Volume 10:
Narrative Spaces in a Multicultural City
Introduction by Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
Articles
Goran Janev
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City.
Tiiu Jaago
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces: Comparative Analysis of Stories as the Bases of Local Identity
Ekaterina Protassova and Anu Reponen
Understanding Urban Spaces: How Speakers of Russian Talk about Helsinki
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
Indigenous Young Women at a City University
Discussions
Jewish Life in Eastern European Towns:
Between Decline and Resurrection
Elena Nosenko-Stein
The Sacred and Profane Space in Modern Russian City: A Choice of Russian Jews
Vanda Vitti
Jewish Culture and its Heritage in Slovakia after 1989: Urban Sites of Remembrance in
Košice and their Meanings
Svetlana Amosova
There Are No Jews Here: From a Multiethnic to a Monoethnic Town of Burshtynd
Events
Local Culture, Tourism and Festivals
Kira Kaurinkoski
Globalization in the Life of Small Island Towns:
Changes for Better or Worse? The Case of the Island of Kos (Greece)
Maria Yelenevskaya and Maria Fialkova
“Holiday of Holidays” Festival in Haifa: Between Hope and Reality
Book Reviews by Devorah Kalekin-Fishman, Francesca Stella, and Boris Czerny
© 2011, The University of California
Cultural Analysis:
An Interdisciplinary Forum on Folklore and Popular Culture
Volume 10: Narrative Spaces in a Multicultural City
Special Issue (in association with SIEF)
Introduction Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova................................1
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City...........................................................3
Goran Janev
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces:
Comparative Analysis of Stories as the Bases of Local Identity...............23
Tiiu Jaago
Understanding Urban Spaces:
How Speakers of Russian Talk about Helsinki...........................................45
Ekaterina Protassova and Anu Reponen
Sentenced to Commute:
Indigenous Young Women at a City University...........................................67
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
Discussion: Jewish Life in Eastern European Towns:
Between Decline and Resurrection
The Sacred and Profane Space in Modern Russian City:
A Choice of Russian Jews.................................................................................91
Elena Nosenko-Stein
Jewish Culture and its Heritage in Slovakia after 1989:
Urban Sites of Remembrance in Košice and their Meanings.................105
Vanda Vitti
There Are No Jews Here:
From a Multiethnic to a Monoethnic Town of Burshtyn..........................117
Svetlana Amosova
Events: Local Culture, Tourism and Festivals
Globalization in the Life of Small Island Towns:
Changes for Better or Worse? The Case of the Island of Kos (Greece)..125
Kira Kaurinkoski
“Holiday of Holidays” Festival in Haifa: Between Hope and Reality..141
Maria Yelenevskaya and Maria Fialkova
Reviews by Devorah Kalekin-Fishman, Francesca Stella, and Boris Czerny
i
Editorial Board
Fekade Azeze, Addis Ababa University, Ethiopia
Pertti J. Anttonen, University of Helsinki, Finland
Hande Birkalan, Yeditepe University, Istanbul, Turkey
Regina Bendix, Universität Göttingen, Germany
Charles Briggs, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
Véronique Campion-Vincent, Maison des Sciences de l’Homme,
France
Linda Dégh, Indiana University, U.S.A.
Valdimar Tr. Hafstein, University of Iceland, Reykjavik
Jawaharlal Handoo, Central Institute of Indian Languages, India
Galit Hasan-Rokem, The Hebrew University, Jerusalem
Jason Baird Jackson, Indiana University, U.S.A.
Kimberly Lau, University of California, Santa Cruz, U.S.A.
James R. Lewis,University of Tromsø, Norway
John Lindow, University of California, Berkeley, U.S.A.
Sabina Magliocco, California State University, Northridge, U.S.A.
Jay Mechling, University of California, Davis, U.S.A.
Fabio Mugnaini, University of Siena, Italy
Sadhana Naithani, Jawaharlal Nehru University, India
Peter Shand, University of Auckland, New Zealand
Francisco Vaz da Silva, University of Lisbon, Portugal
Maiken Umbach, University of Manchester, England, Universitat
Pompeu Fabra, Spain
Ülo Valk, University of Tartu, Estonia
Fionnuala Carson Williams, Northern Ireland Environment Agency
Ulrika Wolf-Knuts, Åbo Academy, Finland
Staff
Editorial Collective:
Anthony Bak Buccitelli, Karen Miller, & Tok Thompson
Review Editor: Elaine Yau
Website Developer: Brooke Dykman
Copy Editor: Fionnuala Carson Williams
ii
Introduction
and mass migration most of the cities have
become multiethnic and multicultural,
but constituent cultures do not always
act in unison. Urban spaces act as an
arena within which different lifestyles
interact and compete. As Simmel argues
in his seminal work, it is the diversity, the
constant tension created by the presence
of numerous others and the multiplicity
of economic, occupational, and social life
that create the sensory foundations of
mental life of city dwellers (Simmel 2002,
11-12). Unlike Simmel’s work, none of
the articles in this volume are concerned
with a metropolis, yet middle-size and
small towns on which the authors focus
also reveal complexities and challenges of
multiethnic and multicultural interaction
in urban life.
Among the central and interrelated
notions in the discourse on space in
general, and on city space in particular,
are place identity, reading space and
constructing its meaning (See, e.g., Cuba
and Hummon 1993; Lefebvre 1991, 1-67;
Lewicka 2008; Relph 1976, 8-26). People’s
self-conceptions are related to spaces that
they experience as their own, perceive
as belonging to the other but attractive in
their very otherness, or just the opposite,
regard as alien and insecure and so try
to avoid them. Essays presented in this
volume show that these perceptions may
be rooted in history (Amosova, Protassova
and Reponen, and Vitti) and socio-political
changes (Jago, Janev, and Nosenko-Stein).
Memories of the past are inscribed onto
places signiicant for an ethno-cultural
group and play a variety of functions:
from domesticating the city and making
it one’s own to reviving community that
virtually ceased to exist. Much thought is
Introduction
T
his volume has evolved as a followup to the panel under the same
title, which we organized at the
10th Congress of the International Society
for Ethnology and Folklore (SIEF), in
April 2011 in Lisbon. During the General
Assembly congress participants were
informed that the journal Cultural Analysis
and SIEF had decided to be associated.
Therefore we are particularly pleased
that this special issue is the irst volume
of Cultural Analysis after the important
decision was made and that most of the
contributors are SIEF members.
The theme of this volume relects an
ever growing scholarly interest in various
aspects of city life. The number of urban
dwellers is constantly growing, and
according to UN forecasts, by the middle of
this century 70% of the world population
will live in cities. The continuing
processes of urbanization bring about
new challenges and trigger scholarly
and public debate (Bandarin 2011, 121).
The very emergence of the subield of
urban anthropology is intertwined with
the study of complex societies. As Eames
and Goode aptly observe, even if a city
emerged or was created for one dominant
function it quickly draws to itself ancillary
functions. Moreover, cities are not
isolated geographic units but are linked
in dynamic interaction with a hierarchy
of contexts, from the local hinterland to
regional, national and even international
ields (Eames and Goode 1977, 79). Among
the many roles of the city, its cultural
role, including continuity and changes in
cultures, remain the primary concern of
urban anthropology. Due to globalization
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 1-2
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
1
Larisa Fialkova & Maria Yelenevskaya
competent advice and generous help
were invaluable to us. We would also
like to extend our gratitude to Rafael
Flickstein, whose computer expertise
saved us from many a disaster.
given by the authors to symbolic borders
between urban and rural (Blumen and
Tsafrir, and Kaurinkoski), and borders
that are imposed by ethnic politics and
power struggle (Janev, Yelenevskaya
and Fialkova). The latter can be either
reinforced by residents’ behavior or
weakened when members of different
ethno-cultural groups ind it beneicial to
cross them. Another theme that comes up
in the volume is places of consumption
and their role in the city image, as well as
in interethnic and intercultural relations.
Urban studies is an interdisciplinary
endeavour, and the background of the
authors in this issue testiies to this, as
they specialize in cultural anthropology
and
human-resource
management,
linguistics and immigration studies,
folkloristics and gender studies, homework relations and Jewish studies. The
geography of the studies presented in
the volume is also diverse and will take
the reader from the Baltic (Finland and
Estonia) to various regions of Russia
and Western Ukraine, to East European
Slovakia and Macedonia and then further
South to the Mediterranean (Greece and
Israel). But although the authors look
at urban life and urbanites from the
perspective of their various disciplines,
and although the towns where ieldwork
was conducted vary in dimensions, sociopolitical structure, and ethno-cultural
composition, observations and analyses
made by the authors “talk to each other,”
pointing to similar trends and problems
in multiethnic cities.
We would like to thank all contributors
for their commitment to our joint project
and for the creativity and relectiveness
that marks their work. We are indebted
to the editors of Cultural Analysis, whose
Maria Yelenevskaya
Larisa Fialkova
Guest Editors, Cultural Analysis
Works Cited
Bandarin, Francesco. 2011. “The Creative
Power of Cities. Editorial”. City,
Culture and Society no 2: 121-122.
Cuba, Lee, and Hummon, David M. 1993.
“Constructing a Sense of Home:
Place Afiliation and Migration
across the Life Cycle.” Sociological
Forum, vol.8, no. 4: 547-572.
Eames, Edwin, and Goode, Judith
Granich. 1977. Anthropology of
the City: An Introduction to Urban
Anthropology. Englewood Cliffs,
N.J.: Prentice Hall.
Lefebvre, Henri. 1991. The Production of
Space. Oxford: Blackwell.
Lewicka, Maria. 2008. “Place Attachment,
Place Identity, and Place Memory:
Restoring the Forgotten City
Past.” Journal of Environmental
Psychology, no. 28: 209-231.
Relph, Edward. 1976. Place and
Placelessness.
London:
Pion
Limited.
Simmel, Georg. 2002. The Metropolis and
Mental Life. In The Blackwell City
Reader, edited by Gary Bridge and
Sophie Watson, 11-19. Oxford:
Blackwell Publishing.
2
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
to street level, in an urban setting in
particular. I will use a spatially-oriented
approach to examine the tense ethnic
relations in Macedonia in the capital city of
Skopje. I employ the concept of narrative
spaces to better understand social action
in the political realm, expressed both in
spatial practices and contained in the built
environment, and the mutual inluences
of the social relations thus shaped, or
inter-ethnic relations speciically. Since
the early days of independence, the
Republic of Macedonia—once famous
for its ethnic diversity and even today
with a signiicantly mixed population of
2 million structured as follows: 60 per
cent Macedonians; 25 per cent ethnic
Albanians; and 15 per cent Roma, Turkish,
Serbian, Bosnians, Vlachs and others—has
been negotiating a formula for the new
nationhood that can accommodate such
diversity. The emphasis on ethnic politics
has led to the development of a political and
social order dominated almost completely
by ethnic interests. I will elaborate below
on how the emerging order of the past
two decades has led to the formation of
an ethnocratic regime. Yiftachel (2006, 32)
deines as “ethnocratic” those regimes
that rupture the concept of the demos in
favor of a single ethno-national group.
On the basis of my material I suggest that
relocating political legitimacy to ethnonational groups and emphasizing the
plural is what has caused this rupture of
the concept of the demos. The ethnocratic
regime that has emerged in Macedonia,
as I argue in this article, is best observed
in the new spatial order. That is why I rely
on spatiality to explore and explain the
working of ethno-politics.
My ieldwork site is the city of Skopje
Narrating the Nation,
Narrating the City1
Goran Janev
University of Sts Cyril and Methodius,
Macedonia
Abstract
This article analyzes expressions of power relationships
in the built environment through the concept of
narrative spaces. The speciic case analyzed in this
study is the major remaking of public space in Skopje,
the capital of the Republic of Macedonia. The emerging
ethnocratic regime in Macedonia aims at the creation
of an ethnocratic spatial order through the installation
of symbolic markers in the built environment that
practically fragment the city into ethnically-deined
territories. The citizens of Skopje have reacted to this
division by crossing these new symbolic borders and by
attending places at the border zone and transforming it
into a contact zone.
Introduction
tudies of inter-ethnic relations,
typically provoked or inspired
by recent or ongoing conlicts
and prolonged tensions, often remain
conined to analysis of political discourse
and actions. Analysis of spatiality in this
branch of research is largely limited to
the notion of territoriality, which is most
closely connected with research into
nationalism and is linked to the concept
of the nation-state. As the compilers and
authors selected in the copious reader
on state space demonstrate (Brenner et
al., 2003), probing beyond this assumed
“territorial trap” opens up almost limitless
analytical possibilities. I propose a more
thorough elaboration on spatiality in
the study of inter-ethnic relations within
a nation-state. Moreover, I extend the
application of the notion of territoriality
S
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 3-21
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
3
Goran Janev
where I was born and raised. I later
trained as an anthropologist elsewhere
and conducted my irst ieldwork study
in Macedonia as a researcher from abroad.
For this present paper I have again
conducted my research from abroad.
I irst became sensitive to spatiality
through my interest in local government
and the process of decentralization
in post-conlict Macedonia. In 2001
there was a brief military confrontation
between radical ethnic Albanians and
Macedonian state security forces that
maximized the polarization of interethnic relations between Macedonians
and Albanians. The new territorial
distribution of the municipalities in 2005,
designed to appease ethnic Albanian
demands, provoked a renewal of
tensions. The devolution of powers to
local government held out great promise
for a more participatory democracy but,
at the same time, carried the danger
that democratic participation would be
limited to ethnic collectivities.
Macedonian-Albanian
interethnic relations are arguably the most
appropriate for observing the subtleties
of political economy of scale (Brenner
et al., 2003) as they involve troubled
international relations in the reshaping
of the region of South-East Europe, interethnic relations within the Republic of
Macedonia, and local administration and
regional dynamics within the country at
sub-national scale. I started designing
my research in 2008 when I realized that
ongoing efforts to build a number of
cultural institutions and erect a number
of monuments were increasingly
growing beyond affordable, imaginable,
or necessary dimensions. Already, by
late 2008, some of those intentions to
remake the city in nationalist fashion
were becoming apparent and I decided
to focus on this symbolic reconstruction.
It was not until early 2010 that the
government announced the “Skopje
2014” project, but it soon became
obvious that acts of planning and urban
design were rooted in existing power
structures of nationalism (Fenster and
Yacobi 2010, 1). This grandiose project
is intended to make the capital of the
Republic of Macedonia into the national
capital of ethnic Macedonians. Favorable
demographic distribution and ethnopolitical engineering in 2005 created an
Albanian-controlled municipality of
Chair. The local government responded
by proposing the construction of a
“Skanderbeg Square” to symbolically
express their indisputable right over the
part of the city that forms the nucleus of
the old city. Therefore I decided to adjust
my analytical apparatus to accommodate
the increased importance of spatiality in
my research. In this article I will elaborate
the usefulness of the notion of narrative
spaces for the study of politicized intergroup relations in urban settings.
My engagement with the city of Skopje
demanded that I make a decision about
my primary unit of analysis. In many
ways this unit transpired to be Skopje’s
Old Bazaar, a remnant of the city nucleus
from medieval times. On the other hand,
I also explore the workings of nationalist
forces in a country of great ethnic and
religious diversity. Therefore, the bazaar,
or charshija as it is called locally, is where I
concentrated my ieldwork activities, but
the implications of this study are much
wider.
I was familiar with the charshija
since my mother, a ceramic artist, ran
4
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
more privileged treatment of spatiality.
Increasing disciplinary specialization,
however, has been accompanied by a
slight neglect of spatiality in the social
sciences in general. With this case
study of Skopje—and its Old Bazaar in
particular—I propose that spatiality is a
central aspect of inter-ethnic relations in
an urban setting and requires openness
between disciplinary boundaries to allow
fruitful conceptual borrowings.
Urban scholarship that accepts
spatiality as constitutive of social
phenomena also tends to disregard
disciplinary boundaries. This results in
cross-disciplinary conceptual fertilization
because borrowings and adoptions of
concepts, studies, indings, metaphors
and approaches are plentiful in current
literature dealing with the spatial aspect
of societies. Certainly, there are a great
many sub-disciplinary divisions and subspecializations stemming from increased
attention to spatiality. That could be used
to argue that many concepts have lost
their communicative value as they have
been speciically utilized within different
contexts within each discipline. Creative
license in the manipulation of concepts
allows for breakthrough indings but
could also introduce a great amount
of confusion. There are also concepts
that travel across social sciences and
humanities and we should be careful
when employing them if we are to avoid
misunderstandings.
Rather than steering clear of such a
potentially confusing situation, I intend
to engage with spatiality by borrowing a
concept of narrative space that has been
developed elsewhere. This concept has
been widely used in ilm and literary
criticism, where it also means two similar
a studio/gallery in the bazaar with my
father for ive years in the early 1990s.
At that time I was a student of ethnology
and would often go to the gallery to
allow my parents to have a break. The
research I conducted ifteen years later
has beneited from this prolonged
engagement, for I was very familiar with
the physical terrain. The social terrain
had altered signiicantly, however, and
so I needed to acquaint myself with the
changed charshija. I conducted more than
twenty in-depth interviews with various
shopkeepers and held many other
shorter exchanges and conversations. I
also organized a short survey with over
400 respondents, including almost all
of the shopkeepers in the Old Bazaar.
Given that the word charshija still means
“the talk of the town”, and given that this
particular place still affords insights into
the traditional social order and is located
between the new boundaries in the
Macedonian ethnopolitical landscape, I
believe that the charshija holds the key to
understanding the emerging ethnocratic
spatial order.
In recent decades, spatiality has
inally won a more generous reception
across various disciplines, including
anthropology. It has never been
completely absent and there have always
been researchers interested in observing
social life through the analysis of spatial
phenomena. In spite of the fact that
engagement with social space was one
of the major concerns of the founders of
the social sciences, as noted almost half a
century ago by Kuper (1972) space, social
space, or any aspect of spatiality has yet
to attain a mainstream position. The
renewed and intensiied interest in urban
phenomena has contributed towards a
5
Goran Janev
but different things. Narrative space has
already been welcomed in the social
sciences. I will use the notion of narrative
space to analyze the consequences of the
establishment of an ethnocratic regime
in Macedonia and the ways in which
this regime enforces a corresponding
spatial order. Moreover, I will not limit
the construction of narrative spaces by
merely observing the narrative functions
of the built environment and symbolic
landscaping. I argue that narrative
spaces are also constructed by immaterial
actions of spatial practices that do not
even require oral or literary expression.
The approach to spatial practices and
spatial acts that I use to construct my
argument follows, to a certain extent,
Bourdieu’s (1977) conceptualization of
habitus, the unspoken transmission of
spatially-learned social roles and rules.
informed analysis. In the same volume
we ind the deinition of narrative as
an analytical tool of urban scholars as
an appropriate way to comprehend the
expanding role of identitarian politics in
increasingly diversiied cities around the
globe (Fincher, Jacobs andAnderson 2002).
Trubina (2010) uses the term “rhetorical
space” to explore the construction of
the identity of Volgograd, formerly
Stalingrad, the deining moment of which
was the Battle of Stalingrad in World War
II. Although often referring to various and
contradictory narratives, Trubina opted
for “rhetorical space” as most expressive
of the transformations of the memory
practices that deine this city. Finnegan
(1998) engages directly with the concept
of narrative and remains dedicated to
it from the title of her book, Tales of the
city: a study of narrative and urban life, to
its very last page. In her view, scholars
tell their stories just as city planners,
investors and people do. This perspective
is quite similar to de Certeau’s persuasive
treatment of the planners’ view from
the top of a skyscraper that reveals the
grid organization of the urban space of
crosscutting streets at right angles and
the acts of transgression of this order by
walkers at street level whose trajectories
cut through the planned corridors of
movement (Ward 2000, 101-119). I build
my argument in a similar way, but I
add the notion of narrative space to
help identify the emerging disjuncture
between the clear-cut ethnic space of the
new urban planners in Skopje and the
trajectories cut through this space by the
citizens of Skopje.
I am interested in the production
of narrative space both as a top-down
process and the social construction of
Narrative spaces
In a comprehensive volume that sets
out to take stock of developments in the
ield of urban studies at the end of the
twentieth century Eade and Mele propose
that the most remarkable advance
was achieved through a cultural turn.
Including the symbolic and discursive
within urban studies has enriched
analysis which was hitherto concerned
mainly with implications stemming
from political economy (Eade and Mele
2002, 6). The cultural turn in urban
studies has provided a broader base for
critiquing the capitalist production of
space, no longer conined to political
economy. The ield of urban studies has
certainly beneited from the inclusion of
processes that produce meaning in social
space. Narrative space, however, is used
in a great variety of ways in spatially-
6
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
narrative space as a bottom-up process.
In doing so I take my cue from Setha Low
(2009) on the distinction and interplay
between the social production and social
construction of space. I am only adding
the concept of narrative spaces to better
capture the frantic developments in my
research location. Therefore I intend to
engage with narrative spaces not only as
they are intentionally produced to invoke
certain identitarian connotations, but
also to understand how this production
is accepted by the local population. In
the case of Skopje, as mentioned above,
this population is extremely diverse, and
this is especially relevant, given that the
producers of symbolic meaning in Skopje
are acting as if they were oblivious to that
diversity. With their interventions in the
public space intended to deine that space
along ethnic lines, the ethnocrats are
continually challenging the citizens of the
capital city and their capacity to ignore
the new symbolic order that divides
the city by ethno-symbolic markers. By
contrasting different narratives—those
materialized in space by the ruling
elites, and those of the immaterial spatial
practices of Skopje citizens—I disclose
the artiiciality of ethno-nationalist
discourse and the dangerous imposition
of a divisive spatial order.
Finally, the concept of narrative space
accommodates intangible components
that shape and inluence our relationships
with the built environment. Narrative
space can absorb Giddens’ (1990, 19)
phantasmagoria of global links that
shoot through every corner of the planet
and Appadurai’s (1996) techno-, mediaand ethno-scapes that are more than
just a spatial metaphor. Pile’s (2005)
more urban-bound conceptualization of
a phantasmagoria of past traces, ghosts
and local histories can also be used as a
basis for conceiving narrative spaces. It is
in these stories and otherwise-articulated
urban imaginations that narrative space
emerges. Narrative spaces are created
by elaborated social relatedness in
memories and imaginations regarding
the past, present and future social and
spatial positioning of individuals and
their group belonging. Of course various,
and even contradictory, narratives
exist simultaneously, depending on
converging or diverging positions.
Which narrative prevails depends on
the actual power relationships that
determine the acceptance and promotion
of the dominant narrative. The nationalist
imaginary narrative has proved to be
critical in deining social space and the
narratives that legitimize it.
Nevertheless,
everyday
practice
invariably proves the nationalist
imaginary narrative to be an impoverished
and oversimpliied representation of
reality, while spatial practices invariably
reveal those contradictions. Rather than
deining the concept itself, I will only
point out the uses to which I will put the
concept. Applying the notion of narrative
space allows for a better understanding
of symbolic interventions in the built
environment as expressions of the power
relations of ethno-nationalism. I will
engage this concept to unpack the power
relationships based on ethnicity which
are turning Macedonian society into an
ethnocracy. The exercise of political power
in the built environment can be more or
less implicit and on occasions apparently
symbolic. The notion of narrative space is
most useful when we analyze politicallymotivated interventions in public space.
7
Goran Janev
and around the central city square and
will completely change the cityscape.
Even the facades of the adjacent modern
buildings are to be redecorated and
adorned with Baroque ornaments. Over a
hundred monuments and sculptures are
being installed within the radius of one
kilometer, none of them less than four
meters high and the tallest being ifteen
meters high and perched on a pedestal
some 12 meters above the ground. All
of the historical characters have been
chosen for their value and function in
the construction of Macedonian national
identity. A Macedonian Triumphal Arch
has even been built at the entrance to the
city square. The central and tallest igure
is that of Alexander the Great sitting upon
a rearing horse and holding up a sword.
This total reordering of the capital city’s
center has been dubbed “Project Skopje
2014”.
Macedonian political life has been
reduced to the activities of ethno-political
parties. Naturally, the Albanians who
form the second largest ethnic group
in the country are not inactive, passive
onlookers in this spatial reordering.
Their contribution to the new symbolic
landscaping has not been directed towards
the overcoming of ethnic divisions but
to deepening these divides. In midJanuary 2012, the leadership of the most
powerful Albanian political party and
the local government of the municipality
of Chair, which is adjacent to the location
targeted for Skopje 2014, inaugurated the
construction of Skanderbeg Square. The
equestrian statue of the greatest Albanian
national hero will have no company in
the square that carries his name. There
is one such statue in Tirana, the capital
of Albania, and one in Prishtina, the
The project “Skopje 2014” and the
project for Skanderbeg Square are
examples of ongoing operations in the
Macedonian capital, and the concept of
narrative space will help to frame more
precisely my ethnographic material
which is awash with ethno-politics.
Since the collapse of the Socialist Federal
Republic of Yugoslavia, Macedonia has
been turned into a country in which
ethno-politics determine the social and
physical boundaries between members
of different ethnic groups. At the same
time, Macedonia is a country that has
demonstrated incredible resilience to
the perpetual confrontation between
different “national interests” as they
are conceived by the dominant ethnopolitical elites, as well as resistance
to numerous calls for ethnic violence
made by more radical individuals and
politically-articulated
organizations.
This seeming contradiction is best
explained by focusing on the spatial
features of ethno-politics in Macedonia.
The concept of narrative space is useful
for observing the effects that the complex
ield of political action has on everyday
practices that, in turn, relect it, and
relect upon it, by constructing social
reality through spatial practices, a set of
inter-related processes that form the crux
of this article.
The city of Skopje is currently under
intensive assault by irresponsible ethnopoliticians. I reiterate that the current
building offensive encompasses the entire
central part of the capital; it is aimed at no
less than a total redeinition of the image
of the city of Skopje. Over a dozen new
buildings designed in an historicist and
eclectic mishmash of Neoclassical and
Neo-Baroque styles are being erected in
8
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
capital of Kosovo. The construction of
the Skanderbeg monument disregarded
legal regulations when it appeared in
November 2007. Skopje is divided into
ten municipalities and Chair is one
of those in which Albanians form the
majority. The Mayor of Chair is a highranking party member of the largest
Albanian party, the Democratic Union for
Integration, which emerged transformed
from the National Liberation Army
that ignited the military confrontation
in 2001. The total dominance of ethnopolitical parties and their respective
policies and public discourse lead to the
conclusion that Macedonia has stepped
out of democracy into ethnocracy. These
costly and gigantic projects are a direct
expression of the ethnocratic regime in
the social space. The intention is to create
a new spatial order with clearly-marked
ethnic territories within the capital. This
new spatial order in Skopje is a perfect
example of ethnocratic spatial order.
Public space has been targeted as a
ield for symbolic struggles since the
early days of Macedonian independence.
The practice of displaying lags, religious
symbols and built objects, and inally
monuments, has been used to mark
ethnic territories over the past twenty
years and has kept fragile inter-ethnic
relations alame. While there is no space
here to fully engage with all the aspects
of these symbolic struggles (Harrison
1995), it is rewarding to focus on the
politicization of lags and the nationalist
abuse of the lag as a symbolic object that
marks out ethnic territories (Eriksen and
Jenkins 2007). A whole separate study on
the display of lags deserves to be written
and would reveal the politicization of
ethnicity in Macedonia since the irst
days of independence. The most serious
symbol-related incident in Macedonia
occurred in the summer of 1997 and
was provoked by contested rights and
regulations about the use of national
lags. The mayor of Gostivar, a small town
70 kilometers south-west of Skopje with
a predominantly Albanian population,
refused to obey court orders to take down
the Albanian national lag displayed in
front of the municipality ofices—a lag
which was only oficially allowed to be
hoisted on national holidays. On the 9th
of July, police dispatched special troops
to take down the lag. Thousands of
Albanians came to demonstrate, calling
for the lag to be reinstated. Several
people were killed in the tense shootout
that followed. The Mayor was arrested
and sentenced for inciting hostilities on
the basis of ethnicity and religion. He
later lost his appeal at the European Court
of Human Rights, which reafirmed the
prosecutor’s claims that he had incited
ethnically and racially motivated
violence. Today, having served his
prison term and having briely pursued
an academic career, Rui Osmani again
serves as the Mayor of Gostivar.
The lag incident and its aftermath
have had profound and long-lasting
consequences for the citizens of Gostivar.
When I was doing my research in the
town in late 2000 and in 2001, almost
every person from any ethnic background
I interviewed would inevitably mention
the incident. The great signiicance
attached to the armed confrontation
concerned the numerous arrests, injuries
and acts of police brutality that took
place in the aftermath of the incident.
The lag was not centrally present in
these stories, but the violence sparked
9
Goran Janev
by the fact that the composition of
the population of Skopje is constantly
changing through the inlux of new
arrivals more prone to feeling insecure in
their new setting. While there is growing
correspondence between residential
ethnic segregation and ethno-political
rhetoric, the segregation encountered
in workplaces and in cultural and
educational establishments is potentially
far more of an impediment to social
cohesion. The Macedonian ethnocracy
has turned the logic of minority rights
on its head by creating a parallel society
even less coherent than the pre-modern
pluralist societies that managed multiethnicity through more accommodative
practices (Grillo 1998). The inal and most
dangerous development is territorial
segregation, a direct outcome of the
ethnocracy established in Macedonia.
I shall now turn to another more
recent territorial ethno-symbolic incident,
analyzing it in the light of the current
remaking of Skopje before focusing on
one locality that still resists drives for
ethnic territorial divisions. Both examples
will be used to demonstrate the effects of
ethnocratic spatial reordering and the
reactions and even resistance to these
impositions.
Acknowledging
the
symbolic
dimension, signaling properties and
semiotic content of the built environment
is not novel, yet it remains somehow
understated in social sciences. The
concept of narrative spaces which relies
on this perspective provides immediate
access to the political dimensions of the
built environment (Bender 2002). This
understanding of political meaning
in buildings, aesthetics and even
infrastructure is of particular importance
by it remained a top priority for Gostivar
citizens, both Albanian and Macedonian,
for years afterwards. Those struggles
over symbols in the hands of ethnopoliticians always gain paramount
importance and achieve an atmosphere
of fear and distrust by being constantly
related to security concerns. Social
geography constituted in this way (cf.
Banks 1992), based on spatial practices
additionally deined and determined
by the mapping of ethnic businesses,
residential zones, and religious symbols,
amounts in our case to the creation of
safe and unsafe zones, depending on the
ethnic composition of the neighborhood
or part of the city. Fortunately, residential
ethnic segregation in urban settlements
in Macedonia is only at an early stage,
yet some prevalently Albanian and
Macedonian neighborhoods have gained
the ethnic labeling that marks them as safe
or unsafe depending on demographic
predominance. This ethnic labeling
further perpetuates ethnic segregation
and makes it yet more concrete. The
town of Gostivar is incredibly mixed,
one inds Macedonians living next to
Albanians and next to Turks in almost
every other house—only the Roma live
in relative cohesion, for multiple reasons
related to their exclusion. In general, the
residential segregation in practice is lesser
than the ethno-political propaganda
representations.
In Skopje such labeling practices are
more frequent and areas with a highly
visible Albanian presence are notorious
for drugs procurement and other illegal,
dangerous and maia-related operations.
Those parts of the city with only small
numbers of Albanians are self-proclaimed
as “pure”. This could also be explained
10
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
in contested, divided and conlictridden cities. Narrative space implies a
layer of meaning beyond the physical
presence of the construction material
used for building. It generates stories
and histories, perceptions, intentions,
aspirations, fears and hopes that help us
orient ourselves in the maze of our built
environment. To overlook the political
dimension of symbolically-constructed
space is to severely impoverish our
analysis of related social phenomena.
Before approaching more directly
the case that I offer for analysis on these
grounds, let me clarify my argument about
an implicit political spatial dimension,
especially the nationalist dimension.
As Kuper (1972) and Lawrence and
Low (1990) remind us, the founding
fathers of the social sciences—such as
Durkheim and Mauss, and Morgan—
engaged with social space through the
study of classiicatory practices and
as expressions of native cosmologies.
It is not my point here to criticize or
praise binarism and it should sufice to
say that all these categories and many
others that appear from ethnographic
evidence are intertwined and often
combined but almost always permeated
with power relationships, regulating
and being regulated by intra- and intergroup relations. This leaves us with the
political quality of space as universal
and ubiquitous in every human culture.
Twenty years ago, Gupta and Ferguson
(1992) launched a powerful warning
against this oft-neglected aspect of the
spatial spread of the nation-state in
social sciences. Appadurai (1996) is no
less critical of this practice and offers a
view in which the concept of locality is
seen as a historical product with layers
of accumulated practices that form social
relations which regulate diversity by
accommodation and not by negation.
Therefore locality almost always
contains diversity and stands as a serious
obstacle to nationalistic, territorially
homogenizing efforts. Those authors
who have engaged with territoriality and
nationalism are irm in their belief about
the aims of nationalism to homogenize
the territory of the nation-state (Kaiser
2002). I bring together concerns about
nationalism and territoriality to the
inherently spatiallyoriented ield of urban
studies in order to demonstrate that it will
enrich the analysis of ethno-nationalism.
Amin (2002) tackles the problem of urban
encounters of ethnic and racial groups
that could go either way by focusing on
micro-publics, the local public sphere,
and mixed neighborhoods where daily
negotiation of diversity occurs. The two
examples I offer below demonstrate that
some of his arguments can be applied
generally.
The Kale Incident
In the past few years, archaeologists
have been daily examining the Old
Fortress overlooking the Old Bazaar and
the central part of Skopje. The excavation
and reconstruction of this fortress
is one of many projects proceeding
from the remarkable intensiication of
archaeological research that has taken
place throughout Macedonia over the past
several years. Even some of the defending
walls of the fortress have been rebuilt.
