects aimed at different audiences); collectivism (total predominance of objects — signs of group identity); centrality (centripetal localization of objects, their location mainly in the city center). The results of the conducted research allow us to speak, with a significant degree of confidence, about the very clearly manifested features of the Southern Urals cities inhabitants’ perception of their own small Homeland, about the problematic and strengths of the existing urban identity, the vectors of its correction and improvement.