CEU eTD Collection (2025); Osypchuk, Kateryna: Dismantling the Past, Rebuilding the Future: Politics of Memory and Urban Space in the Public Spheres of Poland and Ukraine

CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2025
Author Osypchuk, Kateryna
Title Dismantling the Past, Rebuilding the Future: Politics of Memory and Urban Space in the Public Spheres of Poland and Ukraine
Summary This thesis comparatively explores the approaches to working with representations of memory of the state-socialist regimes in the urban spaces of the capitals of Poland and Ukraine within the framework of the transformations unfolding in the respective public spheres during and after the post-1989/1991 transitions. It does so by employing a longer temporal perspective and analyzing the articulations of politics, memory, and national identities during the state-socialist regimes, focusing on the memory of World War II as a turning point. Detailing the contexts of post-1989/1991 transitions, nation- and state-building projects, and their articulations with the past, this thesis contextualizes the development of decommunization as a discourse and policy. Finally, it analyzes these transformations using case studies of the ‘afterlives’ of the monuments, embodying memory narratives that were crucial during the state-socialist periods. The thesis demonstrates the transformations of memory as both triggering and reflecting changes in the construction of collective identities.
Supervisor Trencsényi, Balázs
Department Historical Studies MA
Full texthttps://www.etd.ceu.edu/2025/osypchuk_kateryna.pdf

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