The fortress is now properly illuminated,
more than ever dominating the city
skyline at evening time. This is the site
from which contemporary Skopje began
to develop, over ifteen centuries ago, on
11
Goran Janev
a huge rock which forced the River Vardar
to skirt around it and thus create an ideal
medieval fortiication. The archaeological
excavations at Kale, the Turkish word for
fortress still in popular and oficial use
for this place, are just a fraction of many
other intensive explorations around the
country. The government coalition of
the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary
Organization and the Democratic
Party for Macedonian National Unity
(IMRO-DPMNU) is particularly keen on
excavating historical evidence to prove
and showcase the national continuity of
Macedonia. As archaeological artifacts
require public display, a plan was put
forward to build a museum within the
fortress to house the artifacts excavated
exclusively from that site. (A separate
building to house the main archaeological
museum with national treasures from all
over the country is under construction
on the bank of the River Vardar and is
connected to the central city square by a
new pedestrian bridge.)
The museum inside the fortress is
planned only for those archaeological
indings unearthed at Kale. The building
for this museum happened to be designed
in the shape of a church resembling
a medieval Byzantine basilica. The
museum was to be built where the
foundations of such a construction had
been found. In general, there is nothing
provocative or contradictory in such
an attempt to preserve the cultural
heritage. As we shall see, however, this
scientiically- attired conservation and
reconstruction project was anything but
calmly accepted. It almost provoked
ethnic clashes in a country that barely ten
years ago somehow managed to avoid a
full-scale civil war provoked by ethnic
Albanian militants. The controversial
museum is just one part of a much
greater undertaking that is reordering
the Macedonian capital into a Grand
National Capital, producing territorial
divisions in a city renowned for its
diversity and openness, in a country
that inspired the mixed fruit dessert
called salade macedoine. The essentialist
perspective of local politicians is forced
upon Macedonian citizens by aggressive
and radical interventions in public space.
The story of the museum on Skopje Kale
will help us unpack a set of complex sociospatial or politico-spatial relationships.
It was a few weeks after I had returned
from one of my ieldwork trips in Skopje
to my cozy ofice in Göttingen that I
was stunned by the news of a bloody
incident involving hundreds of young
Macedonians and Albanians at Kale.
During the fortnight of my absence from
the ield, a metal construction for the new
museum had appeared on the horizon.
The metal frames unambiguously
suggested that the new building at
the edge of the old fortress would be
a church, at least in its external form.
Concerned citizens of ethnic Albanian
origin reacted to this imposition of
the cultural symbols of the dominant
ethnic group in the country and alerted
the mayor of the municipality of Chair.
The mayor asked the Cultural Heritage
Ofice to halt the construction. The ruling
coalition government partners—IMRO,
which represents Macedonian citizens
of ethnic Macedonian origin, and the
Democratic Union for Integration (DUI),
which represents ethnic Albanians—
agreed to disagree, but a promise was
given anyway that construction would
be stopped until further notice.
12
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
to get hold of the Macedonian protesters.
They outnumbered the Macedonians and
the police were unable to prevent them
from kicking and beating the cornered
Komiti. Over the following hours and days
the entire media—including Facebook—
grew frantic. Public panic was so strong
that I decided to catch a plane home to
where I conduct my research.
Despite this assurance, the Cultural
Heritage Ofice in charge of the
reconstruction of the Kale fortress
proceeded with the construction of the
church/museum in the evenings after
dark. Concerned citizens discovered
this work and, led by the mayor of
the municipality, marched to the
construction site and chased away the
workers. They arrived with pre-prepared
banners and metal-cutting machines
and began vandalizing the metal frame.
The police arrived in small numbers
and merely observed the protest with
interest. Television cameras were there to
document the event. After this energetic
display of determination, the building
of the church/museum was stopped
for good. This provoked an avalanche
of reactions in the ethnically-polarized
public sphere. Hate-speech abounded
and many Facebook groups were
promptly banned as a result.
One marginal radical right-wing party
(TMORO-VEP) called for the defense
of Macedonian pride and scheduled a
protest on 13 February 2011.2 Its call was
answered by a group of football fans
called the Komiti, named after the rebels
who fought against the Ottoman Empire.
The public meeting was scheduled
for noon on a Saturday. The Albanian
NGO organization Zgjohu! (Wake Up!)
was quick to organize counter-protests.
Many football fans from ethnic Albanian
clubs responded. When the two groups
arrived at the fortress at the same time,
police were there to divide them. First
the Macedonians got in their round of
speeches. As they were climbing down the
slope of the fortress, Albanian youngsters
succeeded in running past the small
number of police oficers and managed
The Skopje Old Bazaar
On the following Saturday riot police
in armored vehicles surrounded Kale
and secured central parts of the city to
prevent any fresh protests. The next
day I met with a friend at the entrance
of the Skopje Old Bazaar just below
Kale. It was the end of February but not
very cold and with copious winter sun
warming the air. It was a Sunday and
many shops in the bazaar were open
and there were a number of visitors. I
observed to my friend that the bazaar
was deinitely coming back to life after
all those years of abandonment from the
mid-1990s onwards. He responded by
telling me how he had come here with
his wife and three-year old daughter
for a midday stroll and some Turkish
tea on the weekend before the incident
at Kale. There had been hundreds of
people thronging the narrow streets of
the bazaar, he said, incomparably more
than at the moment when we were
speaking. He was concerned that the
recently- revived bazaar might lose its
momentum for recovery due to renewed
ethnic tensions. As we were talking we
arrived at my favorite part of the bazaar
and entered a newly-opened coffee shop.
We were the irst customers that morning
and when I wanted to pay with one of
the larger banknotes the owner of the
13
Goran Janev
interviews and in the survey I organized
in the bazaar, I learnt that esnaf evokes
the highest moral qualities of decency,
honesty, trustworthiness, reliability and
integrity. Many would say that it is a
value regretfully dying or even already
extinct. The young owner of that coffee
shop, however, proved that not all hope is
gone. The bazaar itself produces a certain
kind of sociability, open and receptive to
diversity, since its primary values are
entrepreneurial and civil, just as urbanity
was once distinguishable and praised in
its own right. The bazaar is no longer the
central public space of the city—that city
has grow ten or twenty times bigger since
the bazaar last commanded Skopje’s
trends, fashions, moods, and opinion. Yet
the bazaar keeps alive the ideals of proper
civic values and its stories offer many
lessons to contemporary politicians.
Skopje Old Bazaar is one of the
largest bazaars preserved in the Balkans.
The 1970s and 1980s were a golden
age for the bazaar. After the disastrous
earthquake in 1963, Skopje was rebuilt as
a modern city. The Japanese Modernist
architect, Kenzo Tange, won a United
Nations-organized competition for the
new master-plan for Skopje. A large part
of the old bazaar was incorporated in
the new city of concrete buildings and
straight boulevards. The bazaar gained
improved infrastructural amenities and
also acquired some additional functions.
Several of the old Turkish baths were
turned into art galleries, one of the old
inns was turned into a lapidarium and,
behind it, a museum complex was built
to house the Macedonian Museum of
Archaeology, History and Ethnology,
while another old inn was adapted to host
the Academy of Fine Arts. The revitalized
place (apparently Albanian, as I had
been able to overhear in the distance
his phone conversation some minutes
earlier) simply waved his hand as if to
say “it doesn’t matter” because he had
no change. I encouraged him to check
options, to ask a neighboring shop for
change, but he explained that we could
pay some other time. At that point my
friend took charge of the situation and
found the exact amount in his wallet. The
moment we left the coffee shop to continue
our tour on the sunlit cobblestones of the
tiny, winding streets of the bazaar, we
simultaneously commented that there
was still hope for the bazaar.
The bazaar was the central part of the
town under the medieval fortiication
and has witnessed many changes of
fortune—wars,
ires,
earthquakes,
conquests, prosperity and misery. In the
ive centuries under Ottoman rule until
the beginning of the twentieth century,
it certainly gained an oriental lavor.
Regardless of the source of the legacy
to which I want to refer, the bazaar kept
alive the ideal of esnaf. An esnaf was a
guild, an association of craftsmen or
traders, and was a fully-functioning
institution under Ottoman rule which
regulated all economic activities from
production to trade, including the
education and recruitment of new labor
(Janev 1998). Even today, there is an
association of shopkeepers that carries
the generic name of esnaf where once each
larger group of producers used to have a
separate organization. The contemporary
NGO unoficial association is far from
the kind of organization suggested by
the same name, but the choice of this
name is an indicator of the high esteem
in which the ideal of esnaf is held. In my
14
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
was an opportunity for such shopkeepers
to gain cash before retirement if they
had no one to whom they could
pass on their trade. This increasing
presence of Albanians amounted to the
Albanianization of the bazaar in the
popular imagination. This is how the
story of the bazaar can be concluded as
far as it concerns developments during
socialism.
The period since independence saw
one unfortunate incident lead to the
bazaar being sealed off for the next ifteen
years. The Bit Pazar riots of 6 November
1992 were sparked off by an incident
involving two violent police oficers and
a young Albanian seller of smuggled
cigarettes. The boy was pushed, kicked
and inally, after losing consciousness,
carried away in an ambulance. Rumors
spread fast and thousands of Albanians
soon started rioting. They clashed with
the police and gunshots were exchanged,
leaving four people killed, including one
overly-curious old lady who was shot by
a stray bullet while peeking from behind
her curtains. In the following days and
weeks the police patrolled the area heavily
and this police presence marked a border
around the Old Bazaar as an unsafe area
of the city. The threat to security was
seen as coming from the Albanians. The
charshija was still popular, however, and
we continued visiting our favorite bars
since police patrols would let us through
their barriers as soon as they heard that
we were speaking Macedonian. The
police presence was reduced in less
than a month, but the line was deeply
drawn. The new geographies of power,
colored with nationalist sentiments, left
deep scars on the map of Skopje. The
co-incidental change of consumption
bazaar saw incremental progress and
prosperity. The collapse of Yugoslavia
and the wars in the north in the early
1990s destroyed the market for many
products from the bazaar. The full-blown
transition to private property resulted
in a mushrooming of shopping malls in
Skopje and availability of vast amounts
of imported goods, both luxurious and
cheap. The bazaar was simply unable
to restructure itself under the pressure
of transition. But this political-economic
explanation of the misfortunes of the old
bazaar from the 1990s to the present is
incomplete: it was practically through
the Albanianization of the bazaar that
ethno-politics entered the main political
stage in Macedonia, even in socialist
Yugoslavia.
Radical
demographic
changes
followed the growth of post-earthquake
Skopje. The number of citizens doubled
every ifteen years. The socialist ideal
celebrated the happiness of industrial
workers and the newly installed
industries in Skopje needed a labor force.
Not all of the workers who moved to
Skopje were of ethnic Macedonian origin.
Ethnic stratiication in Macedonia was
already taking shape in this period and
Albanians were often sidelined when
it came to employment or promotion.
The bazaar was loosely connected to the
socialist state that had begun to tolerate
private economic initiative, after an initial
period of collectivization and prohibition
of capitalist modes of production. By the
early 1970s, the lourishing businesses
of the charshija offered opportunities for
self-employment. Growing numbers of
Albanians at that time would offer large
amounts of cash to buy up the shops of
elderly shopkeepers and craftsmen. This
15
Goran Janev
act and its structural determinations
that deines resistance (as has been the
case so far), but the meanings that social
action takes on in the practice of everyday
life.” (Pile 1997, 14). With spatial practices,
by creating only ephemeral trail, not even
a trace, transgression is occurring across
ethnically-prescribed spaces. The spatial
practices of Skopje citizens, through
movement, transform these ethnic spaces
into spaces of mixture and diversity.
We can argue that what has occurred
amounts to a transgression of ethnic
boundaries, a breaking of ethnic barriers
that happens simply through the act of
sitting next to one another. The mingling
of ethnic bodies in a shared space is
evidence of a possibility contrary to the
claims of ethno-politicians who disregard
ethnic others in their urban plans and
commemorative sites. The trajectories
that cut through the boundaries of ethnic
territories refute ethnic segregation by
showing the impossibility of achieving
such clear-cut borders in an ethnicallymixed city.
The cosmopolitanism of those new
bars owners is palpable. As is the
cosmopolitanism of many shopkeepers
I have met in recent years who further
attest that new and traditional values
which accept and accommodate diversity
can achieve synergy in this locality. Such
is the Turkish silversmith who is also a
trained Islamic scholar, the Albanian
owner of an antique shop who was
trained as an electrical engineer, and the
Macedonian owner of a souvenir shop
who is trained as an ethnologist. These
and many others have come to the bazaar
driven by the desire to make a living; but
they are also aware that the bazaar has a
history, different from the history which
patterns that arrived with the transition
and the securitization of the perceived
Albanianized space contributed towards
the demise of the bazaar for a long
period.
It took almost two decades for the
charshija to come back to life and once
again bustle with young people. This
revival started in 2008 with the opening
of a wine bar and a small alternative club
close by. The two friends who own the
alternative club illustrate the diversity
that ethno-politics seeks to negate: one is
a woman of Greek ethnic origin, the other
woman is Albanian. In the following
summer, the Macedonian owner of the
wine bar, a busker who had spent his
youth travelling throughout Europe,
opened a beer garden above the wine bar
and a ish restaurant further down in the
bazaar. His businesses are lourishing.
Next to his wine bar, a rakija bar has
opened offering a variety of traditional
Macedonian liquors (rakija is a traditional
spirit). Next to these bars is a Turkishowned tea house and around the corner
is an Albanian-owned bar. The timing of
this revival of the bazaar is curious. The
rediscovery of the bazaar could have
happened at any time between 1992
and 1997, or in 2001, 2005, 2006, 2007, or
any other year. This poses the question
of why the charshija is popular again
right now? I argue that the movement of
people across the old Stone Bridge from
the city square to the Skopje Old Bazaar
is an act of protest created and expressed
by spatial practice. Pile invites us to think
beyond the dichotomies of dominance
and resistance, spatial technologies of
governance and open acts of resistance,
structural power relations and articulated
political identities: “it is not so much the
16
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
the dominant political discourse would
like us to accept. In spite of the current
dominance of Albanian shopkeepers in
the bazaar, the charshija remains, and
perhaps always will remain, a locality
in which diversity is treated as an asset.
The numerous stories I heard from the
shopkeepers in the bazaar during my
research testiies to their resilience to
divisive ethno-politics. The majority
of those I interviewed showed a high
awareness of the political manipulations
that endanger inter-ethnic relations in
the country, while clearly positioning
themselves as Macedonians or Albanians.
The shopkeepers were even telling me
about their regular quarrels about ethnopolitics that affect, but do not destroy,
their neighborly or friendly relationships.
This situation resembles the agonistic
political culture model emerging in
places of regular contact described by
Amin:
could count in any situation. As part of
the survey, I asked shopkeepers to name
and rank their ive best friends and later
to attach ethnicity to them. Almost the
entire sample responded by refusing to
undertake such an exercise: they claimed
there were no such divisions, despite the
reality that there are. A similar answer
was given to my question about the ethnic
composition of their customers. This
ideological position, even if only wishful
thinking, demonstrates that socialization
in the bazaar entails inclusivity, not
exclusivity.
Almost everyone I interviewed
invoked esnaluk, the quality of being a
proper member of esnaf as it used to be
and as it is remembered. Esnaluk is a
moral standard which socialization holds
in high esteem and which overcomes
other markers of social differentiation.
I realized that elder shopkeepers took a
certain pride in pointing out that they
had spent their entire lives in the bazaar.
They see themselves as belonging to a
rare and endangered group but they
also carry with pride their lifelong
membership of the otherwise undeined
charshija community, a community
characterized by esnaluk, a community
of hardworking, trustworthy, skilled and
honest shopkeepers. Many responses
to the survey evoked esnaluk as a rich
word, pregnant with obligations and
moral imperatives. Those imperatives
do not overlook ethnic and religious
differentiations, but respect them.
Sustaining or renewing those values
is not so simple under the pressures of
an ethnocratic regime, but the sudden
popularity of the bazaar holds the
promise of an opportunity as it emerges
as a site offering an alternative model for
What goes on in them are not
achievements
of
community
or consensus, but openings for
contact and dialogue with others
as equals, so that mutual fear
and misunderstanding may be
overcome and so that new attitudes
and identities can arise from
engagement. If common values,
trust, or a shared sense of place
emerge, they do so as accidents of
engagement, not from an ethos of
community (Amin 2002, 972).
Even if they keep their ethnic identities
entrenched, all the shopkeepers I
interviewed would say that their
immediate neighbors, one or two at least,
were their best friends on whom they
17
Goran Janev
continuity. In doing so, they follow a
long tradition of using archaeology for
nationalist purposes, and sometimes
the excavations have resulted in
violent clashes (Pullan 2011, 8).
negotiating diversity.
Conclusion
Ethnicity in Macedonia has been
politicized and this affects everyday
practices; a closer look at such practices,
however, reveals a resilient resistance to
ethno-politics. One level of resistance
consists of a shared memory of more
harmonious inter-ethnic relations. Here
the bazaar plays a particular role as
a locality that attests to those times.
Secondly, esnaf is a key concept that
contains a whole moral universe dictating
mutual respect and disregard for ethnic
or religious differences as deining
characteristics of the shopkeepers in the
charshija. Thirdly, the fact that the revival
of interest in the bazaar has taken place
precisely after the greatest effort to remake
public space in the city according to the
logic of ethno-politics can also be taken
as an indicator of resistance contained in
the trajectories of movement—of revolt
expressed in spatial practices.
The Kale Incident reminded Skopje
citizens that political manipulation
of national sentiments can be quite
dangerous. The use of archaeology
for political purposes exaggerates the
identity-related struggles and is not only
a temporal extension of the nation, from
the perspective of myths of continuity,
but also supports the territorial claims
of the nation-state. Therefore, that
archaeological battle can be expected,
if we read Pullan’s analysis of similar
processes in Jerusalem:
Pullan can be quoted word for word to
explain the situation in Skopje “where
many groups and individuals wish
to impose their national and religious
identities upon the city” Pullan 2011,
**). In its eventful history, Skopje has
attracted quite a few contenders. Those
presently sharing the central government
and controlling adjacent municipalities at
local government level, guided by their
ethno-political essentialist view, pose the
greatest threat to the ethnic balance in
Skopje.
In this article I argue that acts of
resistance can be of an ephemeral
nature simple acts of crossing envisaged
symbolical borders. The revolt against
divisive policies and the awareness
of the dangerous ethnocratic order is
best expressed in the action of Skopje’s
most prominent lash activist group, the
“Singing Skopjians”. Only a few days after
the incident at Kale, this group gathered
to sing a song in both Macedonian and
Albanian just outside the police-secured
zone below the fortress. The song was
titled “Injustice”, which had been written
by a legendary Macedonian rock band
active in the 1980s which was composed
of Macedonians and led by an Albanian.
This song was an honest reaction to
growing consumerism and emerging
social stratiication in socialist times and
was very popular at the time. The bilingual
cover version of the Singing Skopjians,
who are themselves composed of many
ethnicities, highlighted the absurdity of
ethno-politics. There are other forms of
Archeology is a favoured vehicle for
attempting to legitimate the settlers’
presence in the Old City, primarily in
order to enhance their claim to biblical
18
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
Macedonian ethnic politicians. The bazaar
is a reminder of alternative possibilities.
The revisiting of the bazaar by Skopje
citizens demonstrates a desire and a will
to overcome ethnic divisions that demand
naïve acceptance of ethnic stereotypes
and prejudices. The resistance that stems
from the sheer fact of residential and
otherwise expressed spatial mixing, as
seen in the distribution of shopkeepers
along the streets of the Old Bazaar,
the resistance that this mix inspires as
seen in the renewed popularity of such
spaces, and the resistance expressed
in the transgression of those ethnic
lines and contained in the trajectories
of Skopje citizens that transgress the
invented ethnic boundaries, amounts
to the creation of alternative narrative
spaces totally opposite to those imposed
narrative spaces of the ethnocratic spatial
order.
activism and protest that react against
the “Skopje 2014”, like the “First
Archibrigade” and “Freedom Square”,
but here I am interested in those verbally
and discursively unarticulated spatial
practices. Less overt acts of resistance
are manifested by the mere presence
of all ethnicities in the “dangerous”
border-zone, thus transforming it into a
zone of contact and habitual encounter.
This, in itself, is not a guarantee of longlasting transformative effects against
the divisive intentions of those in power
to carve out ethnic territories within
Macedonia and within Macedonian
cities. It deserves our analytical attention,
however, as it serves to correct the picture
of irreconcilable ethnic divisions. The
dominant imposition of ethnic narratives
in the built environment is met by spatial
practices that undo such divisions.
Those government-led archaeological
and architectural interventions in the
public space of this remarkably diverse
city are used to mark ethnic territories
by way of unearthing material evidence
and constructing symbolically-laden
buildings. Bell (2003) deines this as a
production of “mythscape”, but this
materialization of myth-scaping affects
not only imaginary but everyday life
with its imposed spatial order that, in
turn, has its own logic and dynamic. The
mutual interdependencies and habitual
encounters (Amin 2002, 969) that happen
in the Skopje Old Bazaar, however, make
it a typical place that contains diverse
micro-publics and provides bases for
daily negotiation of diversity. Those
traditionally-established practices based
on mutual respect are under constant
pressure from the ethno-nationalistically
driven
pragmatic
populism
of
Notes
1 This article is based on the indings of
research funded by the Max Planck Institute
for the Study of Religious and Ethnic
Diversity, Göttingen, Germany.
2 Tatkovinska Makedonska Organizacija
za Radikalna Obnova―Vardar Egej Pirin
approximates in English to “Fatherland
Macedonian
Organization
for
Radical
Reconstruction-Vardar Aegean Pirin” (which
refers to the three parts of Macedonia: Vardar,
the current Republic of Macedonia; the Pirin part
in Bulgaria; and Aegean Macedonia in Greece).
This was, allegedly, the solution to the notorious
Macedonian Question of the political destiny of
19
Goran Janev
Converse, Daniele, Ed. 2002.
Ethnonationalism in the
Contemporary World: Walker
Connor and the Study of
Nationalism. London: Routledge.
Eade, John, and Christopher Mele, Eds.
2002. Understanding the City:
Contemporary and Future
Perspectives. Oxford: Blackwell.
Eriksen, T. H. and Richard Jenkins, Eds.
2007. Flag, Nation and Symbolism
in Europe and America. London:
Routledge.
Fenster, Tovi, and Haim Yacobi, Eds. 2010.
Remembering, Forgetting and City
Builders. Surrey: Ashgate.
Fincher, Ruth, Jane M. Jacobs and Kay
Anderson. 2002. Rescripting Cities
with Difference. In Understanding
the City: Contemporary and Future
Perspectives. Eds. John Eade and
Christopher Mele, 27–48. Oxford:
Blackwell.
Finnegan, Ruth. 1998. Tales of the City: A
Study of Narrative and Urban Life.
Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The Consequences
of Modernity. Stanford: Stanford
University Press.
Grillo, Ralph D. 1998. Pluralism and the
Politics of Difference: State, Culture
and Ethnicity in Comparative
Perspective. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Gupta, Akhil, and James Ferguson.
1992. “Beyond Culture”: Space,
Identity, and the Politics of
Difference. Cultural Anthropology
no 7(1): 6–23.
Harrison, Simon. 1995. Four Types of
Symbolic Conlict. The Journal of
the Royal Anthropological Institute
no 1(2): 255–272.
the geographical territory known as Macedonia.
The partition that disregarded the Macedonian
national aspirations happened in 1913 after the
Second Balkan War. Seeking historical justice
after a century of otherwise deined political
reality amounts to irredentist claims made in the
21st century.
Works Cited
Appadurai, Arjun. 1996. Modernity at
Large: Cultural Dimensions
of Globalization. Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press.
Amin, Ash. 2002. Ethnicity and the
Multicultural City: Living with
Diversity. Environment and
Planning no 34: 959–980.
Banks, Marcus. 1992. Organizing Jainism
in India and England. Clarendon
Press: Oxford.
Bell, Duncan S. A. 2003. Mythscapes:
Memory, Mythology, and National
Identity. British Journal of
Sociology no 54(1): 63–81.
Bender, Barbara. 2002. Landscape and
Politics—Introduction: A “Western”
Point of View. In The Material
Culture Reader. Ed. Victor Buchli,
135–140. New York: Berg.
Brenner, Neil, Bob Jessop, Martin Jones and
Gordon Macleod, Eds. 2003. State/
Space: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell
Publishing.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a Theory
of Practice. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Buchli, Victor, Ed. 2002. The Material
Culture Reader. New York: Berg.
20
Narrating the Nation, Narrating the City
Janev, Jovan. Sociological Aspects of the
Esnaf Organization in Macedonia
during the Ottoman Rule.
PhD diss., University of Sts
Cyril and Methodius, Skopje,
Macedonia, 1998.
Kaiser, Robert J. 2002. Homeland
Making and the Territorialization
of National Identity. In
Ethnonationalism in the
Contemporary World: Walker
Connor and the Study of
Nationalism. Ed. Daniele Converse,
229–247. London: Routledge.
Yiftachel, Oren. 2006. Ethnocracy:
Land and Identity Politics in
Israel/Palestine. Philadelphia:
Pennsylvania University Press.
Kuper, Hilda. 1972. The Language of Sites
in the Politics of Space. American
Anthropologist no 74: 411–425.
Lawrence, Denise L., and Setha M. Low.
1990. The Built Environment and
Spatial Form. Annual Review of
Anthropology no 19: 453–505.
Low, Setha. 2009. Towards Anthropological
Theory of Space and Place.
Semiotica no 175(1/4): 21–37.
Pile, Steve. 2005. Real Cities: Modernity,
Space and the Phantasmagorias of
City Life. London: Sage.
Pile, Steve, and Michael Keith, Eds. 1997.
Geographies of Resistance. London:
Routledge.
Pullan, Wendy. 2011. Frontier Urbanism:
The Periphery at the Centre
of Contested Cities. Journal of
Architecture no 16(2): 15-35.
Trubina, Elena. 2010. The Reconstructed
City as Rhetorical Space:
The Case of Volgograd. In
Remembering, Forgetting and City
Builders. Eds Tovi Fenster and
Haim Yacobi, 107–120. Surrey:
Ashgate.
Ward, Graham, Ed. 2000. The Certeau
Reader. Oxford: Blackwell.
21
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
One Area,
Several Cultural Spaces:
Comparative Analysis of
Stories as the Basis of Local
Identity1
I
Tiiu Jaago
University of Tartu,
Estonia
Abstract
The article examines how different ethnic and
cultural groups living in the same multicultural
micro-environment (a small town) establish the
boundaries for the group with which they identify.
The article is based on texts that describe local life
(personal interviews, life stories, memoirs, local
historical research by amateur historians, etc.).
We will be looking at the small industrial town
of Kohtla-Järve, located in north-eastern Estonia,
which became a multicultural environment during
the period when Estonia was a part of the Soviet
Union (1940–41 and 1944–1991). The regime
changes during the 1940s and in 1991 caused the
mutual relations between the various communities
to become politicised. In order to avoid addressing
the political aspects, the research focus in this
article is not on communities (e.g. the Estonianspeaking and Russian-speaking communities
in Estonian society), but rather on small groups
(e.g. the activity groups and cultural societies that
uphold and create ethnic and cultural boundaries).
From this perspective, Kohtla-Järve can be viewed
as a network of intellectual and practical spheres
of life that contains junctions for afirming one’s
‘own’ cultural identity as well as intersections
where a group can ind common ground with
groups that constitute the ‘other’.
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 23-43
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
23
t is 14 June 2010. I have just arrived
in Kohtla-Järve from Tartu, and I
want to get from the town centre to
nearby Vanaküla in order to take part in
the meeting organised by local amateur
historians. I have never taken this road
before and I ask the bus driver to tell me
when the bus gets there. I am speaking
Estonian; the bus driver is Russian and
does not understand me completely. We
are also using different words to describe
where Vanaküla is located. As a researcher
who specialises in cultural studies, I try
to remain alert and pay attention to what
language we are speaking, but at some
point I notice that I have unconsciously
started using Russian. The bus driver
has also begun to understand me: “Aaaa, staraya derevnya” (“old village,” the
literal translation of “Vanaküla” in
Russian). There is no cultural conlict
in our conversation. We both want
to understand each other and make
ourselves understood. It is a situation that
is strange to me but common in KohtlaJärve—a meeting on the border of two
local cultures.
The focus of this article is on the
degree to which different cultural spaces
are experienced in the multicultural
town. I also examine the places that
are perceived as common areas by the
different communities (ethnic groups) and
where they prefer to function separately.
I have been intermittently monitoring
the interaction of cultures in KohtlaJärve since 1991. My research is based
on surveys and interviews conducted
during ieldwork, the written memoirs
and autobiographies of local residents,
and research done by amateur historians.
Tiiu Jaago
Kohtla-Järve as a culturally diverse
town
Kohtla-Järve is a mining and industrial
town with a population of 44,000 and is
situated on the southern shore of the Gulf
of Finland. It takes about one hour by bus
to travel from Kohtla-Järve to Russia’s
western border. Kohtla-Järve became a
multicultural environment after World
War II when Estonia was annexed by
the Soviet Union. Although there were
people of 30 ethnicities living in the
town according to the 1989 census, the
two largest ethnic groups are Estonians
(23.1%) and Russians (63%) (Valge 2006,
59-60).
The Soviet-era migration brought
about a signiicant change in the ethnic
balance compared to the pre-war situation
(the status quo during Estonia’s period
of national independence).2 Before World
War II, ethnic minorities constituted 10%
of Estonia’s population; this number
had increased to 25.4% by 1959 and to
38.55% by 1999 (Veidemann 1999, 143).
The collapse of the Soviet Union and the
restoration of Estonia’s independence in
1991 caused another shift in the balance
of mutual relations between the ethnic
groups. The political preferences of the
Soviet era were dominated by the ideology
of a state of workers and peasants, which
classiied the population primarily on the
basis of social categories. After Estonia’s
independence was restored, however,
there occurred a re-emergence of values
related to heritage, language, and culture,
which were based on the ideology of the
pre-war nation state. The contradictions
between the two political orientations,
namely, the efforts related to the
restoration of Estonia’s independence as
opposed to emphasising the importance
As a researcher, the primary aim I pursue
is to observe and interpret: although
I proceed from texts pertaining to local
life, which have been created for a variety
of purposes, I analyse them according to
my own research objectives.
In the next section, I will provide
an overview of the area in question—
Kohtla-Järve. I will thereafter introduce
the points of departure for the article,
namely, its source material and theoretical
framework. In the main part of the article,
I will present a comparative analysis
of the texts by people of Kohtla-Järve
based on the aspect of cultural diversity.
Cultural diversity can be analysed both
at the level of the community (e.g., the
Estonian-speaking and Russian-speaking
communities in Estonia) and the level of
the individual (e.g., the cultural identity
of a member of a mixed family). In this
article, I look at the manifestation of
cultural diversity at the level of small
groups: local hobby groups, the staff and
students of a school, and miners working
in the area. Hobby group activities,
school life and the workplace provide
representatives of different cultural
groups with the opportunity for more
in-depth, long-term and varied contact
than, for example, random or supericial
encounters in such meeting places as
the street, public transport or apartment
buildings. However, it is probable that
the ethnic and cultural boundaries are
expressed with different intensity in the
aforementioned spheres of activity. For
instance, a hobby group focusing on
speciic cultural features is more likely
to create boundaries, while ethnic and
cultural boundaries may never become
an issue if one works in a mine.
24
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
Kohtla-Järve
is
an
interesting
environment since the previously
discussed
problems
characteristic
of Estonia in general emerge here in
a concentrated manner. Despite the
prevalence of the Russian-speaking
community, the town has cultural strata
that date back to the time before the Soviet
era, as well as those that developed within
the Soviet system. This is to say that
Kohtla-Järve embodies a combination of
two contradictory ideologies. On the one
hand, the town was established in 1946
by the Soviet regime as a socialist city (cf.
Valge 2006, 3-7; Löw, Steets and Stoetzer
2008, 102). At irst glance, the centre of
Kohtla-Järve does indeed appear to be a
Soviet town rather than an Estonian one:
instead of consisting of small buildings
surrounding a central market square and
family dwellings with small gardens,
Kohtla-Järve has streets that are straight as
an arrow, lined with Stalin-era buildings
planned by architects from Leningrad
(Valge 2006, 42). This difference in the
milieu is also felt by the people who live in
Estonia. I will provide an example taken
from a life story stored in the Estonian
Literary Museum (EKLA 350v, 16). In
the story a Russian woman who came
to Estonia from Leningrad after World
War II compares her irst impressions
of Kohtla-Järve and the neighbouring
town of Rakvere. When she came to
Rakvere looking for a job and a place to
live she found it to be a small, beautiful
and clean Estonian town which was,
however, completely alien to her. On her
way back to Russia she came to KohtlaJärve, which reminded her of home and
turned out to be the town that accepted
her. On the other hand, the Soviet town
of Kohtla-Järve was built on the sites of
of the unity of the Soviet Union, became
topical for journalists in (Soviet) Estonia
at the end of the 1980s (see, e.g., Brady
and Kaplan 2009, 52) and have retained
their importance in contemporary
politics (ELK 2008, 4-5; Vetik 2008, 4). In
principle, the conlict described above
(Estonian versus Soviet identity) also
exists in present-day Estonian society
and is expressed in private relections
on the Soviet era as well as in the data
gathered through sociological surveys
(Vihalemm and Masso 2007).3 In general,
it appears that at the level of group
identity Estonia’s ethnic groups are
divided into two relatively independent
communities that have comparatively
little contact with each other (cf. Brady
and Kaplan 2009, 65). The primary
marker for differentiating between
the communities is language use: one
consists of Estonian-speakers and the
other of Russian-speakers. However, in
addition to people’s native language, we
also have to take into consideration the
importance of their medium of education
(whether they attended a school where
the language of instruction was Estonian
or Russian). A more in-depth observation
reveals the importance of different
identity-shaping experiences (we have
to note that the boundaries of language
use and experiences might not overlap).
