Unique and Multiplied Lviv: On Urban Memory in the Tales of Ukrainian Writers (on the Example of the Cycle of Stories “The Lviv Series“)

Abstract

This article is devoted to the literary images of Lviv in the cycle of stories L’vivska seriia [The Lviv Series]. Created by contemporary Ukrainian women writers, the cycle can be considered a special archive of memory, illustrating the ways of experiencing the city and thinking about it. The study analyses the stories included in the series in two aspects: what Lviv as an entity is like in the memory of Ukrainian writers, and what selected fragments of the remembered Lviv reality they refer to in creating the literary image of the city. These two ways of remembering have been defined as the memory of the city and the memory of the place: the first term is about a systemic approach, presenting the city as a gestalt, and the second one is about specific fragments of urban reality.