HOW TO WRITE THE NEW HISTORY OF A SMALL TOWN ON THE UKRAINIAN-POLISH BORDERLANDS: (NO) RETURN OF MULTICULTURALITY AND SEARCHING IDENTITY (USING A CASE STUDY OF ZHOVKVA)

Abstract

The article analyzes the historical and cultural interpretations of Zhovkva’s past on the basis of oral historical sources, archival materials and the local information space. During the study period, the urban community went through a stage of distortion and exclusion from the history of the city of a multicultural past (replaced by history, written from the Soviet discourse), to the restoration of historical memory and rethinking local history, in particular, through the correlation of the Ukrainian grand narrative with related memories.Based on the method of content analysis in oral history, which makes it possible to focus on the personal understanding of the history of society by a person, the memory of the past of the city, its prominent figures and events were investigated; estimates of historical figures of the Polish, Ukrainian, Jewish communities lived in the city that were its founders, cultural representatives are given. Through the prism of family and personal life experiences, residents of the modern Zhovkva learn and comprehend the concept of multiculturalism. The stories of three families from Zhovkva in the article show the peculiarity of life in a small town on the Ukrainian-Polish ethnic border. The first microhistory of the Ukrainian family, which reaches three generations, allows us to illustrate both the relationship in a multi-ethnic city and the arrival of the «Soviet» in Zhovkva. The second is focused on the memory of a mixed Polish-Ukrainian family and relations with Ukrainians during World War II. The third concerns the Jewish family and the memories of the missing history of the Jewish community in the city.The plots show that in everyday life, ethnic contradictions were felt rather as an element of everyday communication, rather than national contradictions and differences, whereas the main thing for everyone was the understanding and interpretation of Zhovkva as his native city and organization of a multicultural and diverse world.