We can generally distinguish between
two communities: the representatives
of the local way of life, and minority
groups characterised by their migration
experience. This experience determines
a community’s place identity which, in
turn, inluences how that community
interprets the past and present events
occurring in society (cf. Brady and Kaplan
2009, 33).
25
Tiiu Jaago
research in social psychology regarding
the combined effect of variable and
invariable factors on the sense of self
continuity (Hamilton, Levine and
Thurston 2008, 120-123). However,
coming back to the subject of Kohtla-Järve
as a socialist town, we can assume that
the urban space was not differentiated
according to ethnicity or, for example,
where the people came from (native
inhabitants as opposed to immigrants)
because the Soviet Union worked
towards achieving social homogeneity
(workers, public oficials). Residents
could apply for apartments based on
their place of employment rather than in
accordance with the principles of a free
market economy. In spite of this, a closer
inspection of the urban environment
reveals that Estonians and immigrants
who arrived in Estonia during the Soviet
time tended to live in different parts of
the town. For instance, human geography
expert Janek Valge demonstrates in his
research on the distribution of dwellings
in Kohtla-Järve that the percentage of
Estonians is higher in those parts of
the town where the houses were built
before the Soviet era. The principle of
equality characteristic of socialist cities
is, however, evident in the context of
employment: in 1989 approximately 40%
of the population of Kohtla-Järve was
involved in the production of oil shale
and related industries and the living
conditions of this group were similar,
regardless of heritage and ethnicity
(Valge 2006, 91-92).
In general, regions in Estonia tend
to be mainly inhabited by the Estonianspeaking community or the Russianspeaking community. Russian-speaking
communities dominate places like the
former villages and mining settlements
and, as a result, each part of the town
has its own history dating back to the
time before the establishment of KohtlaJärve. The town is comprised of districts
that are located at a distance from each
other and commonly use place-names
pre-dating the establishment of KohtlaJärve (this practice was also common
during the Soviet era). The local identity
of the Estonians living in Kohtla-Järve is
based on their appreciation of the history
of the place they call home. They use
historical information to emphasise the
centuries-long continuity of the place.4
Interruptions in the continuity, namely,
drastic changes in the local environment
(its transformation from an agricultural
environment into an industrial centre
and the loss of national independence
during the Soviet era), are tied together
with a method where the ixed points
that represent different time periods are
juxtaposed at the time of speaking. This
results in a narrative where the place is
permanent (everything has been and still is
here) while times change (there was that
and then there was this…):
Open oil shale mines or quarries were
built on these lands. In 1927, they
went underground again in the open
quarry on our and Suuban’s ields.
Now [1991], the bus stop next to the
old town department store stands in
the same spot and the pieces of the
Kohtla-Järve War of Independence
memorial destroyed in 1945 are also
buried there 5 (Mägin 1991).
The fact that the sense of continuity of the
“us-group” is based, among other things,
on the preservation of names (as is in the
case of Kohtla-Järve) is conirmed by
26
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
town of Sillamäe, created during the Soviet
period, Narva, on the border of Estonia
and Russia, and Lasnamäe, a city district
in Tallinn. Due to the high percentage of
Russian-speakers, Kohtla-Järve and the
surrounding county are also considered
to be dominated by the Russian-speaking
community. Therefore, it was natural
for my colleague to be surprised by the
fact that I conducted folklore-related
ieldwork in Kohtla-Järve. “What would
a folklorist do in Kohtla-Järve? It is an
entirely urban environment inhabited
only by Russians,” he said. I have also
encountered the attitude that KohtlaJärve is a place lost to Estonian culture on
a broader scale. However, when we adopt
a closer perspective instead of looking at
the big picture (thereby moving from the
level of the community to the level of an
actual functioning group), the variety
of cultures and ethnic groups becomes
apparent. This allows us to step beyond
studying separate cultural groups in the
speciic context of time and space and
also explore the mutual connections
between these groups, especially their
power relations. For example, tolerance
towards ‘the other’ also makes it
necessary to determine the boundaries of
one’s “own” culture in more detail.
the folkloristic standpoint by Elo-Hanna
Seljamaa who is focused on observing
the everyday culture of Lasnamäe, one
of Tallinn’s districts. She has discussed
at length the controversial role of the
contemporary (folk) calendar in Estonian
society. She deliberately overlooks the
discrepancies between Lutheran and
Russian Orthodox holidays (Estonia is
traditionally a Lutheran country) and
discusses the celebration of International
Women’s Day, which was introduced
during the Soviet era, as an example of
a holiday that transcends the boundaries
of communities and has adapted to life
in present-day Estonia. On the other
hand, the celebration of 9 May as a
‘Soviet Victory Day’ has proved to be
an event that splits Estonian society in
two (Seljamaa 2010). In my research
I have used life stories as the bases for
analysing migration experiences and
the resulting changes in identity after
the collapse of the Soviet Union and the
establishment of new national borders,
and for conducting a closer examination
of the experience of cultural boundaries
based on the example of a mixed family
(Jaago 2011a; 2011b; 2012)6.
In my research on Kohtla-Järve I rely
on the observation that Kohtla-Järve
does not exhibit the characteristics of
a culturally mixed area that could be
seen as intercultural (cf. Schmeling
2000, 349). Instead, I see groups that
can be deined in terms of their culture
and which sporadically communicate
with each other, whilst establishing
deinite boundaries between each other.
(I would like to emphasise that I do not
see the situation described above as a
constant state but rather as a process
where each group has to adapt to
Framework of the discussion: approach,
objective and sources
The study of cultural diversity from
the folkloristic standpoint is not very
prominent in Estonia, despite the fact
that folkloristics tends to compare
cultures and that cultural diversity
has been a topical issue in Europe and
Estonia since the end of the Cold War. To
date, the aspects of cultural diversity in
Estonian society have been studied from
27
Tiiu Jaago
research conducted by amateur historians
and school almanacs comprising
students’ creative works and teachers’
memoirs (Toomsalu 2008; Kiristaja 2010;
Võrsed 2004), represent the views of the
Estonian community. The articles were
published in the local Estonian-language
newspaper Põhjarannik (“The Northern
Coast”) which, in 2009, published
30 issues containing texts about the
representatives of various ethnic groups
living in Ida-Viru County and KohtlaJärve (with the exception of Estonians).
The articles were published in the Meie
inimesed (“Our people”) section and they
contain interviews that offer information
on the activities of ethnic societies,
descriptions of events organised by
ethnic communities and so forth. The
texts provide an insight into the attitudes
of local ethnic groups towards cultural
diversity in Estonia. However, since the
section was funded by the European
Fund for the Integration of Third Country
Nationals, the Ofice of the Minister for
Population and Ethnic Affairs, and the
Integration and Migration Foundation,
the articles tend to emphasise the goals
of Estonia’s integration policy (this is
made evident by the choice of topics,
the connections between the topics
and national integration programmes,
and discussions on the successes and
criticisms of the policy). The third
category of sources is life histories, which
are stored in the life histories collection of
the Estonian Cultural History Archives
(EKLA f 350). This life histories collection
is located in Tartu and contains more than
2,500 stories recorded from 1989 to the
present time. These stories include nearly
one hundred autobiographical narratives
in Russian, so the collection can be used to
historical and political as well as social
and individual/generational changes.)
Hence, one can see certain dynamics in
the communication between different
cultures: on the one hand there is an
orientation to “own” culture which, on
the other hand, simultaneously shows a
certain portion of “open” communication
to “others”. Such examples can be found
in migration studies elsewhere. For
example, describing the institutions
established by immigrants in Haifa,
Larisa Fialkova and Maria Yelenevskaya
conclude: “We do not believe that these
institutions contribute to the social
isolation of Russian-speaking Israelis
because they welcome members of other
ethnic groups and accommodate the
needs of the wider public” ( Fialkova and
Yelenevskaya 2011, 159). For the purposes
of the present study, I chose to observe
three spheres of activity: hobby groups,
school life and the workplace. I assume
that hobby groups represent a sphere of
activity where both ethnic and cultural
boundaries are clearly determined and
the inclusion of members of the “other”
community cannot be taken for granted.
The workplace (the mine in the case of
this discussion), meanwhile, is a sphere
of activity where ethnic and cultural
boundaries are least clearly deined.
Bilingual schools as institutions that
are oficially intended to bring together
different communities allow us to gain
a better understanding of the speciic
needs for boundaries between spheres
of activity in the context of an integrated
institution.
My analysis is based on texts published
by local publishers, journalistic interviews
and articles, and manuscripts of life
histories. Local publications, such as the
28
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
represent the boundaries between
different cultural groups (if we consider
them from the standpoint of the sphere
of activity itself) as well as the common
ground they share (if we look at the
products of the sphere of activity from
the perspective of the general public). It
is important to emphasise, however, that
the boundaries are not absolute from
the standpoint of the individual either:
the same person may belong to a group
characterised by cultural limits in one
sphere of activity, while the importance
of cultural boundaries is overshadowed
by limits related to professionalisation
or the career ladder in another sphere of
activity.
simultaneously examine the experiences
of both the Estonian-speaking and
Russian-speaking communities.
In the context of cultural diversity,
I primarily look at Kohtla-Järve
as a social and cultural space or a
product of social action (Löw 2008). My
approach towards cultural contacts and
boundaries is inspired by the concept
of the semiosphere, created by cultural
semiotician Juri Lotman, which makes it
possible to look at the boundary between
the “self” and the “other” not only as a
line that separates cultures, but also as
space where meanings are created as
a result of a dialogue with the “other”
(Lotman 2005, initially published in
Russian in 1984). What is more, the
semiosphere simultaneously allows us to
observe the process of meaning creation
from the synchronic and the diachronic
perspective. This is important for the
purpose of understanding the reasons
behind the current positions held by
the communities, which are usually
connected to past experiences. This
aspect is discussed in Estonia’s National
Integration Programme as the historical
dimension of integration (ELK 2008),
which I referred to at the beginning
of the article. The application of the
theories formulated by Martina Löw and
Juri Lotman does not presuppose the
existence of clear and visible boundaries,
such as unambiguous ethnic and cultural
boundaries. The boundaries of the space
they describe are open and lexible and
several of them can coexist in the same
place. Furthermore, the boundaries shift
over time according to the development
of the mutual relations between the
communities but never disappear.
The following three examples
Example 1: hobby groups
Estonia’s national integration policy
supports the operation of cultural
societies by ethnic minorities. In 2007
there were 153 “cultural societies and
other organisations that received support
from the state and were operated by nonEstonian speakers” (ELK 2008, 29). This
integration policy has been criticised by
folklorist Elo-Hanna Seljamaa (2010). In
her opinion, the policy restricts cultural
self-expression by conining it exclusively
to the private sphere. This criticism is, in
part, based on a differing understanding
of the concept of culture. In the integration
programme, “culture” is related to
“the preservation of one’s culture and
language,” which largely falls within the
purview of cultural societies. For EloHanna Seljamaa, the concept of culture
also includes aspects related to everyday
life. In this sense, “culture” does not
mean engaging in cultural activities in
addition to living one’s daily life—it is a
natural part of life that is connected to all
29
Tiiu Jaago
subject based on the articles published
in 2009 in the Põhjarannik in the section
titled Meie inimesed and an overview of
the 20 years’ of activity of the Kohtla
Historical Society (Toomsalu 2008). I
would like to state in advance that the
activities of cultural societies and hobby
groups can be interpreted according
to Lotman’s deinition of the cultural
boundary: it is important to understand
that, although cultural boundaries are
important in this ield, the activities also
provide an opportunity for the deinition
of the relationships between “self” and
“other”. This is evident; for example,
when we look at the fact that formulating
a more thorough deinition of one’s
“self” becomes increasingly important in
a culturally diverse environment as well
as in the vicinity of cultural boundaries.
Therefore, from the perspective of a
researcher, cultural boundaries are
dialogical in nature, although we cannot
ind evidence of dialogue per se in the
texts in question. Despite the fact that
there is no direct dialogue with the
“other,” the entities do deine their
position and characteristic traits in their
environment in a remarkably obvious
manner. The deinition of “self” is based
on differentiating oneself from the
“other”. Therefore, descriptions of one’s
“self” also provide the outline of the
“other” by default.
The articles published in the section
Meie inimesed describe the activities of
the representatives of various ethnic and
cultural communities in Kohtla-Järve
and its surroundings. The questions of
the journalists are generally focused
on the issues of language, the activities
undertaken by societies, and school
education. To a lesser degree, the articles
of the spheres of activity of an individual.
This aspect of the criticism is acceptable,
although the issue here is clearly the
difference in the interpretation of the
concept of culture due to the different
functions of the approaches, seeing as
one is related to cultural research and the
other to the shaping of integration policy.
The second part of Seljamaa’s criticism is
problematic, according to my research.
Seljamaa claims that a culturally diverse
society should strive to exhibit cultural
differences in the public sphere since this
would allow the minorities to establish
contact with inluential partners, such as
the Estonian government, the Estonian
ethnic majority, the European Union,
Russia and so forth (Seljamaa 2010, 683684). Based on my research experience,
I cannot unequivocally support making
cultural differences a part of the public
sphere since, besides promoting contacts
and mutual understanding between the
different cultural and ethnic communities,
this approach could exacerbate conlicts.
At the end of the 1980s and beginning
of the 1990s, I encountered expectations
similar to those expressed by Seljamaa in
Kohtla-Järve regarding integration on the
basis of ethnic and cultural differences
through joint public events, but this
did not yield the expected results.7 It
is possible that integration is a process
where success in different stages requires
the implementation of different strategies.
At present Kohtla-Järve has reached a
stage where the establishment of local
cultural societies resembles the creation
of hobby groups (in a mono-cultural
society)—although it is impossible to
make them palatable for everyone, they
are important to a certain group.
I will take an in-depth look at this
30
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
immediately ask for an explanation”
(Põhjarannik, 30/04/2009). The majority
of the articles discuss issues related to the
cultural societies. In general, the societies
are linked to speciic ethnic groups
(Russians,
Ukrainians,
Belarusians,
Ingrian Finns, Tatars, etc.) and emphasise
the need to carry on their cultural heritage
(handicrafts, music, language). Contacts
with the ‘other’ mainly develop through
joint concerts or public events:
also touch upon the topics of heritage
and religion (the latter, for example, is
discussed in connection with Jews and
Muslim Tatars). While (the Estonian)
language is viewed as a central marker of
ethnic identity by Estonians, other people
of various ethnic backgrounds and/or
migration experiences see it simply as a
means of communication (Ruutsoo 1998,
139-202).8 They switch between languages
without paying attention to it: “Our
language of communication at home
develops completely freely; there are no
rules—and we are very comfortable with
speaking Estonian as well as Russian”
(Põhjarannik 4/07/2009). They learn and
forget languages:
The people of Kohtla-Järve were very
surprised on Tuesday when they
saw a strange tent near the town’s
cultural centre with people eating,
drinking and dancing in it. It turned
out that the Jewish community was
celebrating one of its most important
religious holidays—Sukkot (Põhjarannik
10/10/2009).
Hilja herself began to learn her father’s
native
language—Estonian—only
after becoming an adult. [---] Hilja
only regrets the fact that she is starting
to forget her Latvian, since there is no
longer anyone to speak it with and
keep the language alive (Põhjarannik
28/03/2009).
Experiences related to simultaneous
contacts of the same nature with
members of different ethnic groups are
connected to teaching (dance, music)
and, to a lesser degree, parties organised
at clubs. In both cases people tend to
mention the considerable differences
in the temperaments of Estonians and
Russians. It is also noteworthy that,
although the importance of maintaining
one’s “own” culture is stressed at the
community level, at the individual level
people’s interest in the “other” tends
to arise from their interest in someone
they are close to who is a representative
of the “other” culture, rather than their
fascination with the culture itself.9
The Kohtla10 Historical Society,
established in 1988, is an organisation
of local Estonians who are interested in
history. Although the activities of the
Society are open to Estonia’s general
In this context, Estonian is primarily seen
as the national language that is linked to
education and career opportunities. For
example, a Russian-speaking Estonian
top athlete explains: “I guess you have
to decide for yourself how much of it
[Estonian] they need but if you want
to accomplish something, you have
to know the language” (Põhjarannik
18/04/2009). To the journalist’s question:
“Do you always understand what you
are talking about?” a Russian-speaking
communications specialist at Estonian Oil
Shale answered: “At irst it was dificult,
of course, since I did not know the words
they were using even in Russian [---] if I
do not understand something, I always
31
Tiiu Jaago
The manner in which the Historical
Society is closed to the locals is expressed
through the principles that connect
the members of the group. They share
the same cultural experience and the
same place identity based on their local
heritage and similar interpretation of the
past. They are connected to each other
through the Estonian school system and
cultural history. According to the idea
behind the Historical Society, Kohtla is
more than just a place on a map—it is
also an intellectual living space that ties
together the people “whose roots are
here” (Toomsalu 2008, 9). It is the sense of
being connected to a place through one’s
roots that creates a boundary between the
local native population and the people
who came to Estonia after World War
II. The former see themselves as being
connected through their “roots” even to
those Estonians whose ancestors lived in
or near Kohtla but who reside elsewhere
themselves. At the same time, the
residents of Kohtla and its surroundings
who are locals now but whose “roots”
are elsewhere do not converge with the
Historical Society.
Despite this, the activities of the
Historical Society are, in some respects,
open in the context of local cultural
life. The Society has published research
and memoirs pertaining to local history
(e.g. in the series titled Kohtla vaimne
eluruum [“The intellectual living space
of Kohtla”] and Kohtla-Nõmme lood [“The
stories of Kohtla-Nõmme”]) in addition
to organising public events (I mentioned
one such event, the commemoration
event in Vanaküla, at the beginning of
the article) and exhibitions. Its greatest
achievement was the collaborative project
with the local government, which led to
public, they are relatively inaccessible
to the people who came to Kohtla-Järve
after World War II. The Historical Society
expresses its openness to the public
through its active collaboration with the
Estonian National Museum in Tartu.
Between 1988 and 2006, 25 members of
the Kohtla Historical Society submitted
112 contributions to the Estonian National
Museum (Toomsalu 2008, 16-21). Among
the subjects researched were “The bicycle
through the ages” in 1997; “The history of
skis and skates” in 1998; “Life in Soviet
times” in 2004; and “Research into village
history” in 2005. When preparing their
contributions the correspondents follow
the interview plans established by the
Museum and used as the basis for telling
a story based on the contributor’s own
experience, which may take the form of
a narrative, a study or simply answers
to a set of questions. Some contributions
have also been prepared at the initiative
of the people of Kohtla-Järve who are
correspondents of the Estonian National
Museum (e.g. the contribution regarding
the creation and disappearance of
Servaääre Village, submitted in 1997; the
contribution regarding the founding of
Kohtla-Järve and its effect on the villages,
submitted in 2000). These contributions
are mostly either memoirs or works of
amateur historical research. Therefore,
one of the outlets for the members of the
Historical Society is the creation of texts
in different genres about their places of
residence. Through this activity and the
agency of national institutions (such as
the aforementioned Estonian National
Museum) the Society is connected to
similar writers and interest groups all
over the country.
32
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
of the “other” and, as such, there is no
need for establishing speciic cultural
boundaries).
the establishment of a new museum in
the Kohtla mine after it was closed in
2001. Kohtla mine was built in 1937 and
before its closure was the oldest among
the functioning mines in Kohtla-Järve.
The museum has become a relatively
popular tourist destination in Estonia
and is visited by approximately 27,000
people per year (Kiristaja 2010, 3). From
the perspective of the Historical Society,
it is also important that the Museum
makes it possible to maintain a settlement
that grew together with the development
of the mine since the 1930s and now
possesses a certain degree of cultural and
environmental value (Toomsalu 2008,
11).
The activities of hobby groups in
culturally diverse environments focus
around people who share the same
cultural identity. The activities of the
societies also include more private
spheres (events for members, regular
meetings). Although the “others” are
not directly prevented from attending
these events, their nature presumes that
the participants share a strong sense of
communality and this creates a boundary
between the “self” and the “other”.
Therefore, while there are no formal
restrictions that apply to hobby group
activities, identity-related boundaries do
become apparent. However, the activities
of such societies always include a
component that is directed at the public.
The closed nature of hobby groups and
societies is linked to the need for one’s
“own” group and culture. The closed
and clearly deined nature of the “self”
seems to be one of the characteristics of a
culturally diverse society (since the “self”
functions naturally in a mono-cultural
environment even without the presence
Example 2: bilingual schools
As a rule, schools in Estonia are either
Estonian-speaking or Russian-speaking.
As I mentioned before, the medium
of education at school (language of
instruction) is a signiicant factor in
terms of differentiating between ethnic
and cultural communities in Estonia. In
accordance with the education reform
that is being carried out at the moment,
Russian-language schools should be
gradually moving towards adopting
Estonian as the medium of instruction (in
2011, 60% of all subjects should be taught
in Estonian in secondary schools where
the medium of instruction is Russian).
There is a bilingual school in KohtlaJärve that has been practising language
immersion since 1994. In a school where
language immersion is practised, at least
50% of all subjects must be taught in a
language that is not the learner’s native
language. Kohtla-Järve Ühisgümnaasium
is currently one of 21 language immersion
schools in Estonia and was one of the
irst to adopt an immersion programme.
At the same time this school, established
in 1949, has never functioned as a mixed
school. It has always consisted of an
Estonian-speaking part and a Russianspeaking part, which have furthermore
been separate in terms of location: there
have been times when each has had its
own building as well as times when the
space in one building has been divided
between the two parts. For example, a
former teacher wrote the following about
the situation in the 1950s:
33
Tiiu Jaago
The
Estonian-language
classes
had already been located in the
kindergarten building for some time.
It was like being hidden in plain
sight—we were completely separate
and everything was done in Estonian
(Võrsed 2004, 5).
memorial for the victims of fascism and
the celebrations of national holydays that
are mentioned in the memoirs.
When we observe the present-day
school life by looking through the
school’s website at http://www.kjug.edu.ee/
index.php (last accessed on 14 December,
2011) it appears that certain sections of
the website are bilingual. By clicking on
an icon, you can choose between viewing
an Estonian-language version and a
Russian-language version of the website.
It mostly contains general information
and notices in both languages for the
parents of the students. The Russianlanguage version of the site does not
include some areas (e.g. the history of the
school). The schedule of events reveals
that Christmas is, in part, celebrated
separately by the two halves of the school.
This is to be expected, since Estonians
consider Christmas to be one of the most
important holidays in December, while
the Estonian way of spending the holiday
season and celebrating Christmas is alien
to Russians: rather they celebrate the
New Year or the Orthodox Christmas in
January.
The local practices related to cultural
diversity are manifested in the bilingual
school:
rather than follow state
regulations, the educational institution
tends to function according to previous
experience on how best to cope with the
ethnic and cultural situation in question.
It follows that the administration of the
school is simultaneously run in two
languages and some events related to
hobby activities are organised for the
whole school while others are separate.
The opportunities for cooperation are
increased by the fact that the language
immersion programme works in both
People also mention the head teacher of
the Estonian part of the school (who was
not the head teacher of the entire school)
and the fact that the study processes were
distinctly separate:
At one meeting of the teachers’ council
a Russian teacher said that our life
was easy and that it was as if we were
working in a greenhouse. And, in
truth, our children were more calm
and diligent (Võrsed 2004, 10).
The extracurricular events organised
at the school are also divided between
the two parts in a logical manner. For
example, the song festivals and theatre
visits organised by Estonians are closely
related to upholding the traditions of
Estonian language and culture. During
a conversation with the teachers of the
Estonian part of the school on 31 January
2006, I learned that the school organises
separate parties for the Estonianlanguage and Russian-language parts
of the school (MK: Virumaa, 2006). This
is due to the different temperament of
the students as well as their different
understanding of what a party should be
like. As a result, each half of the school
has its own employee who organises
extracurricular activities. Both of these
employees have a blog.11 In addition to
the separate events, however, the two
parts of the school organise joint sports
events and undertakings connected to
national symbols, such as a trip to the
34
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
Example 3: the workplace
I chose to examine the difference and
coexistence of cultures in the workplace
on the basis of texts related to working
in mines. I used two types of text for
this purpose. My irst source was the
collection of articles Kohtla kaevandus
(“Kohtla mine”), published in 2010 as
the third part of the series Kohtla-Nõmme
lood (“The stories of Kohtla-Nõmme”)
(Kiristaja 2010). The articles tell the story
of the same mine that I mentioned above
in connection with the activities of the
Kohtla Historical Society. In terms of
genre, the collection is a work of research
carried out by amateur historians. The
collection is structured on the basis of
a linear time frame, and the individual
articles depict the development of the
mine over time.
My second source consisted of the
autobiographies of four former miners,
which are preserved in the form of
manuscripts in the life history collection
of the Estonian Literary Museum. Unlike
the aforementioned amateur historical
research, the life histories do not focus
directly on the issue of working in a
mine. The discussion of issues related to
working in the mine generally comprises
a relatively small part of the life story
and accounts for just a few pages of the
entire life story.
The historical research brings out
opinions regarding the upkeep and
culture of work of the mine. For example:
“The Kohtla mine was known for its highlevel culture of work, low manufacturing
cost of oil shale and exemplary upkeep”
(Kiristaja 2010, 3). Due to the fact that this
is a recurring theme in the characterisation
of all of the periods in the mine’s history,
I believe that this is the theme that carries
on the legacy of the mine’s history.
directions: in Estonian as well as in
Russian. The less signiicant the language
barrier becomes the more joint events the
school will be able to organise. The joint
events tend to be of a more general nature
(holiday camps, health days, Fathers’
Day, sports days, etc.). The events held
separately are more closely linked to
cultural traditions (e.g. Christmas).
Culture-speciic events are organised
for the language immersion classes
(beginning with the 5th year students),
such as the Russian Culture Week in
October 2011. Meanwhile, the students of
both parts of the school belong to a single
student community. Texts by students
are published in the school’s literary
almanac, regardless of their ethnic
background (Võrsed 2004). The students
participate in national inter-school events,
such as Olympiads, sports competitions,
singing contests and so forth. Looking at
the school almanac and the website, it is
possible to make guesses as to people’s
ethnic and cultural backgrounds in this
ield based, for example, on names or
language use. However, this would
simply be an observer’s interpretation.
In this context, the students are presented
as a single community that does not
categorise its participants based on
ethnic or other features. It is noteworthy
that the interviews with former teachers
of the Estonian-language part of the
school (Võrsed 2004, 19-22) contain
no questions regarding the links and
relations between the Estonian-language
part and the Russian-language part of
the school. I have experienced the same
phenomenon in the course of my own
ieldwork: people do not want to answer
direct questions about cultural conlicts
or even the general attitude towards
the “other” community (MK: Virumaa,
2010).12
35
Tiiu Jaago
head of the mine. He was replaced by
an Armenian named Sergei Zebeljan
from the 10th mine. He told everyone
that we would have to bid farewell to
the resort named “Kohtla mine” and
start working (Kiristaja 2010, 16).
Interruptions in the continuity of
the history of the mine are portrayed
through the political history of Estonia.
The political turning points depicted are
as follows: irstly, the Soviet occupation
in 1940-41 marked the destruction of
what had been built up in the Republic of
Estonia. Secondly, the German occupation
in 1941 which was interpreted as the
reconstruction of the mine. The third
break in the history of the mine occurred
with the destruction of the mine in 1944
when the front moved west, after which
it was possible to start the reconstruction
works during the second half of the
1940s. Descriptions of the stable period
that began in the 1950s focus on two
subjects: occupational safety and the
development of the technology used in
the mine according to contemporary
requirements. As is characteristic of the
Soviet era, the important issues that are
discussed also include the problems
related to the fulilment or non-fulilment
of national production plans.
All in all, it can be said that the texts
concerning the operation of this mine
prefer to discuss history in terms of
a technological rather than a political
framework. Accordingly, the sources
discuss the adoption of mining machinery
and provide rather ield-speciic technical
data. Even if the texts happen to mention
the ethnicity or background of the people
who participate in the management of the
mine, they do not contain stereotypes or
judgements based on ethnicity—instead,
the texts discuss how speciic individuals
handled their roles as managers or
workers:
It is important to note that, due to Estonia’s
political history, the issue of ethnic and
cultural diversity may intertwine with
that of power. For example, it might be
said that either Estonians or Russians,
or some other group, had access to
better conditions during the Soviet era
or after the end of the Soviet period. In
the collection in question, such claims
have been avoided. The book presents
a ield-speciic look at mining from the
perspective of the management of the
mine.
Three
of
the
aforementioned
autobiographies of miners are written
in Estonian and one in Russian.13
The Estonian narrators are older by a
generation, having been born between
1926 and 1927. The Russian narrator was
born in 1943. The stories were recorded
between 1990 and 2007, although the
time of narration is mainly important
with regard to the life story as a whole
and does not have a direct inluence on
the subject of working in the mine. Two
of the texts are handwritten, one has been
written on a typewriter and one author
has used a combination of handwritten
text and typewriting. The shortest story
takes up 12 pages and the longest spans
86 pages.
Compared to the previously mentioned
research articles, the autobiographies
of the miners focus much more on the
dangers of working in a mine.
However, the mine kept failing
to fulil its production plans and
therefore J. Lust had to resign as the
36
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
their shovels and loading it onto the
chain conveyor without saying a
word, thereby inadvertently showing
me the patient characteristics of a true
Estonian (EKLA 350v, 39).
I was teaching new workers in the
longwall face [a long, narrow corridorlike supported area of the mine, T.J.].
First the safety techniques—then the
support and machines. When you
move the support, the roof immediately
collapses. That district had only begun
its operation and the irst roof collapse
had not yet occurred. The roof could
collapse at any moment. The supports
had signs on them that said “Stop!
Unsupported!” We were looking at
the shearer when I suddenly noticed
that one of my students was walking
around in an unsupported area. I was
afraid to call out and just waved with
my arm. If the roof had collapsed, I
would have gone to jail. My student
would have been dead (EKLA f 350,
487).
It is noteworthy that while ethnic and
cultural boundaries may arise as sources
of conlict in other parts of the life stories
of the same narrators (e.g. childhood;
a political context; relationships in the
public urban space), this does not occur
in the descriptions of mining work.
The life stories in question are told
from the perspective of the people
who worked down in the mine, rather
than the management. This brings the
experiential aspect of the miners’ work
into the narratives. However, despite the
different perspectives of the management
and the miners, the focal points of the
historical research and the life stories
coincide in terms of the description of
the mine’s development, especially its
technological development. Cultural
differences are either casually mentioned
in the mining stories (as in the case of the
life story that describes the work methods
that had developed in the Estonian team
and the Russian team) or are avoided
completely (in the case of the historical
research). In my opinion, this is due to
the political colouring that accompanies
the rhetoric of cultural diversity and
unavoidably emphasises the conlicts
between the communities. Based on the
other episodes in the life stories analysed
for this article, as well as my general
knowledge of life stories, I can say that
the issue of cultural conlicts surfaces
in discussions concerning history (cf.
Kõresaar 2005). History is not simply a
collection of past events that can be left
behind—history is used to determine
The miners discuss speciic accidents
and the effect of these on the work. They
often mention that working in a mine
is physically hard work. However, this
issue is touched upon in the context of
coping with the dificulties and attaining
professional mastery.
Ethnic traits are discussed in the
Russian narrator’s story since he talks
about his work experience in an Estonian
team as well as in a Russian team. These
stories illustrate the difference in the
work ethic of Russians and Estonians.
Although the narrator describes the
difference, he does not present it as an
ethnic or cultural conlict. For example,
he briely mentions the characteristics of
two of his Estonian colleagues and then
links them to a stereotype concerning
Estonians:
They stood knee deep in icy water,
scraping up oil shale fragments with
37
Tiiu Jaago
one’s present-day social identity and
connection with Estonia (Jaago 2011a;
2011b; 2012). In the case of the topic at
hand, the politicisation of the past has
been avoided in the analysed texts. This
makes it possible to focus on the work
that was done in the mine, rather than
Estonia’s political history. However, it is
also probable that this approach allows
the narrators to emphasise the continuity,
characteristic of themselves and the
group they identify with, in regard to the
history of the development of the mine.
school life or the working methods of
the miners. In spheres of activity where
speciic cultural traits are less important
than some other characteristics (e.g.
aptitude for a school subject, professional
competence at work, etc.), the factors that
mark cultural boundaries also recede into
the background. In these cases, the fading
of cultural boundaries is a result of the
general context: the different groups live
and operate in the same conditions (e.g. a
mine where technological development is
tied to the given situation, therefore, has
the same effect on members of different
groups).
The texts or segments observed here
do not contain descriptions of cultural
conlicts (although such descriptions
can be encountered in other episodes
of the very same life stories). Therefore,
the situations described above do not
give rise to opposition based on cultural
differences. These situations (unlike
historical and political situations) are
not seen as a danger to the “self” group.
Some of the texts used here (e.g., the
newspaper articles) are directed at
promoting a culturally diverse model
of society and so intentionally avoid the
subject of cultural conlicts. Therefore,
it is evident that research into cultural
diversity in society depends on the
texts that are analysed (e.g., the genres
of the texts), the size and nature of the
group that is observed (e.g. community,
family), as well as the situations that are
described. As such, it continues to be a
multifaceted and topical phenomenon.
Conclusion
In this article I have presented my analysis
of a culturally diverse environment at
the level of a group (rather than the
level of an abstract community with
schematic characteristics or the level of a
speciic individual). My sources included
texts created by narrators and amateur
historians who belonged to certain
groups, as well as newspaper interviews
with representatives of speciic groups.
The texts analysed in the article represent
three spheres of activity: societies and
hobby groups, school life and the mine
as a workplace.
The texts portray cultural diversity
as a network of intellectual and practical
spheres of life of the people of KohtlaJärve, which contains opportunities for
afirming one’s own identity as a member
of a group as well as intersections where
common ground can be found with other
groups. The more we deal with culturespeciic needs, the more noticeable the
boundaries between the groups become.
The differences are apparent in the case
of hobby activities and ways of spending
free time as well as everyday culture—
for example, the daily organisation of
38
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
in the form of manuscripts (Estonian Literary
Museum, EKLA f 350 and 350v) also reveal
that the population of Estonia is generally
divided into two in terms of their attitude
towards Estonia: those who see Estonia as a
territorially and culturally indivisible whole
and those who consider Estonia to be a part
of Russia (Soviet Union) (see Jaago 2011a).
The relationships between the communities
are usually not discussed in the life histories
stored in the aforementioned archives,
although there are a few stories about ethnic
conlicts as well as mutual understanding in
communicating across ethnic, linguistic and
cultural boundaries at the level of everyday
life (EKLA f 350v, 5; 57;and 74; and EKLA f
350, 1071).
4 The collection of articles titled “Kohtla
755” that has been prepared by local amateur
historians about the history of the region
proceeds directly from the wish to celebrate
the 755th anniversary of the time when
the place was irst mentioned in 1241. For
local amateur historians the collection is an
authoritative reference book (see Toomsalu
2008, 7). The date when Kohtla was irst
mentioned has been determined on the basis
of the Danish Census Book (Liber Census
Daniae), a source from the 13th century or,
more speciically, the study on the document
published in 1933 by historian Paul Johansen
(Kala 2005). Johansen’s study contains
information on Kohtla as well as Järve village
and manor (Johansen 1933, 938 and 940).
5 The monument in question was erected in
1932 in memory of the battle of the Estonian
War of Independence (1918-1920) fought near
Järve village in January 1919 and of those
Notes
1 This research was supported by the projects
SA131578, ESF 8190, and the European Union
through the European Regional Development
Fund (Centre of Excellence CECT).
2 The migration that occurred during the
Soviet era (and is deined in present-day
Estonian politics as a result of the occupation)
plays a signiicant role in Estonia’s integration
policy and contributes to the need to stress
the importance of the historical dimension in
addition to the international dimension. It is
said that avoiding the historical and political
conlict between the different communities
living in Estonia would be impossible and
that “simpliied solutions along the lines of
‘let’s live together as friends’ unfortunately
do not work” (Vetik 2008, 4). Instead, we
have to ascertain the common interests of
the communities that will allow us to bring
Estonian society together (ELK 2008, 4-5).
3 For instance, the sociological identity studies
conducted in the 1990s and the 2000s indicate
that the identity of the Russian-speaking
community currently living in Estonia is based
on two factors: the irst is the understanding
that Estonia is a part of the Soviet Union that
broke away (therefore they may not see the
Soviet Union as a phenomenon of the past)
and the second is related to the fact that
living in Estonia is seen foremost as living in
the European Union (Vihalemm and Masso
2007). According to this research the concept
of Estonia as an independent and historically
separate territorial and cultural entity is
not a part of the approach that Russianspeakers in Estonia adopt with regard to
their “own place”. The life histories available
39
Tiiu Jaago
who fell in the battle. The monument was
destroyed by the Soviet regime in 1945.
6 All of the articles have been written as
part of the project “Writing Cultures and
Traditions at Borders” and constitute a
single body of work in the series of studies
concerning Kohtla-Järve.
7 While interviewing representatives of
cultural societies as part of my ieldwork in
and near Kohtla-Järve in 1991 I heard the
head of the Belarusian cultural society say
that he felt the need to organise joint folklore
festivals with Estonians (EKRK I 93). The
Collection of Estonian Life Stories contains
the memoirs of a Russian-speaking man who
lived in Kohtla-Järve in which he describes,
among other things, his participation in
events organised by Estonians. He talks
about how he felt alien and excluded when
attending the events. This was not due to
the standofish attitude of the Estonians. On
the contrary: he could speak Estonian, was
known to the people organising the party and
was also an expected guest. He felt excluded
at the party that celebrated Estonian culture
because he became more acutely aware of his
different heritage and identity— instead of
inding common ground he saw how he was
different (EKLA f 350v, 350; cf. Jaago 2011b).
8 On relationships between language and
nation-states in Europe see McDermott 2011,
6-15.
9 An Estonian woman who lives in KohtlaJärve and is married to a Russian man
describes her interest in Russian culture
speciically as an interest in her husband’s
intellectual world. She says that they used
to attend events that were important to
her husband as well as events that were
important to her in order to make each other
happy. She believes that the common ground
of the different cultures is human in nature
and can be summarised with the phrase
“good people” (EKLA f 350, 405, EKLA f
350v, 57. For an analysis of the life story see
Jaago 2012).
10 Kohtla is one of the regions in KohtlaJärve.
11 In January 2006 I gave a couple of lectures
to the secondary school classes of the
Estonian part of the school. I also met several
teachers at the school and was able to ask
them about subjects that interested me (MK:
Virumaa 2006). You can read the blogs of the
individuals responsible for extra-curricular
activities in the Estonian-language part and
the Russian-language part of Kohtla-Järve
Ühisgümnaasium at the following address:
http://www.kjug.edu.ee/index.php?option=com_
content&view=article&id=252&Itemid=162&lan
g=et, last accessed on 14 December, 2011.
12 At times, when I asked people in KohtlaJärve direct questions about the relations
between ethnic groups or the feeling of
alienation towards other cultures, the
responses were general or neutral. For
example, people often mentioned the
different temperaments of the ethnicities or
the differences in culture-speciic holidays.
In places where the cultures come into
contact with each other, relationships with
the representatives of other ethnicities and
cultures tend to be rather concrete; therefore,
the communication and attitudes are based
on the level of actual contacts between people
(rather than stereotypes). However, I have
40
One Area, Several Cultural Spaces
also encountered situations where people
are motivated by my questions to talk about
issues that are important within the context
of their own culture. I presume that focusing
speciically on one’s own culture is a method
for dealing with the presence of the “other”.
13 The selected life stories (EKLA f 350, 154;
487; and 643; and EKLA f 350v, 39) contain
mining-related episodes that could be
compared to each other: they are relatively
long and describe the everyday work of a
miner. The Russian life story discussed here
is the only life story in Russian that talks
about the life of a miner.
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43
Understanding Urban Spaces
Understanding Urban Spaces:
How Speakers of Russian Talk
about Helsinki
Ekaterina Protassova and
Anu Reponen
University of Helsinki,
Finland
Abstract
Helsinki, the capital city of Finland, is multicultural.
It has a distinct Russian component gloriied by
writers and poets. The city is also the history of
the people who lived here in the past and who visit
every day. Russian is the most spoken foreign
language in Helsinki. This article examines how
the inhabitants of Helsinki, whose irst or second
language is Russian, experience this city and
describe it, what places in Helsinki are relevant
for them, and what emotions and associations
are connected to the urban places and names.
Similarities and differences in the descriptions
are discussed and explained. Peculiarities in the
perception of urban spaces are discernible among
the Finnish and Russian speakers.
Introduction
o love or to hate a city, to understand
its historical past and to penetrate
its multicultural modern life is a
task that can never be completed, and
our different backgrounds lead us to
verbalize it differently. The goal of this
article is to ind out whether the image
of Helsinki is similar or different among
Russian-speaking residents and visitors of
different ages, and how this compares to
the perceptions of the city as expressed by
tourist guides and shared by the Finns.
The center of the city was built in the
19th century in the period of autonomy,
T
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 45-65
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
45
when Finland was under Russian rule,
and so has a special appeal for the
Russians. The city of Helsingfors (the
Swedish name for Helsinki) was growing
at the time. Deviation from its Swedishlanguage past went hand in hand with
Russiication. This can be illustrated by
the history of the adaptation of the Russian
street names. Some places in Helsinki have
well-established Russian names. Many of
them date back to the beginning of the
19th century, when Finland became part of
the Russian Empire; others appeared later
as new streets were built. We therefore
began our project by studying historical
documents.
The historical minority of Russianspeakers has been recently joined by
large groups of immigrants and tourists.
Today, one per cent of the population of
Finland are native speakers of Russian.
The historical Russian-speaking minority
comprises about 5,000 speakers, and their
language differs from that of the so-called
“New Russians” (not to be confused with
the proverbial nouveau riche in post-Soviet
Russia). Forty per cent of the 50,000 native
speakers of Russian live in the Helsinki
metropolitan area. Russian speakers
are a heterogeneous group consisting of
people of different ethnic backgrounds
and of different nationalities. Russian
is the third most spoken language after
Finnish and Swedish. The history of
the city with regard to its ties to Russia
has been analyzed by Klinge and Kolbe
(1999) and by Kuhlberg (2002). Different
perspectives are presented by Poxljobkin
(1974) and Jussila (2010). The image
of Helsinki among Russian-speaking
tourists has changed since Soviet times,
along with geo-political and ideological
changes.
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
In the framework of this project,
members
of
the
heterogeneous
community of Russian-speakers were
interviewed in groups and individually,
with attention focused on the use of
place-names and/or language biography.
In addition, we organized an open
essay-writing competition in Russian
under the title My Helsinki, in which
both Finnish- and Russian-speakers
took part. We compared articles in the
Russian language media in Finland with
opinions expressed on Internet forums.
We also studied Russian tourists’ views
of Helsinki in order to ind out what
places are perceived as familiar, cozy,
important, interesting, appealing to the
heart, and experienced as one’s “own,”
and what places are avoided or perceived
as miserable, foreign, belonging to
the domain of the “other”. The results
should help us understand the process of
integration that follows immigration and
is linked to adjustment to a new space.
Viapori. Today the oficial Finnish name
is Suomenlinna, the “Finnish fortress,”
but Sveaborg remains its oficial Swedish
name and is also used in Russian. After
Russia defeated Sweden in the Finnish
War and annexed Finland in 1809, the
land was proclaimed the autonomous
Grand Duchy of Finland, and Sveaborg
came under Russian command. These
changes led to the introduction of
Russian as an oficial language in Finland
that had to be learned by civil servants.
Czar Alexander I of Russia moved the
Finnish capital from Turku to Helsinki to
reduce the Swedish inluence in Finland;
its original location was changed, and
the new town was built in the style of St.
Petersburg. Helsingfors, as it was called
in both Swedish and Russian, continued
to grow and lourish as a trilingual city.
The period of autonomy is often
described as a time when the Finns
elaborated their national and linguistic
identity as they began to use the Finnish
language in newspapers, public meetings,
and schools. All the art forms began to
prosper, and the masters of architecture,
painting, music, and literature had close
ties not only with Swedish and French
artists, but also with Russian ones. It is
linguistically important that the Finnishspeakers outnumbered the Swedishspeakers in 1890 and became the
majority of the city’s population (61,530
citizens). A special urban slang called
stadin slangi evolved on the basis of nonnative Swedish and non-native Finnish
with a substantial Russian component.
Russian-speakers played a signiicant
role in the life of the city, even though
they did not form a big group. They were
entrepreneurs, merchants, and military
(Tommila 1983).
An overview of the linguistic and
demographic history of Helsinki
Looking back on the history of Helsinki,
we can see that it has always been a
multicultural city. Established as a
trading town by King Gustav I of Sweden
in 1550, at irst it was predominantly
Swedish-speaking. Despite the fact
that Helsinki has 450 years of history,
the present-day site of the city center is
much younger: the city was moved there
in the 17th century. The naval fortress
Sveaborg, constructed in the 18th century,
transformed the place into an important
military maritime fortiication on the
Baltic Sea. The meaning of its Swedish
name was the “Swedish fortress,” and in
Finnish it was pronounced and written as
46
Understanding Urban Spaces
framework of a repatriation program
launched in the early 1990s.
The population of the city of Helsinki
is 588,941 (31 January 2011), making it the
most populous municipality in Finland.
Finnish-speakers make up 83.7% of the
population, Swedish-speakers 6.0%,
and speakers of other languages 10.2%.
Foreign-born citizens comprise 7.9%
of the population (44,400). The largest
groups of residents with a non-Finnish
background come from Estonia (5,900),
Russia (5,633), Somalia (2,400), China
(1,150) and Thailand (680) (see www.
tilastokeskus.i, a governmental source
giving Finnish statistics, accessed 19
February 2012). In Helsinki, 2% of
the population are native speakers of
Russian. About 67% of the population are
Evangelical Lutherans, and up to 2% are
Orthodox (Finnish, Russian and Greek).
Helsinki has 190 comprehensive
schools, 41 upper secondary schools, and
15 vocational institutes. Many of these use
more than one language of instruction,
and several languages are studied as
target languages. Even at the pre-school
level, bilingual kindergartens with
Finnish and Swedish, English, German,
French, Hebrew, Russian, or Spanish
offer a variety of linguistic programs. In
schools, more than 50 home languages
are taught as optional courses.
Finland gained its independence
in 1917 and both languages, Finnish
and Swedish, were adopted as state
languages. Russian was regarded
with disfavor because of the recent
Russiication attempts and a massive
inlux of Russian-speaking émigrés, as
well as a fear of communist inluence.
The status of Russian deteriorated
further during the Winter War (1939–40)
and later, when the Soviet Union was
the enemy of the Finnish Republic. From
the end of World War II and until the
1970s, there was a massive exodus of
predominantly Finnish-speaking people
from the countryside to the cities of
Finland, primarily to Helsinki. Between
1944 and 1969, the population of the city
nearly doubled, from 275,000 to 525,600,
and the role of the Swedish language
kept declining.
In the last two decades, immigration
has grown in Finland and now accounts for
2% of the whole population. Immigrants
usually dwell in the metropolitan area
(that is, Helsinki, together with the
neighboring cities of Espoo, Kauniainen,
and Vantaa) because more services are
available to them in their own languages
and because they are able to form
communities (cf. www.infopankki.i,
an electronic resource providing basic
information about Finnish society and
culture, accessed 19February 2012).
Nearly one per cent of the total
population are people who speak
Russian as one of their home languages,
and about the same number of Finnishor Swedish-speakers have learned
Russian at some point in their lives. Most
of the “New Russians” are ethnic Finns
and Ingrians and their family members.
They emigrated from Russia within the
Research on immigration
and toponymy
To adopt a second way of life after
immigration means to adopt the routes
taken by the locals,
to speak their
language, and to act in the same way
they do. The natives are aware of the
history of generations who lived in the
area; they know stories about remarkable
47
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
local people is also important, and such
occurrences accumulate throughout the
years one lives in a district. Immigrants’
spatiotemporal orientation to the city
and their embodiment within it remain
individual and linked to the toponymy.
For all the immigrants places such as
the police station where they received their
residence permit, the embassy of their
own country, and restaurants with their
national cuisine are culturally marked.
Many retain memories of the buildings
where they studied the language,
outpatients’ clinics and hospitals they
visited, the irms that employed them,
and so on. As we will show further on,
for children describing their favorite
places in Helsinki such landmarks are
not signiicant (cf. the notion of nodes in
Fialkova and Yelenevskaya 2011).
Table 1 illustrates the methods of
Russiication of the street names in
Helsinki during the time of autonomy;
these are oficial names, as printed in
Adres 1911, and Plan 1900 and 1903 (cf.
Pesonen 1970). First, the Swedish name
was used. On Russian maps of the period
the name was transliterated. During the
19th century maps of the city often also
appeared in German and French. Later,
a Russian name was derived from the
Swedish one with the help of a Russian
sufix. At the third stage, the Russian
name was translated from Swedish, and
so was its Finnish version. Nowadays,
maps of the city appear mostly in Finnish
and Swedish and, for the use by Russianspeaking tourists, the street and placenames are transliterated from Finnish.
or strange people, and legends about the
city’s past. For the newcomers, the context
is totally different. They may come from
bigger or smaller towns or villages,
bringing their image of the world with
them. Some try to reconstruct what they
left behind: émigrés from St. Petersburg
ind Nevsky avenue, and Muscovites
recognize images of Tverskaya street in
Mannerheimintie, the main thoroughfare
of Helsinki. Others pick up knowledge
and habits from the local people, and
then there are those who just build their
history, shaped by their own ordeals.
Many remain oblivious to the metaphors
behind the place-names, which are so
dear to those who have lived their whole
life in the city.
A new cultural context imposes
a speciic use of familiar and newlylearned names and relects an interplay
between imported and newly-acquired
experience (a similar phenomenon of
making a city “your own” was described
by Fialkova and Yelenevskaya 2011).
This is true for place-names too. Du Bois
(2010, 122-127) considers name references
as one way of constituting cultural
identity in immigrants. She mentions
that spatial references such as river and
street names have a commonsensical
meaning that is important for bilinguals:
they discover what the locals call places
in their new surroundings, partly real,
partly mythological, and functionally
polysemous.
While
identifying
themselves with the city, immigrants
demonstrate their knowledge of its
geography and their rootedness in its
rituals. They afirm their belonging,
even if their speech habits differ from
those of the native inhabitants. Sharing
experiences of different events with the
Table 1. The street names in the history of
Helsingfors
48
Understanding Urban Spaces
Table 1. The street names in the history
of Helsingfors
Swedish
Russian 1 (19th Russian 2 (1900) Russian 3 (1911)
century)
Finnish
Främlingsgatan Фремлингсгатан Фремлингская
улица
Чужеземная улица Muukalaiskatu
Gengatan
Генгатан
Högbergsgatan Хёгбергсгатан
Ближняя улица
Высокогорная
улица
Berggatan
Villagatan
Brunnsgatan
Берггатан
Виллагатан
Бруннсгатан
Енская улица
Хёгбергская
улица
Oikokatu
Korkeavuorenkatu
Бергская улица Горная улица
Vuorikatu
Вилла улица
Дачная улица
Huvilakatu
Брунская улица Колодезная улица Kaivokatu
Skillnadsgatan Шилнадсгатан Шилнадская
улица
Раздельная улица Erottajakatu
она по-русски написана, единственное
название, которое сохранилось).
The onomastic variations in the speech
of Helsinkians when they refer to their
home city is discussed in Ainiala and
Lappalainen (2010), and the role of placenames in the sociolinguistic construction
of immigrant youth identities in Ainiala
and Halonen (2009). Other studies examine
what reasons people give for using or
avoiding speciic names, whether oficial
or unoficial, stigmatized or neutral. It
turns out that these choices are connected
with the process of self-construction.
The ethnomethodological and socioonomastic research that we conducted
focuses on the use of urban placenames in Helsinki in spoken Russian,
and is based on unoficial names and
place terms in Russian and Finnish. The
toponymic perspective combined with
the sociolinguistic approach allows us to
From 1833 to 1917, street signs in
Helsinki also bore Russian names. One
example is Soiankatu, [“Soia’s street”],
named after the mother of Alexander I,
Maria Fjodorovna. One of the original
names given to this German princess at
birth was Soia. In present day Helsinki
Soiankatu was chosen to be the street
museum of the city in order to restore
its historical atmosphere, and one sign
has survived since the time streets had
triple inscriptions. The Russian history of
Helsinki is known only to a small section
of the Russian-speaking immigrants. As
a rule, new immigrants do not adopt
the traditional Russian street names and
other place-names used by the historical
Russian-speaking minority. One of
our informants singled out Soia street,
because it is the only name written in
Russian on a street sign in Helsinki
(Софийская улица – вот это да, потому что
49
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
our informants relect on their naming
practices.
Many names for things related to
everyday practices are borrowed into
Russian from Finnish, even if these
concepts already have appropriate
equivalents (cf. Protassova 2004). These
are common nouns, although some place
terms, such as a library, or an activity/
shopping/sports center, are used as
proper nouns in speech, for example,
“подойди к kirjasto” [“come to the
library”]. In the utterance “М-бар – это
прямо ihan keskustassa” [“M-bar is right,
right in the center”], the speaker switches
from Russian to Finnish in the middle
of his turn and produces the particle
“right” twice: irst in Russian—прямо
—then in Finnish—ihan. The place term
“center” is produced in Finnish in the
correct grammatical case—keskustassa.
For some reason, the speaker chooses the
Finnish variant instead of the Russian
центр, although the latter is also used
in this particular sequence. Perhaps the
speakers remember the signboards above
the buildings or heard Finns mention the
names of these spots, and this is why they
insert Finnish while primarily speaking
Russian.
Many informants say that they
Russify the pronunciation of Finnish
names, which occasionally leads to
misunderstandings. Thus, talking about
her daughter, one interviewee says:
…она не воспринимает названия, если мы
investigate the language and toponym
usage of Russian speakers in Helsinki.
The individual and group interviews that
we conducted were videotaped, or tape
recorded and transcribed. They make
up approximately 40 hours of recording
with “Old Russians” (cf. Reponen 2004;
Protassova 2007) and about the same
amount of time with “newcomers” of
different ages. The interviewees discussed
their attitudes to different languages, to
their place of residence and its names.
Immigrants as name-users is a special
theme for research, because patterns of
name usage relect ways of integrating
into the receiving society and thus
constructing their new identity on
Finnish soil. Obviously, Russianspeakers
mostly use the same place-names as
other
Helsinkians—predominantly
oficial Finnish names. However, for
various reasons, places are also named
unoficially. The place itself may be
relevant for a person even if its oficial
name remains unknown or identiied
incorrectly. For example, meeting places
are often named unoficially. Selfinvented unoficial names can be used
to express stance, opinion of and feeling
for the place itself, and certain name
variants can be used as speakers’ identity
markers or in order to convey speciic
implications or interpretations of the
situation. Unoficial names belong to the
toponymic landscape of all speakers, but
there are particular sites which Russianspeaking Helsinkians call by the names
coined by in-group members. We will
demonstrate how these are formed, of
what linguistic elements they are built,
what functions they have, and what their
social meaning is. We will also quote
excerpts from the interviews in which
скажем с русским акцентом; то есть, ей
надо Ω по-фински потому что она, как бы,
воспринимает это вообще, как другое место
вообще, может, как это не в Хельсинки”. [“…
she doesn’t grasp the names if we talk with
a Russian accent, so we have to repeat them
in Finnish because she sort of perceives
50
Understanding Urban Spaces
um, what is this church in the rock called?”]
- По-фински? [“In Finnish?”]
- Да. [“Yes.”]
- Это, ну… (pause) Temppeliaukion kirkko [“This
is, well, it’s Temple Square Church.”]
- Вот мы никогда не говорим, так не говорим.
Церковь в скале хе хе она одна единственная
и легче сказать, вот прямо, церковь в скале.
[And we, like never say it in this way. Church
in the rock ha-ha it is unique and it is easier to
say simply Church in the rock.”]
them as some other places, maybe not in
Helsinki at all.”]
The referent of the name may be unknown
to the speaker, or it can be confused with
some other place. The linguistic meaning
of the place may also be unclear. Our
interviewees told us where and how
they had encountered such puzzling
names, for example, some Finnish slang
names, and how they found out what the
referent or meaning of that name was.
In the next example two informants are
discussing the name Kompas [“compass”]
which refers to a spot in the central train
station that is a popular meeting place.
In the course of the conversation it turns
out that one of the interlocutors, Tanja,
mistakenly believed that the name
referred to an old observatory located in
the Kaivopuisto park:
Meeting places often have names
invented by their users. In Eastern
Helsinki, in a large shopping center,
there is a sculpture oficially called Kuru,
a “stony gorge”. In one of the group
interviews our young informants say
that this is their meeting place, and they
call it Камень [“stone”]: “Ну, мы обычно
встречаемся возле Камня, ну вот этот
памятник, что-то похожее на него, вот
там мы обычно встречаемся с друзьями”
[“Well, we usually meet near the Stone,
you know, this monument, it’s sort of
like a stone, and it’s there that we meet
our friends”]. During the interview one
of the informants speaks on the phone
to his girlfriend in Finnish and uses the
same name, Камень, but in Finnish, kivi.
The speaker is not sure whether the place
is known to the girl, so he also describes
it as a lower: “menti takas se kiven luokse
Itiksee ulkon siin on semmone kivi sellane
kukka tiätsä” [“we went back to that rock,
to Itis, outside there is such a stone, sort
of a lower, you know”]. In general, talk
in interaction is recipient-oriented, and
place descriptions are no exception. The
meeting place is described in different
ways to the interviewer and to a close
friend.
Another example comes from
the Helsinki train station, one of the
notable architectural spots in the city.
- Таня, вот, не знала, где это, раньше [”In the
past, Tanja didn’t know its whereabouts.”]
- Да все знают, а мне, а мне объясняли, где
такой, я знала Компас, который вот там,
Kaivopuisto
[“Yes, everybody knows, and they explained
to me, to me, where it is, I used to know the
Compass
which is there, in Kaivopuisto.”]
Temppeliaukio (“temple square”) church is
very popular among tourists who come to
Helsinki. Russian speakers call it церковь
в скале (“church in the rock”) because it
is actually built into one. Notably, while
almost all Russian speakers, both tourists
and local residents, know this unoficial
name, Finnish speakers do not have a
corresponding informal version, and
stick to the oficial name:
- А-а, как это церковь в скале называется? [“Um-
51
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
urbanonyms. By adding sufixes and
adapting them to Russian morphology
they make them sound like native Russian
words. Besides, by making them familiar
and handy, the speakers add a humorous
touch: Kontulovka (for Kontula), Matveevka
(for Matinkylä “Matthew’s village”.
Matthew is Matti in Finnish and Matvej
in Russian, so the etymology plays a role
in these innovations). Again, the popular
form in Russian is neuter, ending in –ovo,
but in Finland the original Finnish word
inluences the slang form.
The building is decorated with four
statues called Lyhdynkantajat, “lantern
carriers”. In Finnish folk toponymy, the
statues are called Kivimiehet, the “Stone
Men”. One of the interviewees describes
this meeting place:
Мы много раз назначали встречу около
страшных дядек, это значит около вокзала,
там, где центральный выход; там же эти
мужчины” [“Many times we ixed to meet near
these frightening guys?, that is, near the train
station, you know, there, at the main entrance,
where you can see these men”].
The statues of the “Stone Men” are so
popular among Helsinkians that they were
used in several advertisements favorably
received by the public (see, e.g., www.
youtube.com/watch?v=4wh3coG3pLg,
accessed 20 February 2012).
Young speakers of Russian use both
Finnish and Russian slang names.
Russian slang names are often derived
from oficial names by using the
colloquial Russian sufix –ik (masculine),
as in Kaisik (for the Finnish Kaivopuisto),
Espik (Esplanaadi), Itik (Itäkeskus), and
Rautik (Rautatientori) (cf., Fialkova and
Yelenevskaya 2011, 161). The subjects
account for their use of slang names by
making it clear that those names are the
speakers’ own inventions and are used
for their own reasons among friends. Yet,
in Russia, the normal onomastic slang
sufix used in street names and in some
other cases is –ka (feminine), and the
masculine variant may have appeared
under the inluence of the Finnish slang
variant in –is (Rautis for Rautatientori, Itis
for Itäkeskus). These hybrids are declined
like genuine Russian words. Informants
claim that such usage is much easier
and handier when the conversation is in
Russian. For the sake of convenience, some
of our older informants change Finnish
The following example illustrates how
the Finnish word can be Russiied in
pronunciation and declension, and how
the informants explain why they prefer
to employ the Finnish borrowing kehä
(“ring road”) in their Russian speech:
- Почти все говорят «кеха три», кеха один, кеха
три», то есть как бы читают финское слово,
а цифры говорят по-русски, «рядом с кехой»,
(смех) «на кехе» (смех) [“Almost everybody
says ‘kehä three, kehä one, kehä three,’ that is,
as if they were reading a Finnish word while
saying numbers in Russian, ‘near the kehä (+
instr. case) (laughter) on the kehä.” (+prepos.
case) (laughter)]
- Рядом с кехой, где ты по кехе, то мне этa
первая кеха заколебала (смех) с ее пробками
(смех) [“Near the kehä (+instr. case), where
are you on kehä (+prepos. case), or this irst
kehä is driving me nuts (laughter) by its trafic
jams.” (laughter)]
- А вот что на кольцевой, как-то вот по
Финляндии это не звучит, даже кольцевая,
такие там в Москве, в Питере – там кольцевая
[“As to the ring road, this somehow doesn’t
sound right in Finland, the ring road of this
sort, this is in Moscow, and in Peter (the
informal name of St. Petersburg), that’s
where the ring roads are.”]
- Э, ну а здесь кеха [“And here there is kehä.”]
As mentioned earlier, the local identity of
52
Understanding Urban Spaces
Helsinki Russians is constructed, among
other things, through linguistic nuances
and place-name usage. Whether oficial
or unoficial, toponyms in immigrants’
speech are conventionalized among
certain Russian-speaking immigrant
groups (for example, among young
people) as markers of double belonging:
to Finland and to its Russian community
(cf., Yelenevskaya 2011). A name can
be misunderstood even if only its
pronunciation deviates from the local
norm. Immigrant Russian speakers hear
names around them and learn them.
They choose and use various versions of
the same names creatively, differentiating
between them, depending on the
purpose. For example, young people
are aware of slang names used by their
Finnish-speaking peers but often prefer
their own versions, as they put it. Besides
Finnish speakers, Helsinki Russians also
make a distinction between themselves
and Russians living in Russia. So,
they say kirpushka for kirpputori [“lea
market”], while St. Petersburg dwellers
sometimes use kirputorij which sounds
more like a Latin name. In the interviews
our informants describe how the new
environment with its unfamiliar names
and the new language have affected their
perception of the linguistic landscape.
Obviously, many oficial Finnish names
are widely used as well.
material milieu and shapes the image of
the city for the group which shares the
multi-layered subjectivity of his texts
(Vail 2007).
The Russian-speaking genius loci of
Helsinki was a famous writer Alexander
Kuprin (1870–1938). He had visited
Finland many times before the October
Revolution of 1917, and afterwards lived
in Finland as an émigré. In the 1930s he
moved to Paris but kept warm memories
of the country that had given him
refuge.
It is so close to St. Petersburg, and this
is a real European city. From the train
station we pass to a large square, as
big as half the Field of Mars. On the
left-hand side, there is a massive gray
marble building looking somehow
like a church in the Gothic style. It is a
new Finnish theater. On the right-hand
side, there is a severely styled National
Ateneum. We are in the very center of
the town.
We go upwards along Michelsgatan.
Because the street is so narrow, and
the houses have three or four storeys,
it seems to be dark but, nevertheless, it
makes an elegant and solid impression.
Most of the buildings are Jugendstil
[Art Nouveau] architecture, with
a Gothic nuance. The facades have
no cornices and no ornaments; the
windows are placed asymmetrically,
they are often framed on all sides, etc.
(Kuprin 2001, 313, translated by the
authors).
Impressions and connections
For our contemporaries, most events of
their life take place in towns, and this is
where their cultural forces are applied
and tested. Every city should have its
own genius loci, understood here as an
individual who connects intellectual,
spiritual, and emotional events with their
The themes raised in this essay are
still warmly embraced by the Russian
speakers visiting Finland or living here
permanently. First and foremost, it is
53
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
by a retired Finn whose hobby is
studying Russian, which is rather typical
of the leftists, and whose youth fell in
the1960s. He relects about his relations
to the city, important places in the town
and the stages in its history that he has
witnessed and gone through like many
of his peers:
the question of equality: the absence of
beggars but also of the rich; secondly, it is
appreciation of cleanliness and neatness.
It is also about the respect for women,
children, the elderly, and the disabled.
Even the places mentioned by Kuprin
have retained their importance for
contemporary visitors: the central train
station, the Finnish National Theater and
the Ateneum (the museum of Finnish
national art) are unlikely to be missed by
Russian visitors to Helsinki. The pseudoGothic architectural style of Helsinki
still makes the visitors dream of an ideal
medieval city, although this image is
misleading.
In order to have a more detailed picture
of the role of the city in the life of Russian
speakers we organized an essay-writing
competition on the subject of Helsinki,
supported by the local Russian-language
newspaper Spektr which is published in
Helsinki, the University of Helsinki, and
the City Council of Helsinki. We asked
the participants to write about their
feelings and about places that were dear
to them in Helsinki. We received 64 texts,
all submitted in Russian. Some of these
contained impressions of tourists from
different countries, some were written
by Finns learning Russian, the rest were
composed by speakers of Russian living
in Helsinki and able to write in Russian.
The level of proiciency among members
of the latter group differed, revealing
various stages of attrition. In addition, we
analyzed Internet discussions to obtain
further evidence of the impressions of
Russian tourists. The views of those who
live in Helsinki were supplemented by
articles about Helsinki in the Russianlanguage media in Finland.
The irst excerpt we cite was authored
My home town is Tampere. I was born
there during the war time. I loved this
town very much, I was a local patriot!
As a child, I visited the maritime capital
Helsinki many times with my parents.
My mother came from Helsinki, and
my grandmother, my aunt, and my
cousins lived here.
I remember the Olympic Games of
1952 quite well. Helsinki was then in
the center of attention of the whole
world! I do remember that it rained
every day!
Having completed my high school
studies at Tampereen yhteiskoulu, I
entered the Medical School of the
University of Helsinki. I managed
to succeed at the second attempt.
The city was really bilingual at that
time, and one could hear and see the
Swedish language in the streets of the
capital much more than today. After I
had become a physician, I worked for
some years in other towns of Finland,
but I came back to Helsinki at the end
of the 1960s.
Today, Helsinki is quite a different
city! Connections to the outside world,
to the West, South, and East have
become better and, especially in the
last few years, we have had more and
54
Understanding Urban Spaces
participated in the competition, wrote:
more tourists from Russia. Today, the
Russian language can be heard in the
streets and in the shops of our town.
Yes, the former bilingual city has
become a multilingual international
city.
I live in Helsinki. Helsinki is a typical
European city. Everything is clean,
tidy, comfortable and peaceful, and
one doesn’t ind crowds of mad people
anywhere. That is why it is pleasant to
live in Helsinki. It seems to me that the
city is constructed especially for the
habitation of many people. All of the
areas have something of their “own”
and whatever differences there are
between them, they were built almost
in the same style.
My dearest place is Esplanadi with
its monuments. It is the heart and
soul of the capital, especially on a
spring evening one can experience
the magic “blue hour” there! In
summer, my favorite is the sea fortress
of Suomenlinna, and in winter the
museum island Seurasaari where I
usually walk once a week.
For example, when I walk in my
district, Itäkeskus, I feel that it is “my”
district. I know where the things are as
if they were in my own pockets. I also
know that it was built wisely. Houses,
department stores, and parks surround
a big shopping center. It is interesting
for us, teenagers. On the other hand, the
center of Helsinki is a large labyrinth
with tall buildings, department stores,
and shopping centers. It’s Babel, and
people are in a hurry. So I like it less.
It still remains strange to me, and I am
not really familiar with it.
My wife and I, we have two traditions.
In spring, together with our friends,
we take part in the day concert of the
City Orchestra in Finlandia Hall. One
can notice that our student caps, once
white, are becoming yellower every
year… The festival of the First of
May in Helsinki is a unique carnival,
It means champagne, balloons, and
spring music played by students. The
second tradition belongs to the Day of
Independence on the 6th of December.
Then we visit the common grave in the
Hietaniemi cemetery where Marshal
C.G. Mannerheim lies among the
heroes of the capital who fell in the
war of 1939–1945.
If we compare the center of Helsinki
with the center of St. Petersburg,
the center of St. Petersburg is more
beautiful and old. But the suburbs of St.
Petersburg are terrible! They are dirty
and messy. There is nothing like this
in Helsinki. Of course, Helsinki has its
imperfections. There is absolutely no
antiquity like in the European cities.
Even Stockholm, another northern
city, has its Old Town. Not to mention
beautiful Paris, where the whole center
is old and gorgeous with its medieval
and Renaissance buildings and
cathedrals. Helsinki was assembled in
the Middle Ages from wood, therefore
What about Tampere? I haven’t
forgotten it! I often go there. But now
I may say that I am a“stadin kundi”
[slang: a “guy from the capital”] and I
love the capital of Finland ...
T.L., a 14-year-old bilingual boy from
a mixed Finnish-Russian family who
55
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
because the ilm is about to start, you
can buy candies, ice-cream, popcorn,
or lemonade right there. When you
watch a ilm at Tennispalatsi, it is very
easy, you just buy your ticket and
popcorn and that is all you have to
do, you watch the ilm and ?it you
will have lots of fun. Tennispalatsi is
situated in the very center of the city,
and this is one of the reasons why it is
easy to go there.
nothing old has remained. But
Helsinki is my dear capital, and it was
built not for tourists, but for the Finns,
the inhabitants themselves, and to my
mind, there is no better place to live.
So, the image of Helsinki is compared
to other places familiar to the author.
Due to his age, what may be considered
by adults to be the most important
things about the city—historical and
artistic values—remain unknown to
the adolescent. His experience of the
Russian city of St. Petersburg makes
him appreciate the calmness of Helsinki,
while many Russians sometimes feel
bored by its tranquility. This attitude
can be frequently found in other essays
by the young writers. For example, S.P.,
a 15-year-old girl from a Finnish family
studying Russian since kindergarten,
composed this text:
My second home and another place I
like to be is the Helsinki Ice Hall which
is very big and old and not so cold. It
lies not so far from the city center and
can be easily reached. There are two
arenas and many locker rooms. When
I was small and came with my mom to
see how the girls were skating there, I
told her that when I grow up I would
skate there too and people would
applaud me very loudly. This is the
dream that I would like to fulill.
Helsinki is the place where you can
dream and make your dreams come
true.
I was born here and I want to live
here. My elder sister already lives on
her own and can go to the city center
whenever she wants to, but I cannot.
I practice igure skating six times a
week, and when this is over, I have to
go home immediately. My parents do
not like it when I go to the city center
in the evening, but when they allow
me to go, it becomes a very happy day.
When I can go to the city center, I go
to the cinema, cafés, or to the Kamppi
Center for shopping.
This essay relects the naive picture of the
city where people go shopping and to the
cinema, sit in cafés and practice sports—
one of the most important hobbies among
Helsinkians. Girls and boys intuitively
love their closest neighborhood and
places where their friends live. Most of
the Finnish youngsters appraised the
city in the same way. When the results
of the essay competition were published
such vision of the city was criticized by
the Russian-language newspaper Spektr.
The editor wrote that she was sad that
the children had not learnt about any of
the other interesting things in the city
I go to the cinema at Tennispalatsi
because this is my favorite theater. The
auditoriums there are very big and the
choice is very good. In Tennispalatsi
I like it that when you have no time
to go to the shop to buy something
56
Understanding Urban Spaces
the perception of Helsinki. Men’s essays
emphasize military monuments and
remnants of the wars. Women are fond
of the “masculine” character of the city
that helps in many ways and supports
whatever happens in their life (Helsinki
is like the male protector they dreamed
about in Russia but who never appeared
there, indeed, to feel safe does not
necessarily mean to have a husband with
enormous biceps—good social welfare is
sometimes enough).
As mentioned earlier, we have also
received essays from speakers of Russian
from different parts of Russia and the
“near abroad” (the CIS countries). For
many, Finland is the irst European
country they ever visited, and it ranks
high as a tourist destination in Russia.
On their road of discoveries some tourists
tend to look for stereotypes and expect
prejudices against the West to come true.
In this case they see only what they want
to see, for example, medieval fortresses
associated with the tales by the Grimm
brothers who belong, of course, to the
German tradition, while ignoring the
real Finnish history as relected in the
fairy tales by Z. Topelius. This is why
they skip the modernity but enjoy the
Jugend style. Another conception is the
“Scandinavianism” of Helsinki that is
deinitely different from other Nordic
metropolises, by virtue of its Russian
past inter alia. Alternatively, the visitors
imagine what life could be like in Russia
if the Bolshevik October Revolution
had not happened. The places that
visitors like in Helsinki are those tourist
attractions where they can relax or enjoy
life, but not those where the Finns like
to be, with the exception of Suomenlinna
(sea fortress) and Seurasaari (open air
(Gusatinskaja 2011). Yet the essays of
the children from the Russian-speaking
families in Helsinki could console her.
These texts depict cultural attitudes of
families who encourage their children
to visit museums and architectural
monuments. These essays also relect the
writers’ love of nature, the zoo, squares,
and avenues. Thus, the expectations of
adults differ, and so do the texts produced
by the children.
The essays of the adults can be
divided into two groups: those written
by visitors and those by inhabitants.
The inhabitants tend to look for those
aspects of Helsinki that are connected
to the Russian inluence, so that they
can justify their presence in this city,
their immigration, and their sense of
belonging to the city’s past and present,
to its cultural heritage and contemporary
life. They seek to afirm their membership
in the community of Helsinkians and,
therefore, their equal share in the
city’s investments and dividends. The
contribution to the modern prosperity
may be justiied by deeds aimed at the
wellbeing of the community, and also by
strolls, trips and excursions through the
city that provide good knowledge of its
structure, past and present, and by living
memories. This is the way the Russianlanguage newspaper Novosti Helsinki
[“Helsinki News”] positions itself. A
sense of delight at the Finnish way of
life is commonplace, although many are
disappointed by the lack of joyfulness in
the atmosphere and their own inability
to cope with dificulties when the
Finnish way of life, including its values,
has not been learned at an early stage of
immigration (Tabakova 2010). We also
observed gender-related differences in
57
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
museum). Many essays mention that
thousands of seagulls and squirrels
are part of the city landscape and they
capture the imagination of the visitors.
Writing for the oldest Finnish
Russian-language newspaper known
by its asymmetric name as The Finland
[in Russian] or Russia [in Finnish] Trade
Road, Jakkonen (2011) summarizes what
brings Russian tourists to Helsinki:
They come for shopping and for nonmaterial quasi-retailing from tertiary
industries such as sports, medicine, and
so on. They wish to visit various places
of interest, or just to obtain a Schengen
visa, which is allegedly easier to do in
the Finnish embassy than in the embassy
of any other country. Judging from the
topics discussed on the Internet forums,
among the speciic products attracting
Russian tourists are ish, candies, coffee,
tea, clothes and even the dishwashing
detergent “Fairy,” known to be of better
quality and cheaper than in Russia.
Importantly, these consumption-related
issues are hypocritically avoided in the
essays written by the Russian participants
of our competition, as these topics may
be considered too petty or too arrogant.
When Mumford (1961) was dreaming
of an ideal organic city where nature
and technology achieve a balance, he
was perhaps imagining a town with
the qualities of Helsinki. Nature and hitech, for example, meet here every day.
In 2009 Helsinki became a member of
the international Network of Good Food
Cities of the World, and in 2011 Helsinki
came irst in the “Quality of life” survey
conducted by Monocle magazine (Monocle
2011). Due to this symbiosis of qualities
and what came as a surprise to us, almost
all the young Finnish authors underscored
the comfort of living in Helsinki, and
writers of all ages were impressed by its
tranquility and orderliness.
For Russians, as for Finns, the city is
a place where dreams come true, yet the
Russians perceive the city as a mystery,
while the Finns emphasize its comfort.
When something is put into action and
functions without great pomp, it is
always comes as a big surprise for the
Russians. The city embodies freedom
and, for a Russian, to feel free and on
your own, when nobody oppresses
you, is to learn about yourself and your
feelings, to live making use of all your
senses. For visitors from Russia and
many other countries, Helsinki is unlike
any other city in the world; it is like an
animal from the woods. The Russians
ask themselves what kind of inhabitants
Helsinki can shelter and what it means to
become a true Helsinkian. They wonder
whether they are ever going to be like
Finns. The essay writers relect about
dilemmas of allegiances: If Helsinki
is not their birthplace, how can they
love something other than their own
homeland? Does this mean that they are
traitors, or just that they have found a
place for honest and free people that they
always longed to ind and now aspire to
stay with? Then, more general questions
about urban life arise: If this is a town,
then what can be called a town? What is
the meaning of culture and architecture
in urban settings? Is the town its people
or its nature? What is the meaning of life?
Without the experience of Helsinki, these
relections might not be possible. Such
relections often arise among travelers. A
participant in the competition, E.S. from
the Ukraine, shares her experience:
58
Understanding Urban Spaces
compared to Helsinki 2009, the best
places recommended to visitors relected
the results of the visitors’ votes on the
Internet, while Helsinki 2011 placed on
its cover words from different languages
describing the city as “peaceful,” “green,”
“friendly,” and so on. Among these is the
Russian adjective modnyj [“in vogue”],
which might mean that this characteristic
of the city is most attractive to the Russianspeaking tourists who come to Finland in
their millions, often just for shopping. For
the Finnish people, it is important that
Helsinki hosted the Summer Olympics
in 1952. This symbolized recovering from
the war and post-war sufferings, and
put Helsinki on the world map. More
recently, membership of the European
Union, participation in the program of the
“European City of Culture” in 2000, and
designation as the World Design Capital
in 2012 are milestones in self-perception
and are dear to all Finns. For the Russian
tourists, these achievements are markers
of the life they could not beneit from at
home and a source of relection:
I am thankful to you, the magic city,
for having shown to me what is true
love and real friendship. I thank
you for making me appreciate every
moment of life. I would like to say a lot
of grateful words but, instead, I will
again confess my love and my ininite
respect for you, my dear town.
An anthropomorphic attitude to the city
(the city as a friend, father, and mother) is
a very strong element of the relationship
with the city in literature and in informal
discourse.
The image of the city
Due to the pronounced Russian inluence
in architecture (an example of which
is the Uspensky Orthodox Cathedral
dominating the harbor, although it
operates mostly in the Finnish language),
the oficial tendency is to describe
Helsinki as a capital where Eastern and
Western cultures meet. This description
replaces the previous “Daughter of the
Baltic Sea” that did not fully correspond
to the inner form of the word “Helsinki”
in many languages other than Finnish.
The image-makers of Helsinki underscore
that Helsinki is a northern city, enjoying
its marine surroundings with many
islands, combining the old and the
new, traditional and high-tech, artiicial
parks and natural woods, museums and
nightlife—the city where everything is
nearby. “Helsinki’s identity has been
formed by cultural inluences from both
the East and West” (the Helsinki Today
brochure, 2011).
The series of Helsinki City Tourism
brochures (Helsinki—Visitor’s Guide)
underlines different features of the city
every year. Thus, in Helsinki 2010, as
Why do the Finns, who have received
far from the easiest part of the Earth
to inhabit, and who share a common
past with the Russian Empire, do
better than the Russians? Why is their
quality of life so high?
The brochures do not answer these
fundamental questions. The idea that in
the past Finland and Russia were parts of
the same country is the most important
myth about Finland, and without myths
no symbolic domestication of any city
can be performed (Istorija 2005).
The brochure 24 hours in Helsinki
(Tourist and Convention Bureau 2011, 16)
recommends, among other things, a visit
59
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
to Kafe Moskova, i.e. “Moscow café”. It was
founded by the famous ilm director Aki
Kaurismäki to suit his own taste, so that
nobody else would like it, but it became
popular nevertheless. Besides, Helsinki
has several restaurants specializing in
Russian cuisine, which is held in esteem
thanks to Marshal K.G. Mannerheim,
who liked it. The Russian restaurants are
run by Finns, and a number of dishes
are thought to be Russian, although they
are not (for example, salted cucumbers
with honey, borsch with sausages, and
open cabbage pie with mayonnaise).
Many people enjoy the special lavor that
Russian culture from Czarist and Soviet
times has given to Helsinki.
To get to know a city should give a
special pleasure. To absorb the city, to
identify the relationship between maps
and the 3D reality, to classify its qualities,
and to sort out impressions of its sights
and attractions is partly hard work and
partly an adventure. “Nearly every
sense is in operation, and the image is a
composite of them all,” wrote K. Lynch
(1960, 2). In the Russian tourist guide
(Goldenzweig 2003, 5) we read:
smog and where are trafic jams, where
are fashionable clothes and, after all,
where are palaces and castles? What is
happening?
Nothing.
Nothing will happen in Helsinki: it
lives for itself, absorbed in itself, and
concentrated on itself. It neither rejects
nor pays attention to strangers, being
matter-of-fact and polite. It hides,
bringing the invisible mobile phone to
the ear. This is teleportation through
the receiver. It [the city] conceals traces
and leads you onto the streets where
you will ind the sun, ceremonial shop
windows and Japanese tourists with
cameras, but where you will never get
hold of the city itself.
Similar relections can be found in a series
of advertising photographs published
by Time magazine in 2000. Helsinki was
celebrating its 450th anniversary then and
was declared the oficial European City
of Culture. The photographs emphasize
the feeling that the nature of Earth
and the nature of men and women can
be genuinely sensed in a city that is
nowhere and yet everywhere. Appealing
to the ive senses, the pictures do not tell
us anything about the structure of the
city, except that it is full of moisture and
water.
Some essays submitted by Russianspeaking residents of Finland and
analyzed in this study relect the same
sensitivities and emotions. To illustrate
this, we cite an excerpt from the text
by V.P., a Russian-speaker living in
Helsinki:
There is no such city.
There is salty sea air, boulders strewn
around, the mirror of the Sanomatalo
and the balls of light in the hands of
the train station Atlantes. There are no
Atlantes—their silhouettes fade in the
granite. Here people do not look you
in the eyes; they worship silence and
treat an accidental touch like an electric
discharge. The city is dissolved in an
unrealistic manganese sunset, a sterile
world behind the glass, a pervasive
mirage of Scandinavia leaving you
perplexed: where is the city? Where is
This city smells like spring: the early
spring of March, the dripping water of
60
Understanding Urban Spaces
a thaw that comes after the Epiphany
frosts. It smells like the melting snow
upon the reddish-brown sidewalks,
like the almost sweet salt of the Gulf of
the Baltic Sea and like sharp ir-needles.
It rains, and the light drizzle hovering
in the air—now icy, now prickly, now
warmly and gently enveloping the
streets—evaporates and leaves traces
of moisture on the cheek of a passerby, as if a palm passed over it. [---]
This city seems to hint that it is on its
own, like a cat on a seafront pier, as if
by accident found near the ishermen.
It belongs to nobody, it is ephemeral,
mirrored in the rain spilled upon the
pavement that will dry up. It looks as
if there were no city, as if the mirage
of the daybreak dream disappeared
the minute you opened your eyes.
The tramways clank at the turns and
pedestrian crossings, as if telling each
other the latest news. The bells of the
Three Cathedrals play the second part,
and the bicyclists rushing along the
roads echo them.
Conclusion
In order to discuss the social environment
of the places we live in, we must take
into account not only the demographic
constellation of the citizens and various
urban aspects (including architecture,
history, design, and so on) but also ield
research exploring communication about
places and, in particular, their names.
In our research, we combined methods
derived mostly from socio-onomastics,
ethnography, sociolinguistics, content
analysis, and conversation analysis.
Owing its uniqueness partly to its
“Russian” past, Helsinki has a speciic
romantic lavor in the eyes of the Russians
visiting or living here. It is a European
capital with a false Gothic style, a city
boasting proximity to nature (the sea,
seagulls, forests, rocks, and stones). It
is a Nordic town without particularly
long traditions, eluding those who want
to capture its particular character. This
study enhanced our understanding of
the image of Helsinki for the speakers of
Russian and Finnish, as well as for the
bilingual immigrants who have their own
peculiar patterns of communication. We
understood what places are dear to them,
what their feelings are when Helsinki is
compared to the places where they lived
before, and how the Russian-speaking
community is layered. We also came to
understand how familiarity with the city
affects the quality of everyday life, and
vice versa.
We studied historical transformations
of oficial place-names and the emergence
of unoficial ones coined by immigrants
of different age groups. We explained
the use of such names linguistically,
for example, in comparison with the
slang terms used in Russia, and gave
The texts we analyzed reveal striking
similarities in the image of the city created
by very different people with different
life experiences.
The image of the city, changing
only slightly over time, is presented
in Finljandija 1972, 1994 and 2000). For
example, in 1972, the words of V. Lenin
from 15 June 1913 are quoted: “If in
Finland we see culture, civilization,
freedom, literacy, educated women, and
so on, this is solely because there is no
such ‘social disaster’ in Finland as the
Russian government” (Finljandija 1972,
6). Unfortunately, 100 years later, the
same opinion is expressed by the Russian
media.
61
Ekaterina Protossova & Anu Reponen
What happens in the minds of those
who try to formulate their feelings about
Helsinki relects conlicting feelings that
range from repugnance at their former
sufferings to satisfaction with the city
that offers them completely new and
favorable experiences. Their perceptions
and prejudices clash and, as a result, they
either seek emotional refuge in the past
or comfort themselves saying that their
dreams have come true, even though
reality turned out to be a far cry from
what they expected.
their psychological and sociological
antecedents. The “Old” and the ”New”
Russian terms for various places were
also discussed: the names used in the
Czarist era have vanished from the city’s
toponymy, but they are still present in
the discourse of the “Old Russians”. The
new immigrant identity is constructed
through the use of markers of the
new life. Historically, Russian names
of the Helsinki streets went through
a series of transformations. First, they
were transliterations of the Swedish
names; then they were partly adapted
to the Russian language: the word
“street” was translated and a Swedish
name was transformed into a Russianlike adjective with a Russian sufix.
At the inal stage the Swedish name
was translated completely, in the same
way as its Finnish counterpart. Today,
Russian speakers adopt Finnish names
in their original or slang form, or make
up their own variants. Young people use
hybrid slang words, while some adults
apply Russian models to Finnish placenames. Urban names commemorate facts
of integration, acquaintance with Finnish
urban culture, a clash of prejudices, and
real-life stories. Different explanations
have been offered to interpret the speciic
use of urbanonyms in the speech of
Russians in Helsinki.
The image of Helsinki is relected in
the minds of its residents and tourists,
and it contributes to the fusion of
cultures. The Finnish sources try to
present a visitor-friendly version of
the Finnish understanding of history,
whereas the local media in the Russian
language seek to facilitate a long-term
task of familiarization with the new
surroundings by immigrants and guests.
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of Social Identities among the
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Protassova, Ekaterina. 2007. Stability
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Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The Image of the City.
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Tabakova.
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Табакова,
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?Yelenevskaya. 2011. Еленевская, Мария.
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The Column of the Empress Alexandra
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The Uspensky Orthodox cathedral, one
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64
Understanding Urban Spaces
The former house of the Russian Seller
Kiseleff, now a fashionable department
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Soia Street, a museum about streets
Café Soia which serves Russian food
65
Sentenced to Commute
Sentenced to Commute:
Indigenous Young Women at a
City University1
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
University of Haifa, Israel
Abstract
This study unveils the city from the perspective
of young, indigenous women, undergraduate
students who commute to a city university
from remote, traditional communities. Relying
on in-depth interviews with 22 Israeli Druze
women, natives of Galilean locales, it explores
their daily transition to and from the city. The
analysis divulges key issues worth attention: the
respondents’ use of temporal frames to organize
their experience of transition, the effects of place
and mobility on how they negotiate their identity
following their interactions with the urban way of
life and, inally, a comment on the spatialization of
multiculturalism is conveyed.
Daily commuters and the multicultural
city
ulticulturalism is a term
mentioned with regard to
non-hegemonic groups, most
commonly:
immigrants, national
minorities and indigenes. It refers to the
decent response to the socio-cultural
heterogeneity of the demographic
composition in speciic places (Song, 2010).
Most typically, cities are such diversiied
places attracting many who seek to
beneit from their qualities as trading
hubs, marketplaces, industrial complexes,
transportation nodes, governmental
cores, foci of political activity and centers
of service provision. Cities are also the
location of many institutes of higher
M
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 67-89
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
67
education—the pivot of the current
study. Urban multiculturalism is largely
evaluated by spatial separation into
neighborhoods so that social groups,
usually ethnic and racial, are sorted into
various parts of the housing market. This
is largely explained by prejudice and
discrimination against such groups and
by own-group preferences to maintain
distinctiveness within speciic urban
parcels (Clark 2002; Krysan and Farley
2002; Massey and Denton 1993; Yinger
1995). This common focus on spatial
segregation dismisses the temporal impact
of daily dynamic, misreading additional
forms of segregation across the urban
space. Some recent research has noted
that racial and ethnic transformation of
urban tracts occurs through employment.
As many urbanites move to their places
of work, where they meet people from
different socio-cultural groups who live
in other neighborhoods, their commuting
disrupts the known segregated order of
the housing market, yielding additional
urban patterns of segregation (Blumen
and Zamir 2001; Ellis, Wright and Parks
2004).
However, as a focal point for various
activities, the city also attracts many,
employees and others, who reside beyond
the metropolitan limits. Not only does
this low of incoming people increase the
city’s day-population, it also intensiies
its diversity, portraying new, short-lived,
hard to measure and unexplored spatial
patterns of interactions and segregation.
One well-acknowledged familiar daily
inlux is that of ex-urban employees
who re-enter the city for employment
purposes. Another relatively ordinary
low of incomers is that of university
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
unveil their accumulative experience
of frequent urban encounters and
habitual luctuations between these
two, traditional and modern, gendered
worlds. After considering the status of
Israeli Druze women and methodological
issues, this experience is conveyed
and then analyzed with reference to
multiculturalism in the city.
students who have not located to the
city and commute regularly from their
remote, often rural, neighborhoods.
This study explores such a case, tackling
multiculturalism from the less common
perspective of daily migrants. It turns
the light on their reality, focusing on the
experience of indigenous young women
who, in their pursuit of higher education,
re-enter the city and experience its
spirit while adding to its multicultural
characteristic.
In the last decades, in most developed
societies as well as in many developing
ones, a remarkable boom in higher
education has been largely centered on
women. Higher education increases
the chances of women to upgrade their
earning potential and enhances their
social capital as well as that of their family
and community (Becker, Hubbard and
Murphy 2010). In developing societies
in the Arab world these advantages
often provoke a paradox, challenging
the traditional coninement of women
to the home environment and the strict
supervision over their movements and
social contacts. This study explores
the experience of young women,
undergraduate students, who live in this
paradox. It conveys the perceptions of
Israeli Druze women who dwell in remote,
semi-rural, traditional communities and
commute to a city university. Previous
research on Arab Palestinian women in
the Israeli system of higher education
focused mostly on long-term processes
of identity re-construction after their
university period and homecoming. The
current study highlights their university
period, exploring their present actuality
as students. Following their commuting
to and from the city, this study seeks to
Druze in Israel
The Druze people of the Middle East
reside in Syria, Lebanon and Israel
where they exist as small minorities
with no national aspirations. They make
up a small, traditional and religious
community whose origin is unclear.
Today it is common to identify Druze
with Arabs because of some similar
ways of life: customs, popular beliefs,
dress, food and language. However,
alongside some unique cultural traits,
their esoteric religion (evolved in Egypt
about one thousand years ago) separates
them from their neighboring Arabs. To
protect their mores and maintain their
distinctiveness the Druze tend to live in
isolation, mostly in small, mountainous
villages away from national centers.
Solidarity with the Druze collective is
very strong and includes powerful ties
between patriarchal, patrilineal clans
that rank women at the bottom of social
hierarchy (Dana 1998, 49; Farraj-Falach
2005; Firro 1992; Katz 1990; Layish 2000).
In Israel, some 123,000 Druze comprise
less than 2 per cent of the national
population and only 10.1 per cent of the
Arab citizens minority (82% Muslim),
residing in 16 mountain locales. Living
in isolation, Israeli Druze have shaped
a rural, conservative and close-knit
community that strictly preserves its
68
Sentenced to Commute
1992; Hassan 1992) and not with their
level of education. In recent years,
however, Druze emphasis on schooling
has yielded a rapid increase in schooling,
including tertiary education for women.
religious and traditional values with
strong clan solidarity (Al-Krenawi and
Graham 2001; Dana 1998; Hassan 2011).
Israeli Druze are a recognized,
autonomous religious group with a
separate education system where Druze
heritage is integral in the curriculum.
Unlike the majority of Arab-Palestinian
citizens who are exempt from military
service, military conscription for Druze
men is compulsory following agreement
between the state and the community.
As a result, individuals and locales are
entitled to some lawful privileges, such
as, subsidies in housing, infrastructure
investments, construction and welfare
beneits. Existing research has tended,
Druze women
The patriarchal nature of the Druze
community in Israel has been meagerly
researched and, similar to other
characteristics, much information has
been extrapolated from research on
Muslim women which attenuates Druze
distinctiveness where, for example,
religious proscription of polygamy most
prominently singles out Druze women.
Nevertheless, women’s status is low and
social control over them is especially
tight. They are obliged to obey the men
of their extended family and to assume
housework and child-rearing (FarrajFalach 2005; Hassan 2008; Layish 2000).
Women’s behavior greatly determines
the reputation, “honor”, of their entire
family and hence their chastity must be
demonstrated by modest clothing, limited
individual mobility, male chaperonage
in public places and, in many cases, also
by refraining from driving and physical
exercise (Dwairy 1998; Lewin-Epstein
and Semyonov 1992; Farraj-Falach 2005;
Weiner 2004, 2008).
Although in Israel, higher education is
considered important and has raised selfawareness among indigenous women
(Pessate-Schubert 2003), cultural barriers
still constrain Druze women’s access to
institutes of higher education (Weiner
2004 and 2008). Adherence to traditional
cultural practices is greatly affected by
locales’ distance from the metropolitan
center of Haifa. This cultural geography
has determined the expansion of higher
mostly, to illuminate Druze involvement
in the Israeli political system. Studies of
Druze multiple-identity in connection
with their Israeli and Arab identities
show that the majority adheres to the
Arab identity component and dissociates
itself from the Palestine narrative, while
considering Druze Israeliness as a real,
non-instrumental identity (for detailed
discussions see Nisan 2010; and Yiftachel
and Segal 1998). Unlike many Arab
citizens who live in cities and in semiurban locales close to urban centers,
Druze tendency of separatism conines
most of them to isolated, rural locales.
As a result, the ability of Druze women
to rely on modern ideas of equality and
negotiate the traditional gender regime
and the patriarchal constraints it imposes
on their daily lives barely exists. The
effect of this dissociation from urban life
has been noted, though not researched,
by few scholars and only with regard to
Druze involvement in the Israeli labor
market (Kirschenbaum and Goldberg
69
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
rural schools, promoting intellectual
curiosity and academic independence,
and legitimizing the questioning of
taken-for-granted
knowledge
and
arguing with authority. As the effects of
this openness extend beyond academic
texts, university women students also
challenge patriarchal authority and
norms common in their own community.
They illustrate their university period
as a time of intense individual change
and as an opportunity to discover their
true “inner selves” and restructure their
identity in a more individualistic way.
Their reconstructed, new identity is
fragmented and divided between covert
and overt components:
the covert,
suppressed identity is constructed by
Western, more individualistic norms,
while the overt, openly-expressed
identity manifests traditional cultural
norms common in their semi-rural home
communities. The overt component
regulates the identity displayed in public
and this observed femininity involves
modest clothing and adherence to
traditional gender roles (Weiner 2004).
Indeed, this identity reconstruction
relects the paradox of higher education
for women in developing societies where
increasing the likelihood of women’s
earning and of the community wealth
might not keep the need to preserve
speciic indicators of women’s (lower)
status and identiiable pointers of the
traditional gender regime which are
often considered as a brand-marking
symbol of the distinctiveness of the
whole community. The potential of space
to unravel this paradox is important
though hardly recognized in these
studies of Israeli Druze women and their
Arab Palestinian peers. Distances and
education among women in recent
years. In the late 1980s, despite stringent
forbidding by religious traditional
leaders, several Druze women from the
two Carmel vicinities, on the outskirts
of Metropolitan Haifa and a ten minute
drive from the University of Haifa,
broke through patriarchal hindrance and
attended higher education. Leaving their
home neighborhoods, often unescorted,
and studying in the company of men,
these women contravened traditional
norms and they encountered powerful
opposition, at times even ostracism of
their families and excommunication
from the Druze religion (Falach 1991;
Weiner 2004)a punishment ordinarily
reserved for murderers and adulterers.
Approximately a decade later these
trailblazer women were followed
by young women from their Carmel
vicinities and, a few years later, young
women from the more remote, rural and
traditional locales in the Galilee joined
them. Over the years, higher education
slowly gained legitimacy, yet some
Galilean communities still disapprove of
higher education for women. Today some
80% of high school Druze female students
aspire to higher education (Farraj-Falach
2005, 61) and, within higher education,
female Druze students outnumber their
male peers.
Most research attention to Druze
women is centered on their education.
Tertiary
education,
especially
at
universities, presents Western culture
to Druze women and equips them
with new perspectives on their own
needs and values regarding the place
of individuals in the family and society.
University teaching differs greatly from
the traditional methods common in the
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Sentenced to Commute
the nature of movements between places
may inluence the lexibility of patriarchal
control, although the need to travel to a
city university from small, isolated, rural
communities seems to work against such
lexibility. Only one study of Bedouin
women identiied chaperoning and
religious clothing as instrumental means
that legitimate entry to the modern,
Jewish space of the university, but
consequences are discussed as a longterm process the effect of which appears
mostly after inalizing university studies
(Abu-Rabia-Queder, forthcoming). Thus
the spatialization of everyday life, of
how distances and movements turn into
a matter of daily decision-making and
daily practices within the “big” pattern
that conditions attendance at higher
education, is generally overlooked.
This study seeks to unveil how such
performance of routine transitions
structures the daily reality of young Druze
women students who move between
their traditional home communities and
the modern city where their university is
located.
insights can be derived from research on
Arab-Palestinians. Israel, which deines
itself as a modern, democratic and Jewish
state, granted equal rights to Israeli-Arabs
at its inception, including the afirmation
of Arabic as a formal language. However,
Hebrew evidently dominates the entire
spectrum of life outside indigenous
locales and this almost guarantees a
serious disadvantage at the level of higher
education for graduates of the Arabic
language based secondary education.
This structural disadvantage generates
an enduring confusion and a tendency
toward collective separatism on the part
of Israeli Arab-Palestinians alongside
the view of university education as an
important path to upward mobility, at
least for individuals (Rabinowitz and
Abu Baker 2002). While, today, many
young Arab women are encouraged to
become university students, they are
still marginalized by the socio-cultural
strategies of a traditional society which,
in the last few decades, has selectively
adopted modern inluences. Primarily,
gendered cultural norms encourage
women and men to maintain their
distinctiveness from each other; women
are inculcated from childhood to give
precedence to their families’ and clans’
interests and curb their individuality
(Haj 1992; Hassan 1991; Rapoport,
Lumski-Feder and Masalha 1989; Sa’ar
2001; Shokeid 1993).
The city, the university and the research
setting
To illustrate the setting of the current
study about the daily transitions of
young Druze women we have to rely
on studies about Arab-Palestinian
students. Previous studies have hardly
concentrated on Druze students in
Israeli universities. Considering the
focus of the review on Druze and two
important similarities between Druze
and Arab-Palestinian female students,
their minority language, that is, Arabic
as the mother tongue, and living under
strict patriarchal regime, some relevant
The respondents are students of the
University of Haifa. Haifa is the third
largest urban area in Israel, the population
of which exceeds half a million, nearly
10 per cent of the national population.
The city is situated on Mount Carmel,
and its range of inluence includes the
71
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
Northern District where Israeli Druze
live. Haifa is one of a few Israeli cities
where Arab-Palestinian and Jewish
citizens live together, and it is known for
its comfortable coexistence. A magnet
for many students from the north, the
city affords young Arab-Palestinians,
especially women, a relatively free social
environment (Kashua 2004). As a result,
the University of Haifa is the only research
university in the country where the
percentage of Arab-Palestinian students
(23%) is higher than its percentage in
the Israeli population (almost 20%). The
number of women students, especially
young women, has risen dramatically in
the last decades and today they make up
over 65% of the Arab-Palestinian students
on campus. As a result, the University
of Haifa is a unique Israeli arena with a
long tradition of teaching mixed classes
of Palestinians and Jews (Sair, Nevo and
Swirski 1994). Hence, the choice made
by many scholars to focus on ArabPalestinian students of the University of
Haifa is not surprising, but this is the irst
study that focuses on some parts of the
experience of Druze women.
describe the economic situation in their
families as “relatively good” and “a little
better than average” which is supported
by the fact that none were involved in paid
work. While these characteristics imply
openness to the outside, modern world,
the fact that the majority of their mothers
(19) are full-time homemakers and that
all the respondents said that they spend
a considerable amount of time doing
domestic chores in the immediate and the
extended family, indicates the prevalence
of the customary gender regime and
women’s focus on their traditional roles
(see also Fogiel-Bijaoui and Bechar 2003;
Seginer, Karayani and Mar’i 1990). At the
time of interviews the respondents were
19-21 years old, second- to fourth-year
full-time undergraduate students at the
faculties of Humanities, Social Sciences,
Education and Law at the University
of Haifa. They all lived with their birth
families in their native neighborhoods
in three Galilean Druze locales, the most
distant being about 60-80 kilometers from
the University of Haifa and an 80-130
minute drive each way. Thus, this group
of respondents represents a relatively
long and bothersome commute and the
interviewees are well acquainted with
this experience of daily transitions.
Interviews were conducted in Arabic
(the Druze mother tongue) by two young,
female Druze peers (as part of a wider
research project about the effect of higher
education) previously unacquainted with
the interviewees, at a place chosen by the
interviewees (usually off-campus), lasting
about ninety minutes. Interviewees were
re-approached (by the same interviewer
on campus or via phone) to verify the
impressions gained in the course of the
interview. This matching was valuable in
Methods
Considering the complexity of this
situation, we asked how they reckon with
the decision to commute to the city and
how they feel about their experience of
daily transitions to and from the city. The
study relies on in-depth, semi-structured
interviews with 22 young Druze female
students. The respondents’ fathers are
mostly skilled blue-collar workers (11)
and self-employed (9), usually outside the
locale (18) in urban vicinities, and the men
in the immediate family (fathers and brothers)
assumed military service. The respondents
72
Sentenced to Commute
enhancing our access to such relatively
intimate information (Bhavnani 2004;
see also the discussion in Wolf 1996).
Interviews were recorded, translated and
transcribed; the text was analyzed by
the authors with the help of indigenous
young women in a process of double
veriication across cultural boundaries
within the research team. Taken together
we believe that these measures assure
high-quality, authentic information.
“chain of sprints” and the respondents
say that they feel like participants in a
“race” or as attempting to “grow wings”.
The daily routine is quite similar for all
respondents who start their day very
early in the morning aiming to reach the
classroom in time for the earliest lecture
(8:30 am).
I wake up at about ive thirty [am]
to catch the irst bus. My mother has
already prepared some hot beverage
for me and I grab a pita [bread] or
a sandwich or a cookie to eat on the
way. I have to dash. I arrange all my
stuff the evening before, not to waste
“sleeping time” in the morning. If I
miss the bus the whole day gets messy
and stressful. It’s better to be on time
for the irst bus, then you can relax. I
have to take my big bag which is quite
full and heavy, especially in the winter
[when] it is annoying, [because of] the
cold, the wind and the rain, it’s easy to
be late and sure, you’ll be late often.
If I take the second bus I’m late. And
also I spend the whole ride with those
[students] who slept over, most [of
whom] are not very good [students]. I
am not like them, I am a good student,
though I am from a [distant] village.
I’m not in one of these “nothing” [lowlevel], though closer, colleges. (Rim)
Transition to the city through time
frames
The experience of transitions is primarily
and most prevailingly structured in
temporal terms. Time represents itself
as a manifold array made of various
frames, serving as a high-level apparatus
by which reality is sorted. It embraces
daily transitions as a two-way, concrete
occurrence, and a sense of passing
through time that implies mid- and
long-term processes. Typical interviews
started with daily concerns, and then
long-term processes, which contextualize
daily transitions, were expressed. This
order indicates that sorting out daily
occurrences is a more pressing issue for
the interviewees while dealing with longterm processes is a much more transparent
and comprehensive undertaking.
The “management of time” is a
term often used to describe day-to-day
routines and occurrences which are
largely structured around commuting to
and from the university. Daily transitions
are foremost about handling the routine
as university students. The respondents
attend the university four to ive days each
week and distinguish their “university
days” from their “home/family days”.
University days are described as a
University students are distinguished
from college students by their ability to
handle the burden of long commuting.
Clearly, space is considered to be a barrier
for the students’ academic achievements
and wellbeing. Evidently, spatial mobility
is constrained by two institutional
times. The irst is determined by the city
university. Besides the need to study
and prepare academic assignments,
its daily effects are felt in the evening
before the commute, when the students
73
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
I also need time to study at home.
So they pay a lot for me to go to the
university in the city and I am grateful.
(Arin)
do all their non-academic preparations.
University institutional time clearly
sculptures the morning waking time
and other arrangements so as to enable
the interviewees to it into another
institutional time which is scheduled
mostly by commercial considerations
of the public transport service. Meeting
the time constraints of the, usually two,
public transport schedules facilitates
the students’ capability to synchronize
their transition from their domestic
setting to that of the university. Five of
the respondents are regularly driven by
a family member (father) to a nearby bus
station on the main, intercity road where
many buses heading to the city central
station stop. Without parental help the
mornings of these students would be
extremely stressful because of the scarcity
of public transport in their village as
compared to the neighborhoods of most
of the other respondents.
Morning transition is also indicative of
class, including issues such as economic
background, mode of commuting,
personal expenses and family support.
All respondents reported on satisfying
occasions when they are driven by a
family member “door-to-door”, from
their home to the university. These are
rare occurrences and unaffordable by
their own, “above average”, families:
Although none of the respondents holds
a driving licence, and none actually
knows a young Druze woman who
drives her own car to the university,
either occasionally or regularly, all do
share a fantasy of commuting by their
own self-driven car:
I wish I had my own car, it’s so less
stressful, makes you free not sentenced
[constrained] to the bus. Having your
own car to go to the university it’s
almost like living in the city, you can be
yourself, go where nobody knows you.
Just knowing that changes you much
more than going to the university with
some [familiar] people. But I couldn’t
ask my father to also pay for this [out
of home residence], it would break his
heart to turn me down for something
that could really ease my studies, make
me an even better student. (Arin)
Although class nuances are mostly
associated with the pricey commuting,
the respondents recognize this costly
transition as only one part of their
comfortable status as full-time students
that burdens their families. They try
to reciprocate by physical efforts such
as travelling in overcrowded buses,
carrying their heavy luggage all around
during their long university days,
consuming less expensive food and,
obviously, by aiming towards high
academic
achievements,
including
association with students of similar
academic aspirations (see an excerpt
from Rim’s interview quoted earlier). Yet
their experience induces a wish for a less
Public transport [to the university]
costs a lot, more than 70 shekels [20
US$] per day to go back and forth.
My mother prepares some food and a
vacuum lask with coffee and a bottle
of water that I take but it’s a long day
and I often buy some snacks. I don’t
work because they [family] want me
to excel and know that travelling so
many hours each day is really tiring.
74
Sentenced to Commute
native culture and to the importance of
family ties and approval. The reports
on such fancies are withheld by inancial
concerns and even Maysloon aborts her
outspoken desire to experience city life,
which would rely on her own independent
income, for that reason. Very interestingly,
gender, though unmistakably implied,
is not brought up directly with regard
to these socio-economic and mobility
concerns of the morning bus ride. It is,
however, tackled most prevalently with
regard to the evening ride.
constrained existence with regard to the
institutional time of the transport service
and social control (as expressed by Arin),
but not necessarily with regard to the
university institutional time. The latter
triggers this imaginary light to the city,
away from their native neighborhoods.
The inaccessible car clearly epitomizes
autonomy as the beneit of potential
exercise of anonymity and individualism
which are characteristic of city life. Seven
respondents are more direct, contrasting
the city with their home locales:
I usually wake up a few minutes
before my mother checks on me and
think about the day. I think about how
I need to hurry to catch the irst bus to
the [inter]city and catch the city bus;
how it is going to be overcrowded
and move slowly through the jampacked, noisy streets and the smelly
smog. It is different from what we
have at home, not frightening, but
intriguing. [City] people can come and
go as they like, wear what they want,
talk to whoever they wish and have
coffee with anybody. They are not
recognized and labeled [by passersby]. I think this place suits me. I often
ask myself whether I could move,
really separate from my life and live in
the city, alone [independently], having
a job, an apartment, and new friends.
But this is too expensive a dream and
my family could never pay for such an
undertaking. (Maysloon)
The evening transition to the home
The evening commuting is usually very
tight and demands coordination of
several passages between different means
of transport. Latest buses on campus are
strictly timed 10-15 minutes after the
evening lectures (18.00 and 20.00), which
barely leaves enough time to reach one of
the bus stations on campus.
Missing the [last] bus is not an option.
It means that my father or my older
brother has to drive to the city, to
the university, about one hour each
direction, to drive me home. It’s
unthinkable. Now [normally] one of
them has to drive to the main road
and pick me up at the bus station,
but this is only about half an hour
altogether, not two hours. The second
[intercity] bus drops me off on the
main road and it’s late and the service
is slow [infrequent]. I call home about
15 minutes before my stop, and my
brother leaves to wait for me. There
is little light and it is quite frightening
for a girl [young woman] alone at
night on the road and they [the family]
don’t want me to wait because it’s
dangerous. It’s better not to be [seen]
alone, to be waited for. We [women]
Notably, the respondents refrain from
explaining the contrasting circumstances
that inspire such fancies of lying away as
a liberating step. Although this refraining
may be related to a wide, taken-forgranted understanding of the restrictive
regime in the home environment, it also
attests to the respect they have for their
75
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
have to be careful. What if a [male]
student or somebody else is already at
the station? People [might] think we
are together and talk [gossip]... By the
time of the spring semester it is not so
terrible because the night comes later
and he [her brother] waits for me only
after the last lecture. But winter nights
are terrible. Not only do I have to pay
attention [coordinate] to call home on
time when on the bus and see nothing
outside, it’s also very cold, windy and
often rainy. So it’s really better that
he waits. It could have been better to
drive my own car but this is a dream
for most unwedded [young, female]
students. Also for me even if we [the
immediate family] are modern, not
religious. … This is my last year [at
the university] and I never miss the
[evening] bus... With all these layers
of clothing, the heavy bag and the
crowded corridors, I have to be quick
though I’m tired. Sometimes I skip the
toilet to be on time for the bus, and
remember, it’s a long ride. Honestly,
I’m careful not to drink during the last
class. (Belkis)
and the deserted environment. These
signify moral panic and generate a sense
of vulnerability and insecurity in the
young women upon their late return
to their distant locales. To reduce the
perceived risk and the panic it raises,
evening commuting is also constrained
by the personal time of men, usually
brothers, who chaperon the women for
the last part of their journey. Although
seemingly personal, the chaperons’
time is also largely institutional: it
represents the family whose men
provide the chaperonage and whose
evening schedule incorporates this
need to care for the family women. The
chaperons’ time is also embedded in
the second institutional time, that of the
community by which the circumstances
for chaperonage are determined. Clearly
this moral panic is gendered, centered
on the protection of women’s modesty
(sexuality) as a signiier of the family
reputation and “honor”. Phrases such
as, “because we are girls”, “especially
important for women” and “only for
women” were often voiced as indicators
of this concern.
Because
of
their
burdensome
commuting, extra-urban students who
try to make the most of their university
days usually stay late which integrates
such a late, anxious ride into their routine.
Relecting on this evening anxiety, the
interviews resort to irony and even
cynicism:
Belkis touches upon most of the issues
mentioned by the other respondents.
It is indicated that, similarly to the
morning commuting, the institutional
schedules of the university and of at
least two more public transport services
shape the journey back home. Means of
commuting appear to be very important
and, while driving a private car is
mentioned and dismissed immediately
as irrelevant for women, being driven
in a private car by a family member is
an important component, typical of the
evening transition. In this context several
other aspects are emphasized: physical
discomfort, tiredness and climate hassles
are accumulated over the night-darkness
It is not only that these [daily] journeys
are tiring for me, they are also more
expensive for my family than dorm
living. During the irst year some of us
[female friends] even indicated it to the
parents, to show how we [the family]
can save money, make university less
76
Sentenced to Commute
new people [unknown male students].
It’s ine because you are never alone
on the bus and must be careful not to
chat with them for long because you’re
not really unfamiliar... You know how
it is for women, people always know
people who know people who know
you and your family. It is not [her
emphasis] like you are walking alone
in the city and there is little chance to
meet acquaintances. On the bus you
meet a lot of new people who speak
your language and you are relatively
free to look, talk and laugh, and then
you can meet later on the campus,
elsewhere in the city. It’s surely not
easy but possible even if I myself
never did such a thing, especially with
someone who is not like me [Druze].
Anyway, as you get closer to home,
you have to arrange your clothes to
[suit] the home [community milieu]
and call your brother to come and
meet you and, even if you have a nice
chat with someone, he knows your
family watches you, and soon you
get off. You are a “good” girl. You can
continue later on facebook, but you
have time to think if you are interested
at all. (Rim)
costly. All received the same response
saying that “some things are worth
more than money such as our tradition,
values and honor” and that “women
and daughters that respect their
[religious-traditional] origin don’t
fancy city living, where sinful episodes
are a daily matter”. Isn’t it funny? I
voice my opinion to my parents but
not outside [publicly]. So I respect their
view and go [commute]. I’ll never be
disrespectful, immodest [because] that
might hurt them. (Ranna)
Apparently class nuances and economic
concerns are tied in with social control
and the need to commute daily in order to
avoid the peril of the urban lifestyle. Yet,
it is attested by all the respondents that
some criticism, individualism and sense of
autonomy are expressed indoors, within
the conines of family privacy. This gap
indicates how gender is negotiated within
the context of modernization, where
processes within the family are muted
in order to protect the social consensus
outside, in the community public space.
This negotiation is discussed later.
Similar to the morning bus, being
conined for a long ride with only
vaguely familiar fellow-passengers—
women and men, yields opportunities
for mixing. Following her description of
the morning bus, where socializing with
students of high academic aspirations
seems important, Rim conveys the
different atmosphere of the evening
ride:
Thus, evening commuting becomes a
discrete arena for mixing and matching
opportunities where social control,
though existing, is not as tight as
usual. It is interesting to note not only
that considerations for mixing on the
evening bus are different from those
on the morning bus, but performance
of social control such as re-dressing
to affect a modest appearance and
coordinating chaperonage are used to
“correct” random lirting on the bus. The
respondents are familiar with a few cases
of romantic relations that had originated
on the evening bus and tend to clarify
You meet a lot of new [young] people
on the bus and it’s nice. You are still
“city pretty” [voiced in Hebrew “Yaffa
La’ir”, see Amira below] and a little
bit droopy, and the evening is dark. If
you are not too tired, you can talk with
77
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
that, normally, young Druze women
follow the code of chastity and separate
themselves from strangers. This latter
emphasis relects the Druze tendency
of separatism from non-Druze Arabs
with whom they share a mother tongue.
Segregation from the Jewish majority
differs because, as Amira implies, it
is embedded in their dependence on
institutional time:
where she takes the intercity bus] and
I walk around window-shopping,
watching the people in the cafes, going
in different directions. It seems like a
big mess but it’s not, everybody goes
somewhere, nobody is lost. I like to
watch all kinds of people: old, young,
children, Arabs, Jews, tourists… I
look at the women wearing beautiful,
fashionable clothes, some wearing
tight T-shirts and shorts; they are
lovely though they look so naked.
Sometimes I ask myself if I could
walk like that on the street, not at
home [neighborhood], of course, but
elsewhere around the world. I wear
trousers and it’s ine, but never tight
jeans. When I’m there [in the city], I try
to make myself prettier, modern, to be
it for the city. I put on some make-up,
lipstick, arrange my blouse…
I have to catch the bus and don’t
have time to talk with the teacher
and others [students] when the class
ends. This is bad mostly when we
[students] have to do team tasks. [As
a result] I can work only with other
Arab [female] students, and it turned
out that we [Druze] usually study
together and sometimes with [Arab]
Christian [female] students. Many
[Jewish] students want to work with
us [Druze] and we want to work with
them, but it’s hard, we never have time
to hang around and do things together
with them so we stick to each other.
(Amira)
[She re-presents her body: tightening
her blouse, opening the top button,
hanging her coat on her hand, shaking
her head to let the hair fall freely,
stretching her body upright and
wearing a big smile.]
I don’t overdo it because someone
[familiar] might notice me, but I do
change myself a little. I feel different,
freer, more myself, the real Amira, more
than in the university and certainly
more than in my neighborhood. I
always dress nice for the university
and take special things [clothes and
accessories] to change into in the
[public] toilets. But when I to go to the
mall I pay more attention to be “city
pretty”. Sometimes I go with a [girl]
friend and it’s more fun, but even by
myself it’s nice. It is not like going to
Hadar or to the Merkaz [local business
districts] where you are actually out
[doors], where it’s more dangerous
around places [sites] which are really
no good for women. Anyway, I don’t
have much time to wander around,
It is indicated that the evening pressure not
only incapacitates personal preparations
but it also purges discussions with
teachers and cooperation with other
students. While separatism is maintained,
academic achievements and aspirations
suffer.
It is, however, noteworthy that, though
common, commuting to the home does
not always imply a late bus ride. The
respondents reported that at least once
a week they return home earlier, in the
afternoon:
On Tuesdays it turned out that I have
some time to do what I like. Usually
I go to the mall [at the central station
78
Sentenced to Commute
on campus where they are recognized
as Druze by others, including kith
and kin. It is noteworthy that all the
respondents dress in a modern way yet,
as they move toward the city, all slightly
amend their appearance in a way which
is less acceptable as modest in their
neighborhood but hardly noticeable
by modern outsiders. Altogether, these
seemingly minor changes in representing
the body at home, on the campus, and in
the city, relect variations in the sense of
the gendered self which are related to
place and mobility. These are discussed
in the last section.
but every other week for one or two
hours I feel different, like abroad.
Interviewer: Did you ever go to Hadar
or to Merkaz?
Sometimes I go, but always with
friends. It’s interesting for me because
I’m used to the village, but I feel better
at the mall. I’m more comfortable to
do some little shopping for myself,
clothes and in the drugstore, and
[costume] jewelry, and all the other
stores. In my neighborhood the stuff
[selection] is boring, at the university
it’s limited and at the mall there is
everything. (Amira)
Returning home in the afternoon offers
an advantage which is most often taken
by the young women to encounter city
life as a fourfold experience: reduced
social control, exploring “improper”
territories,
restructuring
bodily
appearance, and joining consumption as
a relatively private act. While all these
aspects are unquestionably embedded in
their “going-to-the-university”, they are
experienced as spatially and temporally
separated from the campus life. The semipublic space of the mall seems to provide
an agreeable mixture of anonymity,
safety, and hubbub that enables these
young women to encounter city life
without seriously challenging their
community conventions. Interestingly,
bodily restructuring, which is admittedly
an important component of the morning
daily commuting, was mentioned in
passing by only two interviewees. Yet
it was brought up with regard to this
less frequent ride which was mentioned
by an additional 16 respondents. While
this neglect might be related to privacy
and modesty it, nevertheless, indicates
the extent of social control which is
felt by these young women also when
Home days: transitions through the
weekly and yearly frames
Although the women’s experience of
daily transitions is fragmented between
the morning and the evening bus rides
as separated endeavors, the two are
not unconnected. To explicate their
connectedness, the respondents turn
to different time frames that better
capture the cyclic experience of their
transitionsthe weekly and the yearly
routines. Out of the seven days of the
week the respondents spend two or three
days at home. They usually describe
themselves as adult daughters in their
parents’ home:
The most important thing is to study, to
prepare my academic tasks, including
reading. Written assignments always
come irst and then reading [which is]
extremely dificult and time consuming
because it’s mostly English [second
foreign language]. Often I tend to avoid
it... I know it’s not right, my parents
are making [inancial] efforts, and I
don’t have to [take paid] work except
during the [summer] vacation… I am
79
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
a good student, but I could do much
better. [Hence]It’s good that I don’t
live there [dorms] with all the friends
and the “city fun”. I would probably
have studied even less, go out to
wander around with friends, to spend
time in the city and the [dorm’s] club
and so on. I do imagine what it could
be like to live there but, still, even with
all these annoying tours [commuting],
I have more time to study at home.
Here I can help my Mom at home,
you know, cleaning, washing, in the
kitchen. I help my aunt with her young
toddlers, I do some shopping for my
grandmother and help her in the
house, and once a week I help some of
my uncle’s kids with their homework.
There are many things that I do and
my family counts on my help. And
I spend some time, actually a lot of
time, with my friends and some of my
cousins. Here there are a lot of family
affairs but I can always say that I have
to study to avoid some of them; in the
dorms you’re alone [independent]…
who can tell you what to do? You don’t
need to say you’re studying to have a
little peace [privacy]. (Mariam)
to that of her native neighborhood with
regard to studying, personal autonomy,
domestic work, unsupervised mingling
and mobility. Although none complained
about their home-days’ routine, all
respondents confessed envisaging such
an alternative. Thus, while descriptions
of daily commuting are mostly structured
around practices and habits of moving
to and from the city, contrasting “home
days” with “university days” offers
a fuller perspective of the women’s
transition between the two worlds.
Mariam alludes to another cyclic order
that contextualizes the transitions to and
from the city. The yearly order separates
the university period from the fourmonth summer vacation. Besides the
short-term ceasing of daily commuting,
the most important aspect of summer
vacation is the involvement of most (19
out of 22) of the respondents in paid
work for three to four months. All are
employed in jobs near to their homes,
working as temporary shop assistants,
cashiers, child minders and other types
of helping jobs, often in local businesses
owned by members of the extended
family. While all said that they were
treated fairly well at their jobs, 14 (of
the 19) reported on being underpaid—
below minimum wages and commented
that such unlawful salaries are common
among employed women in the region:
Mariam’s description clearly identiies
studying, domestic and family work,
and same-sex mingling as the three most
prevalent activities that dominate the
students’ “home days” routine. These
are portrayed hierarchically so that
the prioritization of studying is widely
accepted. The effect of gender is noticeable
with regard to the non-academic
activities, such as, domestic chores,
child minding, controlled social links
and exemption from inancial worries,
which altogether structure a relatively
sheltered environment for young women
students. For Mariam living on campus
in the city implies an alternative order
I believe that in the city people
[employers] who don’t know you or
your family wouldn’t dare to pay you
less [than minimum wages] but I live
here. Even those who live on campus
return home for the summer vacation
and are underpaid. But we usually
have to work during the summer for
at least three months to help the family
80
Sentenced to Commute
always emphasized education and
I always tried to be good [at school].
My father always wanted me to go to
the university, to have a better future
as a woman and a mother. I now know
what a better future means for me.
Not being a homemaker who has no
money [earnings]. To have a better
job than just cleaning or arranging
vegetables at my uncle’s grocery
[where she works on vacations], and it
will be more interesting [fulilling]. My
iancé and I will make a “good” family
with [higher] education and income to
support our family. My mother never
worked outside [the home] but I will
… have my own money and my own
life. I’ll live in a [the nearby] village
with my iancé’s family. We will not
live elsewhere, not even in Akko [a
neighboring, medium-size, mixed—
Arab-Jewish, city at the metropolitan
outskirts]. But having visited the city
often, watching how people live there,
I learnt a great deal about how to
manage my life as a modern woman
who will also be a mother and who
won’t stop respecting her tradition.
(Samira)
and save some money, not to ask
[money] for every petty thing. (Rula)
Apparently city jobs appear more
proitable than local ones because the
typical anonymity of urban reality seems
to protect against social control. At the
home locales, traditional values of gender
hierarchy and loyalty to the clan and to the
community seem to cultivate a closelyknit reality that enables inancial abuse
of these (and other) employed women.
Rather than expected vacation-topics
such as relaxation, leisure, independent
earning and occupational considerations,
the ill-feeling of being inancially abused
dominates the “home days” experience of
the employed respondents during their
summer vacation. This experience also
shapes their future view of themselves as
employed women.
A life course perspective
References to the respondents’ past
and future, though not necessarily
voluminous, are found throughout
the various testimonies, illustrating an
additional time frame. The life course
perspective is a taken-for-granted frame,
serving as an underlying principal
that contains the venture of university
education as one part of a longer
and diverse course. Samira, who was
interviewed on the last week of her
four-year university course, offers a
retrospective view of her venture:
The effect of the “big picture” is usually
pushed aside. It typically emerged
with regard to descriptions of some
long moments of solitude which were
occasionally offered by the long evening
commuting. This broad perspective
entails a strong sense of future disposition,
encapsulating issues of family life with
motivation for social mobility as the
main beneit of university education, and
depicts some differences from the typical
lifestyle of the parents’ generation. Social
mobility is conveyed in conventionalmodern terms of occupational and income
characteristics and in the more traditional
terms of reputation in the community.
Sometimes when I’m alone [with
no acquaintances] on the [intercity]
evening bus I think about my life. I try,
I need to explain myself, justify this
burden. I see [adopt] a wider picture, a
panorama that helps me to appreciate
this long, tiring ride. My family
81
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
Like most others (19) who are engaged
to be married when completing their
university course, Samira realizes that
the coming wedding implies migration to
her partner’s native locale, and predicts
her future in the bosom of her Druze
community. Although the option of future
city residence is declined, she appreciates
the input of her urban encounters to the
enhancement of her future prospects as
she portrays a kind of middle ground
where the traditional and modern value
systems are integrated. Evidently, she
differentiates her “urban experience”
from her “university experience” and
recognizes the inconsistency between
city life and the traditional life in her
locale. Altogether, this “university-city”
phase in her life helps her to formulate a
future which is believably viable.
frames, demonstrating the interlock of
the spatial and temporal dimensions
(Hägerstrand 1985). The interviewees
recognized two cyclic time frames by
which they organize their routine, the
week and the year. The weekly order
separates university days from home
days. University days are structured
around academic activities and loaded
with urban impressions. Although home
days are also structured around the
priority given to academic concerns, they
include many more activities which are
typical for young women in these Druze
neighborhoods. Thus, while each daily
routine is perceived as linear, the full
impression of daily transitions to the city
and encounters with the urban milieu is
evidently captured and conveyed within
the respondents’ experience of the
weekly cycle. This time frame enables
them to process and evaluate their
urban encounters against the common
standards in their native neighborhoods.
Most likely this lag is explained by the
overtiring and exhausting routine of
each university day and the relief offered
by the weekly perspective.
Some correlation can be found between
the weekly and the yearly cycles which
separate university terms from summer
vacations. It is notable that throughout
the testimonies the entanglement of space
and time includes common references
to the effect of seasonal changes as part
of the yearly cycle. Vacation, however,
implies
withdrawal
from
urban
encounters and involvement in paid work
close to the home. Individual earning
does not necessarily entail personal
autonomy, indicating the respondents’
experience of tension between some
“home conventions” and some “urban-
Discussion
This study unveils the city from the
perspective of a transient population
of young, indigenous women students
from remote, traditional communities,
examining their experience of daily
transition to and from the city. The
analysis divulges some key issues that
are worth attention: the respondents’
use of temporal frames to organize
their experience of daily transitions, the
effects of place and mobility on how
they re-construct their identity following
their interactions with the urban way
of life and, inally, a comment on the
spatialization of multiculturalism is
offered.
Throughout the testimonies, the most
prominent issue is the intuitive tendency
of the interviewees to order their
activities as well as their multifaceted
experience in cyclic and linear time
82
Sentenced to Commute
are rather limited by the institutional
schedules that prescribe their commuting
proceduretemporal
constraintsas
nights outside the home and dormitory
residence are not acceptable (for them).
They are also limited by the life course
frame which implies time–space (re)
compression upon their graduation
and home-coming, when traditional
gender hierarchy will regain hold on
their lives and re-conine them to the
home environment (Blumen and Zinaty
2010). Altogether, going to the university
shapes an incoherent experience which
entails identity discontinuity. Narrating
their mobility through the various time
frames helps the respondents to cope
with the challenge that mobility between
the two places brings into their lives.
In that process, the effects of place and
mobility on identity (re)construction
transpires.
modernist” basic rights. This cycle
represents the sense of moving back and
forth between their two statuses: during
university terms they are privileged
young women who are permitted to
access higher education and, in the course
of that, also experience a weakening in
social control and licitly encounter the
urban milieu. During university vacation
they are young women of the community
who experience (re)intensiication of
social control and restricted mobility
which makes them captive, exploited
employees.
Unmistakably, cyclic and linear time
frames are twisted together. Despite
the obvious pairing of the morning and
evening transitions and that each typically
relects “transitional concerns” which
are contained by the other, they were
described as separate, linear activities.
Quotations that enclose both within the
sequence of one day were hardly voiced
and their correlation is articulated within
the cyclic time frame of the week.
An overarching linear time frame
is that of the respondents’ life course.
The women are aware of their current
stage in the inal phase of their formal
education. During this (three to four year)
university phase, the yearly cycle though
lively and sparkling, is mostly hesitant
and ambivalent. Daily transitions are
entwisted with the life-course frame
and, together, the twisted time frames
epitomize a wavering experience of time–
space expansion and compression (Katz
2001). For these young women attending
the university implies access to the
beneits of modernity and their world has
grown bigger, practically in spatial terms
as determined by their daily mobility.
Their urban encounters, however,
Place, mobility and identity
The need to reckon with the effects of place
and mobility is a recent development in
identity research and is mostly applied
to international migration, transition
from pre-modern to modern settings
and the rise of hybrid identity (Bauman
2001; Easthope 2009; Urry 2000). This
study emphasizes daily mobility,
exploring the experience of indigenous
young women who move from their
traditional remote communities to the
city with a typically modern purpose of
entering higher education (Tuan 1996
“hearth” and “cosmos”; see Ley 2001).
To understand how they negotiate their
identity components in that chapter
which is typiied by diurnal transitions,
the signiicance of place must not
be overlooked. It is, however, worth
83
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
Under these circumstances, the
recent development of daily migration
of young women to the city is tolerated,
but with reservations, doubts and
suspicions. This inconsistence largely
shapes the way these women negotiate
the urban way of life. They are curious,
some even passionate, about city life,
and their urban experience is typically
modernist as it is set against their lives
in their semi-rural home communities. It
embraces some physical features such as
noisiness, smelliness, throng, and some
more abstract thought-provoking issues,
for instance, individuality, anonymity,
autonomy and, most prominently, a sense
of a new moral order which is based on
the slackening control on their sexuality
and their discontent with their summer
job arrangements. It is noteworthy that
these women recognize the “liberating”,
modernist potential of city life for women,
which is deeply seated in the urban way
of life (e.g., Nava 1996). Yet they differ
from the original context of the term
“urban way of life” in that they have no
intention of becoming urbanites. Their
strong home attachment, clan and ethnic
loyalty, and deep sense of community
belonging renounce urban citizenship
(see Maya-Jariego and Armitage 2007).
Thus, the hybridity that the urban way
of life phases into their identity mostly
relects this multifaceted bond to their
place of departure. This somewhat
overshadows the effect of their current
encounters with city life, which include
some minor “provocations”, such as,
less modest clothing and appearance,
socializing with unfamiliar others, some
(usually) innocent lirting, unchaperoned
mingling in central streets and malls,
independent purchasing of personal
mentioning that, unlike international
migrants, the respondents routinely
exercise travelling by which mobility
itself turns out to be a stable identity
component and their hybrid identity
extorts more vitality from encounters
with the two places at both ends of their
daily journeys.
The urban way of life (Wirth 1938)
is probably the best term to capture
the meaning of their daily going to the
university and exposure to the city. It
refers to the erosion of moral structure
and community life in the traditional
sense as a consequence of new division
of labor, cultural diversiication and
socio-economic segregation which isolate
individuals within the propinquity of
strangers. The traditional nature of the
respondents’ home communities, their
place of departure, was described earlier.
Clearly, the respondents are situated
within a broader modernization of their
Druze communities. In the Israeli Druze
(and Arab-Palestinian) communities
this process has typically leaned on
men’s daily commuting to relatively
close employment foci. As a result,
some modern–urban features have
been “imported” into the traditional–
rural locales by men commuters and
residential outmigration to urban centers
has been scarce. Women, who were
traditionally conined to the rural locales,
have had limited direct encounters with
modernization and its beneits and
continue to perform their gender role in
the traditional ways. Consequently, their
adherence to the traditional gender role
was ingrained into place identity, reafirming the authentic Druze character
of these locales.
84
Sentenced to Commute
only hybridize their identity as Druze
women, but also liquefy the place
identity of their origins and destination.
But this liquefying effect differs between
the two places. Whereas the effects of
their encounters with modern city life,
especially those related to their gender,
are often suspected, disapproved of, and
even criminalized, within their home
communities, the city milieu tolerates
their apparent strangeness. In that sense
it is also noteworthy that despite the
“Arabic” characteristics of their observed
strangeness, none of the respondents
reported prejudice or discrimination
against them either on that ground or as
a woman. While this does not suggest
that they have not experienced such
harassments, it does indicate the extent of
forbearance and signiies the city milieu
as tolerant, supporting its multicultural
characteristics. The difference between
the two places, though understandable
and even justiied by some, shows how
multiculturalism is spatialized. The
entanglement of gender, education,
tradition and hegemonic power relations
emphasizes that, beyond multiplicity
and diversity, multiculturalism involves
tolerance, acceptance and inclusion
as integral to its “decent” component
(Song, 2010), and that this component
is not necessarily policy-dependent
but can also be detected as integral to
routine practices of daily life. Thus the
spatialization of multiculturalism is also
affected by the varied maps of decency,
as relections of various systems of power
relations.
Overall, this study sheds light on
the viability of city multiculturalism as
emerging from a transient, non-hegemonic
population which is unquestionably
things and frustration with their vacation
jobs. However, the effect of the urban way
of life is easily detected by their intention
to modernize their future life within the
community limits: they plan to marry,
to have a family, to become employed
mothers and assertive spouses, and then
to grow to be respectful, convincing
women in their communities. This order
of things implies that the hybridity
acquired through their current encounters
with city life (and university education)
is suspended, turning into a future
orientation. It also unveils their identity
re-construction at present by which
daily boundary crossing indicates that
gender and ethnicity are re-negotiated
within a unitary system that involves
place and time. Yet it is noteworthy that,
within this unity, gender, though renegotiated, is categorically subordinated
to the ethno-cultural component as the
preponderance of the life course linear
time frame indicates.
Currently, however, they come
to the city as day migrants who are
distinguished by their appearance, that
is, clothes, limited social interactions
and temporal constraints, language and
studying habits. Their visible foreignness
and observed engagement with in- and
out-daily migration embody some nonmodern Druze values that they “import”
to the modern-Jewish city. In that sense
these mobile women challenge the binary
distinction between rural and urban ways
of life, infusing attributes of one milieu
into the reality of the other: their daily
mobility infuses modernization into their
native locales and, by the same token,
also diversiies the city, intensifying
its multicultural character. Thus, daily
transitions and city encounters do not
85
Orna Blumen and Shay Tzafrir
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Note
We are much indebted to the interviewees
and interviewers, young Druze women
who chose to maintain their anonymity
but willingly shared their experiences and
views with us. They became our teachers
and interpreters, acquainting us with many
facets of the lives of our neighboring Druze
countrywomen. We also appreciate the
comments of the editors Larisa Fialkova and
Maria Yelenevskaya on the early versions of
this article.
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89
Sacred and Profane Space
Sacred and Profane Space
in the Modern Russian City:
The/A Choice of Russian Jews
Elena Nosenko-Stein
Institute of Oriental Studies, Russian
Academy of Sciences,
Moscow, Russia
Abstract
A profound transformation of the cultural
memory in the former Soviet Union has resulted
in deep changes in the cultural identities of all
Soviet—and ex-Soviet—ethnic and religious
groups. This transformation led to a change of
perceptions about sacred and profane spaces
and the connections of these spaces to the urban
landscape. As a result of complex historical and
cultural processes, contemporary Russian Jewry
is a highly heterogeneous community and its
perception of traditional Jewish sacred places—
synagogues, cemeteries, saints’ tombs—is that
they have lost their function. During the Soviet
era these places had often not been considered
by Jews as sacred. Moreover, non-Jewish sacred
places, like Christian churches, had, paradoxically,
in some cases, become Jewish sacred places. The
so-called Jewish renaissance in post-Soviet Russia
has led to a revived interest in Judaism and Jewish
traditions. Therefore, Jewish communal centers,
philanthropic and youth organizations, centers
for economic support, leisure time activities,
and places for Jewish sentiments and memories
function as Jewish sacred places. This inversion of
sacred and profane spaces, typical of post-modern
culture, is visible, especially in small urban centers,
where there are no synagogues and where the role
of secular or semi-secular Jewish organizations is
growing. In this article I will try to demonstrate
the speciics of Jewish sacred and profane spaces in
modern Russian urban centers.
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 91-104
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
91
This postcard of the early 20th century depicts
the building of a former synagogue in Smolensk.
At present the college for Communication
Studies is located there
Introduction
ome scholars stress the decline of
many traditional collective identities,
and the emergence of new ones at
the same time (Davidman 1991; Giddens
1992; Vermuelen and Govers 1994; Eriksen
1993; Anthias 2001). The deep crisis of
some traditional religions and nations is
one aspect of the phenomenon (Gans 1994;
Smith 1995; Horowitz 2001; Calhoun 2004).
The other is the “ethnicity explosion” and
the “religious renaissance” in many parts
of the world (Bentley 1987; Banks 1996;
Brubaker 2004). In any case, a person
S
Elena Nosenko-Stein
identiies him or herself more and more
with his or her religion or culture, even
though some ethnicities and religions
are declining. Paradoxically, we can see
that personal self-identiication, free
from many former collective ties, is very
widespread (Cavalcanti and Chalfant
1994). These tendencies are also typical
of Jewish identities in many countries.
All these processes, including
ethnicization and de-secularization, have
led to a change—real and perceptive—of
urban space. The Soviet homogeneity
has been substituted by diversiication—
ethnic and religious elements of the
urban landscape are more evident now
in Russian urban centers. “Patterns of
popular taste [I would also add, patterns
of mass culture, E. N-S] relect, among
other things, attitudes to the city, the
state, the nation, the family, money,
foreigners, minorities, the arts and the
system” (Stites 2000, 2). Temples of
various religions (churches, mosques
and synagogues), as well as centers for
ethnic activities (communal and Diaspora
centers, all kinds of clubs for studying
ethnic traditions, music etc.), play a
more signiicant role in the lifestyle of
modern Russian citizens and in the urban
landscape than formerly. These changes,
in their turn, result in deformations,
sometimes strange ones, in the identities
of ex-Soviet people.
This article is dedicated to the choice
of sacred and/or profane spaces by
modern Russian Jews. These spaces
refer to synagogues, Christian churches,
and/or other places, mainly spaces of
leisure activities and centers of economic
support for their members. I will try to
demonstrate the perception of these
places in the context of Jewish or non-
Jewish identities of the Jewish population
in Russia today.
Modern Russia is a deeply divided
society. We can see many splits in the social
and cultural spheres of this country so it
is impossible to speak about a common
sacred myth or a grand narrative in
Russia. Russia’s Jewry, being a part of
this “society in transition,” is also a very
heterogeneous community (Kochan 1972;
Gitelman 1988). As a result, there is no
common Jewish identity (Nosenko 2004:
52-53) and no common sacred spaces for
Jews in Russia today.
Sources and Methods
In conducting my research I chose to use
qualitative methods, such as oral and life
history, since they are more useful than
quantitative ones in anthropological
studies. This article is based mainly on
the results of my ield research which I
carried out from 1999 to 2009 in several
Russian cities and towns (Moscow, St
Petersburg, Penza, Krasnodar, Smolensk,
Veliky Novgorod, and some other urban
centers in the European part of Russia).
I conducted a total of 250 in-depth
interviews. Interviews were informal and
indirect, that is, informal conversations
where the interviewer tried to minimize
her role and give the lead to the narrator.
Yet I had a special interview guide that
included several areas of topics that I
wanted to cover. Interviews lasted from
thirty minutes to six hours, depending on
the willingness and time of the informant.
There is no single representative sampling
in qualitative research; I relied on what is
known as “theoretical saturation”, where
the researcher gets enough evidence
for his/her theory and new interviews
might add details but do not affect
92
Sacred and Profane Space
Diversity in Singularity
For many centuries to be a Jew meant “to
perform ceremonial laws of Judaism.”
A synagogue was a Jewish sacred place
and an opposition to the sacred places of
Others (churches, monasteries, mosques)
or Jewish/non-Jewish profane spaces,
including public places—markets, various
ofices, etc. The situation had started to
change in the 19th and much more so in
the 20th century, when a secular Jewish
identity had emerged and spread out
(Klier 1995; Nathans 2002; Zipperstein
1999; Frankel 1981). In the former USSR
Jewishness has been almost totally cut off
from Judaism and the Soviet variant of
Jewish secular identity was based mainly
on the principle of ethnic origins and state
anti-Semitism (Shneer 1994; Shternshis
2006; Nosenko-Stein 2009). In modern
Russia the crisis of Jewish identity has
its unique characteristics. The Jewish
population in Russia is culturally diverse
and it is impossible to speak about a single
Jewish self-identiication. There is a set
of cultural self-identiications based on
different symbols and values (Nosenko
2004). Therefore, it is also impossible
to speak about a common Jewish sacred
or profane space because its perception
depends on the self-identiication of
many people of Jewish origin.
The analysis of texts enables me to
suggest a classiication of cultural selfidentiications of persons of Jewish
origin in Russia and their relationship
with their religious choice. It is very
important to take into account that most
of my informants, like most Russian Jews
today, are people of partly Jewish origin
(i.e., they were brought up in mixed
families).
the main concepts (see Bertaux 1981;
Hummersley 1989). As a result, the main
source of this study is texts of interviews
with the attendants of different Jewish
organizations, as well as with people of
Jewish origin who have never visited
them. Among the informants 137 were
women; their age ranged from seventeen
to eighty-eight years old. Out of all the
informants 221 had undergone higher
education or were students in universities
and colleges at the time of the interview.
I found the informants as a consequence
of my contacts with Jewish organizations
and the use of the snowball principle.
In addition, during my research trip,
I carried out a survey in order to verify
the results of the qualitative research.
The general sampling included 300
respondents whom I found mainly in the
Jewish organizations. Most respondents
were aged between 16 and 30, or older
than 60. These age cohorts represent the
age structure of attendants and members
of Jewish organizations. The data of
this survey is, therefore, an additional
and important source. In some cases I
used the data of sociological surveys
conducted by other scholars (Gitelman et
al 2000; Chervyakov et al 2003; Ryvkina
2005; Shapiro et al 2006; Osovtsov and
Yakovenko 2011).
An additional and very important
source was participant observation. It
was especially helpful in the Russian
periphery because, although my ield
trips were not very long, they were
intense: I stayed in private homes,
spent whole days with my informants,
listened to their stories and gossip, and
learned their routines. All of this added
considerably to my understanding of
Jewish life in these towns.
93
Elena Nosenko-Stein
1. East European Jewish (East
Ashkenazi). Self-identiication is often
based on the Yiddish language and
traditional Ashkenazi culture. The
informants were aged 75+. However,
this self-identiication is actually quasitraditional, because it is detached from
Judaism and represents a Soviet variant
of Jewish traditional culture. The main
Jewish symbols for these people are events
of World War II and the Holocaust.
2. Russian (or non-Jewish) selfidentiication. Informants with this type
of self-identiication were usually born
through intermarriage, and usually
declare that they are Russians and have
never regarded themselves as Jews.
They prefer Russian values and often
declare that they are Christians (Russian
Orthodox).
3. The negative type. These informants
perceive their Jewishness as part of quite
a negative personal experience and have a
negative form of Jewish self-identiication
that very often has been formed through
anti-Semitism, often par excellence. They
declare themselves as non-believers or in
relation to Christianity.
4. Dual self-identiication (a kind of
hybrid identity). Persons of this large
group often say that, in some situations,
they are Russians and, in others, Jews.
They were brought up in a Russian
milieu, but during recent years they have
often become interested in Jewish culture
and tradition. Some of them converted to
Christianity but at the same time they are
interested in Judaism.
5. The “new Jewish” self-identiication
differs from the traditional Jewish selfidentiication that existed in Russia until
the irst two decades of the 20th century, as
well as from the Jewish self-identiication
in the USA, Western Europe and Israel.
These informants, like the previous
group, had had no traditional Jewish
education either. Nevertheless, they
knew something about Jewish tradition
and values from elder relatives. During
recent years they have often tried to “ind
their Jewish roots” by studying Jewish
culture, history, etc., and by taking part
in Jewish life. They try to observe some
Jewish ceremonial laws; and sometimes
convert to Judaism.
Their Sacred Space?
I will begin with Judaism and the
synagogue as a Jewish sacred place.
According to my survey, 4 to 10 per cent
of Jews (in different age cohorts) in Russia
today fulill Jewish ceremonial laws; a
higher percentage (13.7) consider Judaism
as “the most attractive religion” (Gitelman
et al 2000, 72). Ryvkina even found that
35 per cent of the respondents believed
so (Ryvkina, 2005, 120). Osovtsov and
Yakovenko are more realistic—11.7 per
cent of their respondents regularly visit
a synagogue (Osovtsov and Yakovenko
2011, 75).
The informants with East Ashkenazi
self-identiication do not regularly go to
the synagogue but they occasionally do,
as part of a traditional way of life, and,
in these cases, they say that they want
to be with Jews, or commemorate their
parents:
Of course I am a non-believer, all
of us are Soviet Jews, you know. If
anybody tells you that he believes
in God, don’t believe him. … I was a
communist and I didn’t abandon my
party. … However, I come here [to the
synagogue]. I do this in memory of
my parents, and they were religious.
94
Sacred and Profane Space
I have great regrets that I didn’t ask
my parents about all these customs, I
am sure they knew all of them (Yakov
B., 82, a pensioner, Veliky Novgorod,
2007).
synagogue, I am afraid to go there.
Besides, I know that women are not
allowed to go there (Tatyana P., 68, a
pensioner, whose mother was Jewish,
St Petersburg, 1999).
In this case the synagogue functions as
a lieu de memoire, a place of memory (Nora
1984) or, more accurately speaking, au lieu
de memoire, instead of a place of memory,
because the real memory is often lost.
Some informants also have a free meal
there, and this is very important for most
of them, as pensioners, especially in the
Russian periphery, are extremely poor. In
this case, synagogues once again play the
role of a soup kitchen, a role that almost
totally disappeared during the Soviet
era. I would say that informants usually
perceive the synagogue as a Jewish
sacred space, even when they are nonbelievers, and therefore they state that
former synagogues should be returned
to Jewish communities.
The informants with the Russian and
negative self-identiication usually do
not visit the synagogue and perceive it as
a sacred place of Others:
The informants with the dual selfidentiication also usually do not
visit the synagogue. Their hybrid
self-identiication often develops an
ambivalent perception about synagogues,
i.e., they regard them as a Jewish sacred
space but not Their Own. Nevertheless
they often visit the communal centers.
“New Jews” visit the synagogue even
if they only observe a few ceremonial
laws of Judaism. They usually do so
in their own way, separately from the
elderly people. For example, they begin
the Sabbath when it is convenient for
them, after the lectures or working day.
That is, they consider the synagogue as
a kind of youth club, a space for leisure
activities, and therefore as Their Own
profane space.
At the same time, those who have
converted to Judaism visit the synagogue
very ardently and perceive it as Theirs, as
a Jewish sacred space:
Now I would like to believe in
something. I believe in destiny, in fate.
But I didn’t believe in all that before.
In recent years I wanted to observe
rituals—both
Russian
Christian
and Jewish. But I realized that it is
impossible to worship two Gods. You
just cannot do that. … Sometimes I
go to church. My husband’s relatives
[Russians] are Russian Orthodox, and
they are very religious and I have to
fall into line with them. … Sometimes
I’d like to buy and light candles, order
a memorial service. Both my daughters
are Christian and they baptized their
children. (…) I have never visited a
I can’t say I didn’t believe in God. I just
didn’t think about it. I had no need
for faith. But over the recent years
I thought about these things a lot. I
went to church, then to the synagogue.
I spoke to the rabbi and liked him very
much. He is very intelligent, he helped
me a lot. I began reading the Tanakh,
and then some Midrashim. Now I
observe everything. … When I was in
Israel I went to see her [the informant’s
daughter’s] wedding and liked to be
in a Jewish Orthodox milieu. I liked
to wear a long skirt and a hat. I think
if you want to be Jewish, you have to
95
Elena Nosenko-Stein
perform Jewish ceremonial laws. …
There is no synagogue here now, you
know. But I often come to this room
where I can see our rabbi and feel so
comfortable here. I hope there will be
a real synagogue in Smolensk (Olga F.,
45, a businessperson, whose mother is
Jewish, Smolensk, 2007).
whose grandfather
Moscow 2007).
was
Jewish,
Many “half Jews,” (i.e., people who have
one Jewish parent) were baptized in
infancy by their non-Jewish relatives, who
were often non-believers, but performed
this ritual as part of the Russian tradition.
The baptism was not the informants’
choice but sometimes determined their
preference and afiliation later, because
they were usually raised in a Russian
cultural environment. Even during the
Soviet era they could observe some
elements of Christian culture—books,
icons, painted eggs and other dishes of
festive meals, etc., moreover, as I have
already mentioned, in the late Soviet era
some Jews converted to Christianty (see
Deutsch Kornblatt 2003; Nosenko-Stein
2010). So, in the 1990s, many of them
made their implicit Christianity more
explicit after perestroika, in the era of the
“Russian Orthodox boom” in Russia.
Most, however, converted to Christianity
in the 1990s, the period of the abovementioned religious boom (NosenkoStein 2010).
The informants with the EastAshkenazi
type of self-identiication very seldom
declared themselves as Christians. But,
at the same time, some of them went to
church, explaining that the church was
nearer, or that the atmosphere there was
friendlier than in the synagogue. Some
informants, who live in towns where
there is no synagogue, consider their
visits to the local church as a kind of
substitute for the Jewish sacred place:
Isn’t Alien Sacred Space No Longer
Alien? Profane Becoming Sacred
All the same, the results of my research,
as well as studies conducted by some
other scholars, show that Christianity
is more popular or, at least, more
attractive for persons of Jewish origin
in Russia, especially among offspring
of intermarriages (Ryvkina 2005, 120;
Gitelman et al 2000, 72). My survey shows
that 14 per cent of the respondents in a
general sampling considered themselves
as Christians (mostly Russian Orthodox).
Young people more often preferred a
church than a synagogue—25 per cent
(according to Ryvkina) and 10 per cent
(Gitelman et al).
The reasons for their conversion to
Christianity were very diverse. Some
intellectuals became Christians in the late
Soviet era because they considered it as a
kind of opposition to the Soviet regime,
or tried to ill the spiritual vacuum in the
anti-religious state, but were in a situation
of lack of information about Judaism (see,
e.g., Deutch Kornblatt 2003):
I converted to Christianity because I
needed it, I mean, to have a religious
experience. But it is just accidental, I
mean, that I am a Russian Orthodox.
We did not know anything about other
religions then [in the 1970s-1980s]. I
am not sure, but had I known a good
rabbi then, I would have converted to
Judaism (Mikhail D., 58, a psychologist
There is no synagogue here. There is
no rabbi here. Rabbis don’t come here.
They prefer to earn money in your
Moscow and don’t want to come here.
96
Sacred and Profane Space
Yom Kippur eve in a private apartment in Gelenjic, 2007
Sometimes I go to a church because it
is possible to pray in any place. But I
feel more comfortable here [in a small
Jewish center located in a private
apartment] because some people like
me come here (Pyotr G., 73, Gelenjic, a
resort in the South of Russia).
natural sacred space:
I am Russian because I am Russian
Orthodox. All of us are Russian
Orthodox, all my family. We observe
only Russian Orthodox holy days, not
Jewish ones. … My father often goes
with my mother and me to church
(Natalia A., 19 years old, a student,
whose father is Jewish, Moscow,
2000).
However, some researchers show that
most elderly Jews in Russia do not visit
either a church or a synagogue (Shternshis
2007, 280-282), although more often, they
prefer churches. Therefore, churches
function not only as a substitution for the
Jewish Sacred, but rather as a place where
a person can ind his or her very vague
and uncertain sacred place.
The informants with Russian selfidentiication, who declare their afinity
to Christianity, perceive a church as Their
The informants with the negative type
of self-identiication usually afirm they
are non-believers, but in some cases they
were baptized, mostly at the time of the
religious boom in post-Soviet Russia,
and perceive the church as non-Jewish
and Their sacred space, sometimes even
as an opposition to the synagogue:
97
Elena Nosenko-Stein
There was a very dificult period
in my life, a time of depression.
Sometimes I went to church and felt
good there. … Once a friend of mine
told me: you should know where you
feel better. Besides, I didn’t feel Jewish
[her mother is Jewish, her father was
born in a Jewish-Armenian family]. So
I got baptized and go to church now.
And after that [baptism] all Jews—of
course I don’t consider them to be
enemies—but I feel more comfortable
in a Christian milieu, among Russians,
Russian Orthodox (Lina B., 49, a
secretary in a small company, Moscow,
2000).
time. But I don’t want anybody here
[in the Hillel club] to know about my
Russian Orthodox faith (Yelena K., 20,
St Petersburg, 1999).
The unstable self-identiication often
leads to an uncertain perception of what
is Their Own and what is Others’ sacred
and profane space. A synagogue is often
considered as an Alien sacred place, albeit
highly esteemed and sometimes even
attractive. The emotional distance to the
church is shorter, even if the respondents
were non-believers or agnostics and
did not perceive the church as a sacred
space.
As to Jewish communal centers, they
often substitute for different hobby clubs
and free places for leisure activities
which were widespread and popular in
the Soviet era. These places of cultural
consumption are not only places for
leisure “time, money and energy but also
for the super-cultural effects adopted
by consumers—the songs they sing
together for certain functions, the clothes
they wear, styles of behavior, emulative
postures (e.g., movie stars), dances, and
even speech patterns … and narrative
styles” (Stites 2000:3).
For the “new Jews” a synagogue is
the only Jewish sacred place, however, if
they had already had another religious
experience, they do not consider the
synagogue as the only Jewish sacred
place. Sometimes they also perceive a
local Jewish communal center as a Jewish
Sacred Place. Tatyana P., 34, a teacher
of foreign languages, whose mother is
Jewish, was Russian Orthodox, and who
now fulills some Jewish ceremonial laws
said:
The emotional factor has great importance
in such cases—the friendly atmosphere of
the church and the beauty of the Russian
Orthodox liturgy often attract people—
especially women—in dificult periods
of their lives.
The informants with dual selfidentiication were sometimes baptized
in the late Soviet era but, during the
last 10 to 15 years, they have become
interested in Judaism and believe that it
is impossible to be a Jew and a Christian
at the same time. Sometimes they try to
keep their Christian faith a secret.
Yelena K., 20, a teacher of music, began
visiting the local Hillel club, a Jewish
youth organization, and, as a result,
became deeply interested in her Jewish
roots. She tries to explain:
I was baptized when I was nine years
old; I often go to church and pray there
and feel at home. I observe Russian
Orthodox holy days and fasts. I have
friends who are Russian Orthodox.
Regarding the synagogue, I can’t go
there. I think it is improper to attend
a church and a synagogue at the same
98
Sacred and Profane Space
When I was a Christian I never
considered Christianity as the only
true faith. Even now I think there are
different ways and different faiths,
but they all say the same thing.
But I suppose that if I am Jewish, I
shouldn’t hesitate. … I think Judaism
is more rational than Christianity.
I go to the synagogue but not very
often. The atmosphere is too formal,
too cold there. … And at our Jewish
center the Jewish life is very hectic
and so interesting! (Tatyana P. 34, St
Petersburg, 2000).
No wonder that in search of a sacred
place many people of Jewish origin in
Russia convert to Christianity and ind a
sacred space in a church or in the Jewish
communal center.
At the same time, we can observe a
very slight tendency to return to Judaism.
This tendency is most prevalent among
“new Jews” —young people involved
in Jewish life. They try to ind Their
sacred space in the synagogue. A young
businessperson, whose parents are
Jewish, visits the synagogue regularly:
One of the speciic characteristics of
all of the above-mentioned types of
self-identiication is the loss of great
importance, even of most Jewish symbols
and values, including Judaism itself. In
this context the Others’ sacred space is
not perceived as Alien. Thus, the church
can be often considered as Their sacred
space, especially by so called “ordinary
Soviet people”, who were raised in
the Soviet era and were cut off from
Judaism, but had some knowledge about
Christianity. This perception is especially
popular among non-Halakhic Jews
(i.e., patrilineal Jews), who do not feel
comfortable in an orthodox synagogue.
As an example, here is what a student,
whose mother is non-Jewish, told me:
I was brought up as a non-believer,
but I have always felt there was
something; maybe I knew there was
God. But all my family was atheistic.
Nevertheless, several years ago I met
a very good rabbi. He explained many
things to me. And I understood that a
Jew must perform the ceremonial laws
of Judaism (Denis O., 32, Krasnodar,
2007).
In these rare cases (2 to 3 per cent of
the respondents said they belong to
orthodox Judaism, both Hassidic and
non-Hassidic; less than 1 per cent prefer
the reformist Judaism) they perceive
both the synagogue and the Jewish
communal centers as Jewish and Their
sacred places.
In addition, we can see some attempts
to construct a kind of “civil Judaism”,
mainly by people with “new Jewish”
self-identiication. They try to observe
some commandments of Judaism which
they consider as important:
When I came to the synagogue for the
irst time, they paid attention to me
because I was new there. And I was
young—you know that most people
there are very old. … But then they
asked me about my mother. And after
hearing my reply they just turned
away from me and didn’t notice me
anymore. I was shocked. I will never
go there anymore! I don’t attend
church but, if I wish, I can go there and
nobody will ask me about my mother
(Stas K., 21, Penza, 2007).
My religious principles largely
coincide with Judaism, but I am not an
observant Jew, just partly observant.
-What do you observe?
99
Elena Nosenko-Stein
Dancing modern Israeli dances in the yard of the Jewish community center in Veliky
Novgorod, 2007
Mostly the Sabbath, sometimes
holidays and kashrut— to a certain
extent. I try not to eat pork or mix milk
and meat. … Sometimes my father
and I [his mother is Russian] go to the
synagogue (Matvey R., 21, a student of
sociology, St Petersburg, 1999).
Moreover, some young respondents
even perceive the synagogue as a Jewish
profane space:
I come here [to the synagogue] because
I like it. It is so interesting: this is a real
club. Before that I went to another club,
but I like this club better. I have never
seen all these Sabbath and festivities,
this is so interesting! And people are so
friendly (Olesia K., 21, Penza, 2007).
This phenomenon—an inversion of the
Jewish sacred and profane places—is
rather typical of many informants who
go to Jewish centers. Most of them even
prefer the local communal organization
to the synagogues. Thus, the profane
space plays the role of the sacred one.
Some visit all three institutions, a
Hassidic synagogue, a reformist center
and a secular Jewish organization.
A pensioner who came to a Hassidic
center and a synagogue and a reformist
center for the Jewish holy days said:
This house [a building of the academy
where the reformist center is located]
is a real Jewish place. I don’t mean
anything bad by speaking about
our synagogue. It is good and the
Jewish holy days are interesting there.
100
Sacred and Profane Space
You were with us at the New Year
ceremony and you saw that a lot of
people come. But here people can come
at any time and see each other. There
are different courses for our young
people. … It is so good of you to come
here. Do you like this Jewish house?
Yes, I do.
You are really Jewish! (Rimma S., 58,
Krasnodar, 2007).
During the Soviet era, “the entertainment
possessed certain universal features and
mechanisms dictated by the desire of
the producers to have their products
consumed on some kind of market,
however controlled” (Stites 2000, 4).
Nowadays, other “producers” create
new places and opportunities for
entertainment, which are sometimes
perceived as new sacred places.
Conclusion
Thus, in many cases, Jewish and nonJewish sacred places substitute for each
other, and we can see the inversion of
Ours and Theirs or, more accurately, the
mixture of Our and the Others’ sacred
spaces. This interchange is particularly
pronounced in small Russian urban
centers, where churches can substitute
for synagogues, and communal centers
substitute for them both. At the same
time, we can also observe such a
replacement in large cities, where the
distance to the nearest synagogue is too
far, especially for the elderly. Besides,
some people, whose self-identiication is
cut off from Judaism, perceive a church
as a friendlier place, open to everyone
irrespective of ethnic origin or gender. In
some cases, churches and synagogues are
101
not just sacred spaces, they are centers
of economic support for poor people
(free meals, free second-hand clothes,
free food etc.) and, sometimes, places
for the commemoration of relatives.
Therefore, they are important for elderly
people with different types of cultural
self-identiication, irrespective of their
perception of the place—either as Ours
or Theirs.
Moreover, sometimes Jewish sacred
and profane spaces change their function
or supplement each other. Thus, many
Jewish organizations are considered as
all sorts of clubs—World War II veteran,
youth, hobby, and so on. These clubs
are often free or very cheap. In addition,
Jewish organizations offer some free or
cheap services, like medical services,
inancial support, education, leisure etc.,
as well as lectures about Jewish tradition,
history and culture, celebrations of Jewish
holy days and memorial dates. All these
events are expected to strengthen Jewish
identity and many people, especially
non-religious or agnostics, sometimes
perceive Jewish profane places as sacred
ones. Their role is of great signiicance
in constructing a “new Jewish” identity
and reinforcing the Jewish component of
a hybrid identity.
Generally speaking, we can see a
highly diversiied picture in which Jewish
and non-Jewish sacred and profane
urban spaces replace each other, coincide,
and lose their original functions. This
phenomenon can be seen in the context
of so-called implicit religion (Bailey 1983,
1990). It is deined by scholars as a very
vague core of beliefs and practices taken
personally from different religious and
secular systems, including the UFO,
diets, meditations etc. This is a kind of
Elena Nosenko-Stein
personal religion that is more convenient
for a person who does not want to
be restricted by any prescriptions or
dogmas of a traditional religion (see also
Cavalcanti and Chalfant 1994).
In spite of so-called the religious
revival supported by the state, many
people in contemporary Russia continue
their search for the sacred in different
religious and secular systems and places.
So, on the one hand, we can see a speciic
return of some young people to Judaism
and to the synagogue as a Jewish sacred
place but, more often, they turn to a kind
of civil Judaism, which they construct on
their own. On the other hand, some people
of Jewish origin prefer Christianity and
try to ind the sacred space in the church.
However, most people of Jewish origin in
Russia follow an implicit religion with its
inversions or mixtures of all sacred and
profane places. This quasi-religion and
the mixture of sacred and profane spaces,
are typical of the post-modern culture.
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104
Jewish Culture and Its Heritage in Slovakia
Jewish Culture and its Heritage
in Slovakia after 1989:
Urban sites of remembrance in
Košice and their meanings.
Vanda Vitti
University of Munich (LMU),Germany
Abstract
This multiple-perspective ethnographic case
study explores the current meanings of the Jewish
cultural heritage for the Jewish community of
Košice in Slovakia and its urban environment.
Based on interviews with experts, and narrative
interviews, archival research, media monitoring,
object-analysis, and participant observation, the
author’s analysis focuses on the city’s synagogues
which emerge as narrative spaces triggering
discourses of conlict between different interest
groups and witnessing social practices that address
cultures of remembrance.
“The last regime has destroyed the
Orthodox synagogue”
T
his is the headline of an article
(Jesenský 2006)1 published in 2006
by the Slovak daily SME.2 It was
devoted to the oldest synagogue in Košice
which was virtually destroyed during
the Socialist era. Košice is home to nine
oficially recognized ethnic minorities,
and the ecumenical church district has
ten member groups. The city is generally
viewed as the multi-cultural and multireligious urban center of East Slovakia.
Numerous buildings reveal its Jewish
heritage: a community center with the
oldest Mikveh (Jewish ritual bath) in
Slovakia, four synagogues, a Yeshiva (an
Orthodox Jewish school for studying the
Talmud and Torah), two Jewish schools,
The building of the Orthodox Synagogue
on Pushkin street in Kosice (photo taken
in 2010).
two cemeteries, and a house of culture
called ‘Kasino’. The number of buildings,
their size, architecture and distinctive
décor, suggest that there used to be a
sizeable, rich and heterogeneous Jewish
community in the city.
About 12,000 Jews lived in Košice
before the Holocaust.3 Today, the city’s
Jewish community comprises 300 oficial
members which is nowadays the second
largest in Slovakia. Fifteen thousand
Jews from Košice and surrounding areas
were deported to Auschwitz, and only
2,000 of them returned to the city after
the war. Many Jews emigrated when
the communist regime came to power
in 1948, and some others did so after the
collapse of the Prague Spring in 1968.4
Only a small group stayed in the city, but
after the political rupture in 1989 many
members of this group moved to Western
countries.
Today, it is mostly material relics that
bear witness to Jewish life in Košice. In the
socialist era, the authorities expropriated
the buildings of the Jewish community
that remained intact after the Holocaust.
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 105-115
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
105
Vanda Vitti
Like in many other Slovak cities, these
buildings were no longer used for their
original and intended purpose. The
Orthodox synagogue on Zvonárska
Street (Slovak for “Bellmakers”), for
example, served as a storage facility for
the State Library. Jesenský 2006, an art
interpretations of places as media
of remembrance or as symbols are,
in turn, dependent on the cultural
and societal discourses surrounding
them; i.e., they rely on the subjective
experiences and attitudes of the
groups affected and interested, groups
using the site, and groups involved in
the discourses in question (Skriebeleit
2005, 219).
Never in my life have I witnessed
a greater act of barbarism. They
robbed the furniture, disposed of it
in a landill or completely destroyed
it. Today, it is no longer possible to
restore some parts of the interior to the
original state. For example, they broke
open the holy shrine used for storing
the Torah, installed boards in it and
put the writings of Lenin inside. For
years, rain has been pouring through
the leaking roof, so plaster has come
off the wall revealing brickwork, and
the stucco has fallen off too.
What ‘space’ do the Jewish community
and the Jewish culture occupy in the
city and its memory? How does the
synagogue, as a material space, structure
individual activities and social relations
in the city? What meanings and functions
do objects and spaces of remembrance
acquire when they become linked to
the memories and experiences of the
inhabitants of Košice?
In 1989 the process of restitution started,
and the synagogue was returned to
the Jewish community which is now
responsible for renovating it. Since the
building is dilapidated this is a serious
challenge. The renovation work was
scheduled to be completed by 2013
when the museum of Jewish culture in
East Slovakia will be inaugurated in the
building. Košice was designated to be
the European Capital of Culture in the
same year.
There is a reciprocal relation between
space and social life. The urban
environment relects structures and
ideas; at the same time, the materiality
of the built space structures social
action. Yet the past is not just present
in material relics; in the urban space,
there are conscious and intentional
acts of marking past events in order to
preserve their presence in the here and
now (Binder 2009, 15).
historian, observing the renovation of
the synagogue, is quoted as saying:
Narrative Spaces in the City
According to the cultural studies scholar,
Jörg Skriebeleit, places serve:
…as a medium for constructing
cultural spaces of remembrance that
can be associated with a variety of
meanings and connotations. These
106
Beate Binder portrays urban space as a
product of social construction. According
to her, social construction in this case
is based on the reciprocal effects that
people and buildings have on each other.
Different actors decide where in the urban
space past events should be remembered,
and which objects and spaces should act
Jewish Culture and Its Heritage in Slovakia
as media of commemoration in order
to become part of the cultural memory.
According to Aleida Assmann, cultural
memory evolves from a wealth of
knowledge and experience. Divorced
from their original living bearers, they
have been transferred to material data
media and have become part of social
practices (Assmann 2006, 47).
In this article I am presenting some
ethnographic observations made during
the ieldwork I undertook for my Ph.D.
dissertation, which is devoted to the
development of Jewish life and culture in
Slovak cities after 1989. I will focus on the
question of how synagogues, as sites of
remembrance, draw some features of the
past into the present and thus function as
“zones of contact between the past and
present” (Assmann 2006, 217 ff.). With
the help of examples, I will sketch out
the nature of these “contacts” and look at
breaks with the past. I view synagogues
and their urban environment not only as
socially constructed, but also as narrative
spaces. As Rolf Lindner remarks, “cities
are not empty pages, but narrative spaces
in which particular (hi)stories, myths and
parables are inscribed” (Lindner 2006,
57).
Dificult Struggle for a Future
Despite its status as an (inter)national
heritage site, the oldest existing
synagogue in Košice5 is one of the many
“tragic” objects that form part of the
Jewish cultural heritage in Slovakia.
Nevertheless, there are good prospects
for it to be saved. If the renovations are
completed by 2013 and the museum of
Jewish culture does open, this synagogue
will be a rare example of a successfully
restored site related to Jewish culture.
Located in the city center and housing
the new museum, the synagogue will it
well into the multi-religious and multicultural image of the city. Moreover, it
will be economically beneicial for the
Jewish community, thanks to admission
charges. All in all, the synagogue will
have a multi-faceted symbolic value: it
will serve both as a site of remembrance
for the Jewish community and as a
museum disseminating knowledge about
Jewish culture in East Slovakia among
members of the general public. Notably,
commemoration of the Holocaust will
be an essential goal of the restored
synagogue: the names of the murdered
Jews from Košice will be inscribed on its
walls. This would be a welcome change
from the situation with the Jewish
cultural heritage in Slovakia today:
Out of 107 synagogues and prayer
halls in Slovakia, only about six are
used as active Synagogues, about
ifteen of them serve at least partially
as cultural venues. These include
a broad spectrum of uses: from
specialized art galleries to cinema
halls. The remaining synagogues are
warehouses, dwellings and shops, and
also abandoned sites (Borský 2010,
136).
Synagogues confront the policy-making
bodies of the new Eastern Europe with
a far more complex problem than do
cemeteries: something must be done
with the synagogues. … “Doing
something”, however, creates an even
greater dilemma, especially in the
post-1989 era when the disjuncture
wrought by the Holocaust is exposed
again and in new ways (Bohlmann
2000, 45).
107
Vanda Vitti
Besides two Orthodox, there are two more
synagogues in Košice: one is Chassidic,
converted into a technical laboratory in
the 1950s, the other is Neolog, turned
into the “House of Arts” around the
same time (Borský 2007, 123). The Neolog
synagogue has been the seat of the
Philharmonic Orchestra of the State ever
since and is owned by the City Council.
Since 1994 the Jewish community has
been ighting in court for the ownership
of this synagogue and of the Yeshiva also
owned by the city council.
Cultural Heritage at the Intersection
of Social and Cultural Memory:
Remembrance in the Urban Present
Among the residents of Košice there is a
distinct interest in the history and culture
of Judaism in their city. One proof of
this is the popularity of the guided tour
“Jewish Košice” operated since 2005 by
the Košice City Information Center. These
tours are conducted twice a year and,
according to a city guide I interviewed,
they are more popular than any other
tour offered by the Center because they
give a unique opportunity to see the
interior of the buildings belonging to
the Jewish community. Notably, some of
these buildings were inaccessible to the
public in the past. When the tours take
place the other Orthodox synagogue on
Pushkin Street becomes a site where the
strange encounters the familiar: visitors
learn about Jewish history and culture
and approach this authentic place as if it
were some exotic curiosity.
During my ield work, I interviewed
some inhabitants of Košice and found
that the majority hardly knew anything
about the synagogues in the city center.
Neither were my interviewees aware
108
of the Jewish community or its cultural
activities. Yet, even if it remains outside
the orbit of everyday life of the non-Jews
in the city, it can be assumed that they
possess at least some knowledge about
the community thanks to the publications
in the local media.
My research in the archives of local
newspapers revealed that they did not
only regularly cover the history of the
Jewish community, but also informed
readers about the situation with the
synagogues as regards problems with
their restitution and renovation. In the
early 1990s, when the press began to
show interest in the Jewish community,
the journalists focused on the Jewish
holidays and days of commemoration.
In 1994, for example, there was a report
on objects of commemoration headlined
“The history of Judaism in Košice dates
back to the 15th century” (Duchon 1994).
Headlines, such as, “The State returns
destroyed property” (Hriadelová 2000),
or “The Jewish community goes to court
over the House of Art” (Hriadelová and
Jurkovičová 2001) testify that, in the
last few years in particular, the media
have been relecting upon the current
conlict of interests over the ownership
of buildings with complex history.
I conducted online interviews with
the current mayor, who has been in ofice
since late 2010, and with his predecessor.
Both said that the Jewish community and
its traditions constituted an integral part
of the city’s culture, and so people highly
value the contribution of the community
to city life. The Club of National Minorities
and the Commission of Churches, both
municipal
organizations,
represent
the interests of the Jewish community
vis-à-vis the city council. Besides, the
Jewish Culture and Its Heritage in Slovakia
Jewish community is a member of the
Ecumenical Church District which also
closely cooperates with the city council.
The Jewish community is an active
participant in an important cultural
event—an annual Festival of Sacred
Art which brings together people of
various creeds. Finally, associations run
by members of the Jewish community
organize various public cultural events,
such as concerts, exhibitions and recitals.
Big events are always attended by oficial
representatives of the city administration.
On closer inspection, I noticed that these
events were frequented by the same
group of people. Later, the organizers
conirmed my observation.
There is ample evidence that the
media and the city are interested in
the Jewish cultural heritage. As the
sociologist Maurice Halbwachs states,
no memory is possible outside a shared
social framework (Halbwachs 1967, 2).
The social framework embedding the
past and present of the Jewish community
can be traced in Košice. However, it is
maintained by a relatively small group of
citizens and some sections of the media.
It seems that the Jewish Community fails
to reach the wider public. On the one
hand, it does not advertise the events
it organizes frequently enough, and
the scope of publicity remains limited.
On the other hand, not all inhabitants
of the city are capable of accessing the
social and cultural memory of the city.
In sum, as results of my ield work
demonstrate, the Jewish cultural heritage
remains in some people’s functional or
“canon” of memory: the type of memory
characterized by its relatedness to, and
its presence in everyday life. Yet, for
the majority, things are different: the
109
Jewish cultural heritage is located in
their “memory-archive”, which is latent
and constitutes an unconscious, hardly
accessible archive of recollections (cf,
Assmann 2006, 56; and 2010, 37).
I am now moving away from the
discursive frames of memory and will
take a close look at the synagogues and
their current role in the life of Košice. My
aim is to allow the spaces of remembrance
to “speak”.
“Restoring the past by connecting it to
the present”
But synagogue restoration in Eastern
Europe is not truly about plaster and
drywall. It is about restoring the past
by connecting it to the present. Such
continuity, such processes of transition,
however, cannot be undertaken
effectively. The historical disjuncture
is too great. It is, nonetheless, precisely
this historical disjuncture that can be
sutured and repaired, if not restored
(Bohlman 2000, 68-69).
In the case of the synagogue on
Pushkin Street, it has proven dificult to
connect the past to the present and ensure
that the marks of history remain visible in
the restored appearance of the building.
This synagogue, the newest one in town,
is one of the few buildings that remained
in the hands of the Jewish community in
the socialist era. Its members have used
it continuously for religious purposes.
One of my interviewees, an expert
employed at the Ofice for the Protection
of Historical Monuments, remarked
that everything in this synagogue
had been “liquidated”, including “the
ornate windows and stained glass”. It
Vanda Vitti
was reopened in September 2009 after a
laborious process of renovation that took
six years.
Designed for 800 people, the
synagogue on Pushkin Street is an
impressive ediice which stands out
against the adjacent old buildings, most
of which need restoration. The wall
next to the entrance carries a memorial
plaque dedicated to the victims of the
Holocaust. The interior decoration of the
building absorbs visitors, whose eyes are
immediately captured by a well-chosen
combination of wood, metal, textile, and
stone. The clear-cut structure, soft light
and a balanced color range contribute to
the atmosphere of opulence. However, a
closer look reveals that here and there the
newly renovated brickwork is blemished.
In the left- and right-hand corners of the
building, next to the Torah shrine, one
can easily notice large stains on the light
painted wall. The stains look as if they
could be caused by leaking water and,
according to the representative of the
Ofice for the Protection of Historical
Monuments, drainage pipes behind the
walls should have been inspected and
replaced but were not, which might
cause further damage. Both members of
the Jewish community and employees of
the Ofice for the Protection of Historical
Monuments say that they did not always
ind it easy to communicate and cooperate
with each other. The Jewish community
has to carry out all the renovation and
restoration work needed, and this work
has to conform to the guidelines of the
Ofice for the Protection of Historical
Monuments. But it is the community
that is solely responsible for funding the
project. Since the money allocated by
the Ministry of Culture for restoration
110
of old buildings is insuficient to inance
all the renovation projects, the Jewish
Community failed to get signiicant
support. Even though the restoration
processes were partly funded by Košice
City Council and a number of foreign
foundations, the Jewish community was
forced to sell the ‘Kasino’ and the Talmud
and Torah school in order to rescue both
Orthodox synagogues. The struggle for
saving the buildings is accompanied
by disputes and conlicts of interests
between the client and contractors. One
example is emergence of marks on the
brickwork which prove that restoration
work was done inadequately, threatening
the future of the buildings.
On the wall with the water stains in
the synagogue on Pushkin Street, there
are signs of the Holocaust. These are
four messages written in pencil by Jews
who were held in the synagogue shortly
before their deportation in April 1944.
Two of the messages are identical. They
read: “I am here, I don’t know where
they will take me. 21.IV.1944. Lily”. One
of the messages was signed by Lily’s
small son. For her elder son, a survivor,
these messages are the only visible
memory of his family from the period.
The inscriptions were discovered during
the restoration of the building and were
sealed and protected with the help of a
special technique. Hidden behind the
back of long benches placed in front of
the wall, the inscriptions become visible
only when small doors in the wooden
benches are open. Otherwise, the doors
completely cover up the messages.
According to Aleida Assmann, such
“traumatic places” are “multi-faceted,
ambiguous, and associated with different
memories and interpretations” (Assmann
Jewish Culture and Its Heritage in Slovakia
2006, 221). Besides obvious signs of the
past, visitors discover many others that
are mere hints and are hardly visible.
Whenever the rabbi explains what is
special about the synagogue on Pushkin
Street to the ever-expanding groups
of people visiting it during the guided
tours of “Jewish Košice”, he shows them
the messages on the wall. At this point,
at latest, he will start talking about
the synagogue as a witness to crimes
against humanity during the Holocaust.
According to Wolfgang Benz, there is no
place where remembrance crystallizes
“in a more terrifying and imposing way
than at the historical site, at the places
where things shaping memories and
determining commemoration happened”
(Benz 2005, 197).
Following Aleida Assmann, the
synagogue should be seen as a palimpsest
or as a traumatic place containing
palimpsests. “Despite the fact that in this
place, a certain history has culminated
and found its catastrophic conclusion,
history is continuing even here and
presents itself in the form of a “stratiied’
space” (Assmann 2006, 225).6 In the
synagogue, history has not stopped: the
signs of history and trauma have been
preserved and are passed on to younger
generations. Moreover, new signs have
been created that threaten to destroy old
ones, as exempliied by restoration work
breaching the guidelines. But how is the
Jewish community using this space?
Religion and Tradition: The synagogue
as a space for collective and individual
negotiations over history and identity
The synagogue is an ethnographic
site, not just a place to experience
111
community but a liminal
border
space where one crosses into the sacred
spaces of the past. The synagogue is also
a
narrative space, where the texts
that narrate ritual and ritualize history
concentrate time and the experiences
of being Jewish (Bohlman 2000, 46).
In the course of my ieldwork I spent
some of the Jewish holidays with a Jewish
family, my interviewee Lea and her
mother. During Rosh ha Shana, the Jewish
New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of
Atonement, I observed the ceremonies in
the synagogue, afterwards recording the
account of events and my impressions in
my ethnographic diary.
While we are sitting down on the
benches reserved for women, Lea’s
mother takes out her lace shawl and
covers her head. This indicates that she
is married, and some other women in
the synagogue also wear lace shawls.
Around us, prayers are underway. The
cantor is singing, and the rabbi standing
in the center of the synagogue is calling
up a number of men, one after another.
All of them wear kippot (skull caps), teilin
(phylacteries), and prayer shawls. One by
one they walk up to the shrine, read out
passages from the Torah, touch the dark
red velvet curtain in front of the shrine
and return to their seats. I am captivated
by the liveliness of the ceremony, the
singing of the young cantor lown in from
Israel for the occasion, and the devout
atmosphere around me. Apart from
Lea and me, there are only three young
women present. Only a few of the older
women pray in Hebrew. Lea’s mother
has brought a prayer book. She tells me
that it belonged to her late mother, but
she is unable to read it. Her mother died
recently, and as they had been very close
Vanda Vitti
to each other the daughter adopted some
of the Jewish traditions observed in her
home: she lights a candle on Shabbat, fasts
on Yom Kippur and prepares traditional
dishes for each of the holidays.
The synagogue evokes memories of
the past in the people who visit it. This
is also evident in a statement by one of
my interviewees. During a concert in
the synagogue, this man is showing me
a chair in one of the rows in front of the
Bimah (a pulpit located in the center of
an (Orthodox) synagogue). This is where
his father used to sit. At this point, the
individual and family memories activated
in this space become connected to the
ritual practices of the Jewish community.
In turn, this connection contributes to the
development of identities of the actors
involved (cf, Assmann 2006, 208 ff.).
At irst sight, it is hardly noticeable that
only a few of the people present are able
to join in the prayers. Most others appear
to be listening, with the exception of Lea
and her mother who are having a lively
conversation. I keep on watching the
people around me and notice that many
are not praying but talking to each other
in whispers. In fact, only a small group
is actively participating in the service.
When asked afterwards, many of my
interviewees conirmed this observation.
They go to the synagogue in order to
commemorate deceased family members,
revive the family tradition or just to meet
their friends and acquaintances.
The synagogues may symbolize
Jewish religious life to outsiders but, in
actual fact, very few people observe the
Jewish religious tradition. Due to the
Holocaust, there was a rupture in the
Jewish religious life in Slovakia. So far, it
has not been possible to revive it, partly
112
due to the ban on religion in the socialist
era, which created a gap of knowledge
and a gap between generations. At
present, the young generation of
Košice Jews is incapable of keeping up
the religious traditions. This is both a
product of a lack of interest and of labor
emigration to the West after 1989. Hardly
any of my interviewees, members of the
Jewish community, are religious. People
are motivated to observe the tradition
and go to the synagogue because they
want to commemorate and pay respect
to their Jewish roots and ancestors. One
example is the decision of Lea’s mother to
wear a lace scarf in the synagogue and to
fast on Yom Kippur. The rabbi conirmed
my observations: “My attempt to guide
these people to religion is like a single
drop in the ocean”.
Conlicting palimpsests
Spaces of remembrance and memory,
relics and marks of the recent and the
long-gone past are located close to one
another in urban space, and they are
closely interwoven. Cityscapes are like
palimpsests on whose surface signs
overlap, intersect and communicate
with one another (Binder 2009, 15).
Beate Binder suggests that we should
“read” cities. I have tried to decipher
the content of the narratives connected
to some places and spaces of the Jewish
community in Košice, as well as their
partly overlapping, partly conlicting,
meanings. My impression is that after the
repressive regimes of the past, the citizens
of Košice and the Jewish community are
only step by step learning how to handle
the Jewish cultural heritage of their city.
First and foremost, this is relected in the
Jewish Culture and Its Heritage in Slovakia
existence of “conlicting palimpsests”
in which different layers of the city’s
history interact and interplay. Sometimes
this leads to conlicting interpretations
as manifested by the “inheritance
dispute” between the city council and
the Jewish community, and by talk about
the problems caused by restoration
work at the synagogues. These current
discourses merge with the diverging,
partly traumatic, memories of the actors,
members of the Jewish community who
are in the process of negotiating their
strategies of handling tradition and, thus
both individuals’ and group identity of
the Jewish community of Košice.
Wherever past and present meet,
there emerge almost irreparable ruptures
in the brickwork of memory archives and
of (hi)stories inscribed in them:
A place is everything one seeks in
it, everything one knows about it,
everything one associates with it. As
much as it is concrete and physical, it
appears multi-faceted if looked at from
all the different perspectives (Assmann
2006, 225).
Translated from the German by Alexander
Gallas
Notes
All the translations from Slovak are by the
author.
2 The SME (“We are”) is one of the mostread dailies in Slovakia.
3
There are no exact numbers on the
Jewish population in Slovakia. According
to the census in 1938, there were 11,420
Jews in Košice, 20% of the total population
of the city, cf, Slovenské Národné Múzeum
[SNM] Múzeum Židovskej Kultúry. 2010.
Encyklopedia Židovských Náboženských Obci.
113
A-K. Edicia Judaica Slovaca, 200 and 210.
Bratislava.
4 The Prague Spring was an attempt by
the then leader of Czechoslovakia Alexander
Dubček to liberalize and democratize the
country controlled by the Communist Soviet
Union. The reforms were stopped violently
after the invasion of the troops of the Warsaw
Pact (for further reading see Williams 1997;
Mannová 2000, 274 ff.; Borský 2007, 47).
5 Maroš Borský’s project “Slovak Jewish
Heritage Route” has documented the
entire Jewish cultural heritage in Slovakia.
As a result of this work six Jewish sites and
objects of remembrance have become part of
the European Route of Jewish Heritage, and
the synagogue on Zvonárska Street is among
them. (cf, http://www.slovak-jewish
heritage.org/ Accessed 25 November 2011.
6
Translator’s note, in which the italics
are his: “The original quote: ‘Obwohl eine
bestimmte Geschichte hier kulminierte und
zu einem katastrophischen Abschluss kam,
ist auch hier die Geschichte weitergegangen
und stellt sich als eine räumlich‚ geschichtete‘
dar’ contains word play that does not translate
into English: Assmann highlights common
etymological roots of the German words
Geschichte, (history), Schicht (stratum) and
geschichtete (stratiied)”.
Works Cited
Assmann, Aleida. 2006. Der lange
Schatten der Vergangenheit.
Erinnerungskultur und
Geschichtspolitik. München: C.
H. Beck.
_____. 2010. Re-framing memory.
Between individual and
collective forms of constructing
the past. In Performing the past.
Memory, History, and Identity
in Modern Europe. Eds. Karin
Tilmanns, Frank van Vree
and Jay Winter. Amsterdam:
Vanda Vitti
Amsterdam University Press,
35-50.
Benz, Wolfgang. 2005. Authentische
Orte. Überlegungen zur
Erinnerungskultur. In Der
Nationalsozialismus im Spiegel
des öffentlichen Gedächtnisses:
Formen der Aufarbeitung und
des Gedenkens. Eds. Petra Frank
and Stefan Hördler. Berlin:
Metropol, 196-203.
Lindner, Rolf. 2006. The Cultural Texture
of the City. Paper presented
at the ESF-LiU Conference
Cities and Media: Cultural
Perspectives on Urban Identities
in a Mediatized World. Vadstena
254343–29. October 2006, 53-58.
http://www.ep.liu.se/ecp/020/005/
ecp072005.pdf Accessed 28 October
Binder, Beate. 2009. Streitfall Stadtmitte:
Der Berliner Schlossplatz. Köln:
Böhlau.
Bohlman, Philip V. 2000. To Hear
the Voices Still Heard: On
Synagogue Restoration in
Eastern Europe. In Altering
States. Ethnographies of
Transition in Eastern Europe
and the Former Soviet Union.
Eds. Daphne Berdahl, Matti
Bunzl and Martha Lampland.
Michigan: The University of
Michigan Press, 40-69.
Borský, Maroš. 2007. Synagogue
Architecture in Slovakia. A
Memorial Landscape of a
Lost Community. Bratislava:
Menorah.
Borský, Maroš. 2010. Synagogue
Architecture and Jewish
Heritage in Slovakia. In Jewish
Archtitecture in Europe.
Publications of bet Tila Research
Unit for Jewish Architecture in
Europe. 6. Eds. by Aliza CohenMushlin and Harmen H. Thies.
Petersberg: Imhof, 135-146.
Halbwachs, Maurice. 1967. Das
kollektive Gedächtnis. Stuttgart:
Enke.
114
2011.
Mannová, Helena. 2000. A Concise
History of Slovakia. Bratislava:
Panorama.
Skriebeleit, Jörg. 2005. Orte des
Schreckens. Dimensionen
verräumlichter Erinnerung.
In Der Nationalsozialismus
im Spiegel des öffentlichen
Gedächtnisses. Formen
der Aufarbeitung und des
Gedenkens. Eds. Petra Frank and
Stefan Hördler. Berlin: Metropol,
205-220.
Slovenské Národné Múzeum [SNM]
Múzeum Židovskej Kultúry.
2010. Encyklopedia Židovských
Náboženských Obci. A-K. Edicia
Judaica Slovaca. Bratislava.
Williams, Kieran. 1997. The Prague Spring and
its aftermath. Czechoslovak politics
1968–1970. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Newspapers and Online Sources
Duchoň, Jozef. 1994. “História
Židovstva v Košiciach siaha do
15.” Storočia. In Košický Večer. 5
July, 8-9.
Hriadelová, Miloslava. 2000. “Štát vracia
zdevastovaný majetok.” In
Košický Korzár. 5 February. http://
korzar.sme.sk/c/4726751/stat-vraciazdevastovany-majetok.html Accessed:
1 December 2011.
Jewish Culture and Its Heritage in Slovakia
Hriadelová, Slávka, and Klaudia
Jurkovičová. 2001. “Židovská
obec sa súdi o Dom umenia.”
In SME, 9 April. http://www.sme.
sk/c/32604/zidovska-obec-sa-sudio-dom-umenia.html Accessed 1
December 2011.
Jesenský, Mikuláš. 2006. “Ortodoxnú
synagógu zničil bývalý režim.”
In SME, 20 December. http://www.
sme.sk/c/3060598/ortodoxnu-synagoguznicil-byvaly-rezim.html Accessed 25
November 2011.
http://www.slovak-jewish-heritage.org/
Accessed 25 November 2011.
115
‘There Are No Jews Here’
There Are No Jews Here: From
a Multiethnic to a Monoethnic
Town of Burshtyn
Svetlana Amosova
State Republican Center of Russian Folklore
Russia
Abstract
This paper is devoted to the preservation and
transformation of historical memory about the
Jewish population of Galicia among Ukrainians
and explores how memory about Jews functions in
the town of Burshtyn, although Jews have not lived
there for over seventy years. The study is based
on 20 in-depth interviews that were conducted
in 2009-2010. The subjects, ethnic Ukrainians
born before World War II, were eyewitnesses of
the Jewish life that once lourished in the town.
The interviews targeted three major themes: (1)
life stories of Jewish families, (2) religious life, (3)
Jewish calendar rites and rites of passage.
Today, Burshtyn is one of two towns in Galicia,
where memories about the Jewish population are
still preserved albeit in a fragmented form. Pierre
Nora coined the term «un lieu de mémoire», a place
of memory. The “Jewish local text” in Burshtyn is
a case in point. The source of memories is symbolic
spaces in the townscape – the cemetery and the
synagogues. The “text about Jews” has survived
only among those people, who lived in the town
before the war and among their descendents and,
what is particularly signiicant, only in the old
part of the town, where Jews had lived. The case of
Burshtyn enables us to observe a transformation
of a polyethnic town into a monoethnic one at the
level of “local memory.” Notably, the transmission
“vehicle” of information about Jewish life is town
toponymics: the informants describe some places
as “Jewish”.
Introduction
ierre Nora coined a term “lieux
de mémoire”, places of memory.
He spoke about French places of
memory which incarnate the national
memory of the French people. In my
article I would like to present a much
more complicated interaction of place and
memories. This case study discusses the
functioning of objects produced by one
ethno-religious group and serving as the
places of memory of another completely
different ethno-religious group. In
other words, I would like to analyze
metamorphoses undergone by memories
about Jews in the places where they have
not lived for more than seventy years. The
study is based on the ieldwork conducted
in the historical region of Galicia, where
Jewish population perished seventy years
ago, during the Holocaust. The ieldwork,
which my colleagues and me conducted in
2009 – 2010 years, was part of the project
“Jewish History in Galicia and Bukovina”.
Before World War II, Galicia was a
multiethnic region of the Polish Republic,
but in 1939 it was annexed by the Soviet
Union. After World War II Galicia turned
into a monoethnic Ukrainian province:
the Jews had been exterminated by
the Nazis and Poles expelled by the
Soviets. During ieldwork members of
the expedition conducted interviews
in a dozen of former shtetls – Yiddish
for “small towns” (e.g., Bohorodczany,
Nadworna, Rozhniatov, Chernelytsia, Dolina,
Kalush, Maniava, Otyniia and others)
which once had predominantly Jewish
population. The town of Burshtyn was one
of the two former shtetls in Galicia, where
there was no problem to ind Ukrainian
interviewees able to speak about local
P
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 117-124
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
117
Svetlana Amosova
Jews (The second one is Solotvin). (All
materials documenting this expedition
are posted on the website: http://www.
jewishgalicia.net/). In Burshtin my colleagues
and me worked in August 2010. We collected
data through in-depth interviews. Seventeen
interviews with local inhabitants (date of
birth between 1920 and 1930) have been
recorded.
In my opinion, this unusual situation
is caused by the preservation and
“structure” of Jewish objects in this town.
These objects play the role of “places of
memory”.
“Places of memory” in Burshtyn
Two kinds of physical remnants play the
role of “places of memory” about Jews
in present day Galicia: Jewish cemeteries
and former synagogues. In Galicia,
like everywhere in Eastern Europe,
the situation with Jewish cemeteries
varies from complete destruction and
disappearance to a relatively high degree
of preservation. For example, only
one quarter of the Jewish cemetery in
Burshtyn is still preserved, and according
to the local inhabitants, the rest had been
destroyed by the Nazis who used the
tombstones to pave a road. Buildings
of former synagogues serve as a second
place of memory about Jews. By contrast
with cemeteries, these buildings were
mostly destroyed. The few that survived
were reconstructed. They seldom bear
Jewish symbols. The buildings of former
synagogues are now used as shops, sport
halls, or storehouses (Cf. Vitti 2012 in
this issue). However, in the memory of
our elderly interviewees these buildings
used to be “Jewish churches.”
118
Urban Topography
Using the town of Burshtyn as an
example, I would like to show how the
memory about Jews is preserved and
constructed anew, and how it is connected
with Jewish objects of Burshtyn’s urban
topography.
The majority of our elderly interviewees
said that Burshtyn had signiicantly
changed after World War II. The Jewish
and Polish population disappeared,
and the structure of the town altered.
Burshtyn grew considerably after a heatand-power plant was built there in the
1950s. What used to be a downtown
became a suburb. Some of the prewar
buildings burned down during the war
and others were demolished in the postwar years. Now the town consists of
two parts: the new one with apartment
buildings that rose near the heat-andpower plant, and the old one with small
private houses. It is not surprising that the
majority of those who work at the power
plant are newcomers from neighboring
villages and other parts of the Ukraine.
They inhabited the new apartment
houses, while the original, “indigenous”
population remained in the old part of
Burshtyn. Therefore it is quite logical
that only families living in the old town
preserve some memory about Jews who
also lived in the old town. Ukrainians
living in the new center are unaware that
Burstyn was multiethnic before World
War II.
Our elderly interviewees in the old
town mention that Jews constituted
the majority of prewar population in
Burshtyn. They owned shops and were
engaged in crafts. One woman recalled
a proverb that circulated before the war:
“The streets are Polish and the houses are
‘There Are No Jews Here’
The building of the second synagogue in Burshtyn was constructed (or restored) in 1931
Jewish” (SII, 1920). However, today only
one street is perceived as a Jewish one.
It starts from two former synagogue
buildings and continues to the Jewish
cemetery. In the interwar period this
street was named after Theodor Herzl –
the founder of political Zionism and the
World Zionist Organization. In the Soviet
period it was renamed after Alexander
Herzen, a Russian author and thinker,
without any Jewish roots. His writings
introduced socialist ideas to the Russian
reader. In the Soviet period they were
part of the school curriculum, so his
name was widely known. The majority
of our Ukrainian interviewees live in this
street. They did not pay special attention
to the name change and seem to believe
that renaming was due to the change
of the oficial language from Polish to
Russian after the war. Moreover, they are
convinced that Herzl and Herzen are two
versions of the same name:
119
-- З кладбищі того, то Герцена вулиця.
Не знаю, чому назвали вулиця Герцена,
по-моєму то був письменник який чи
що, по-моєму.
-- А як вона ранніша називалася?
-- Так і назвалася ще за Польщі, весь
час вон Герцена називався ще за
Польщі
-- there is Herzen Street near the
cemetery. I do not know, why it was
named Herzen Street, I think he was a
writer or something.
-- And what was it called earlier?
-- This is what it was called in Poland.
It was always called Herzen Street in
Poland” (NFS, 1929)
-- Вона називається Герцена, а до
війни називалася Xерцля.
-- Ну, то по-польськи
-- Герцля по-польськи. А по-русски
Герцена
- It is called Herzen Street, and before
the war it used to be called Herzl.
Svetlana Amosova
-- It is a Polish name.
-- Herzl is a Polish name. And in Russian
it is Herzen (SGM, 1932)
One interviewee even thought that Herzen
was a Jewish igure:
-- Герцена.
-- А кто єто?
-- Я не знаю точно, хто він був. Але
я знаю, що він був якійсь старий...
старший рабін. А хто він ще то я не
можу вам сказати, то я не знаю. Но
так уважали все, що раз він Герцена,
раз вулицю назвали Герцена, значить,
та людина щось заслуговує і що вона
якась відома людям і так назвали
вулиця Герцена і вона і до сьогодні
вулиця Герцена
-- It is Herzen [Street]
-- Who was he ?
-- I don’t know precisely who he was.
But I know that he was an old… chief
rabbi. I don’t know who he was. But he
was respected by everyone, so the street
was named Herzen. It means that he was
known to people. And it is Herzen Street
now (SII, 1920).
All our interviewees were children before
the war; therefore their reminiscences
about neighbors are connected to those
individuals who maintained contacts
with their parents. For the most part
these were business contacts, so the
interviewees remember the names of
shop owners or their parents’ employers.
Some Jewish people were very important
for children, for example, Gedalya, who
produced dairy products, including icecream:
От за нашим огородом була одна хата,
друга хата, третя хата, в тій хаті, третьої
хаті, там було молочарні, робілі морозиво,
робілі молоко, сметану - все там робілі,
все. Не було. Але нам не було треба,
мама малі свою господарку [apparently
120
the interviewee meant господарство]
не було треба, а шо ми колись казали
“ледом”, ми за тім морозиво бігали. Ми
бігали, мама давала чи молока, чи сиру,
а вони нам давали морозиво.
-А от як їх звали тих, у кого морозиво?
-Я не помятаю, як писав, то була хата
– називали Бранци, а друга – Ханци, а
той молочарня називали його Гедалья.
А як пісав не знаю. Було прізвище, а
я не знаю.[…] У них був гробарь, там
була хата, вин там жив, мал кози, і там
жив. Він ходив за тім цвинтером. Але
хата була тут на переді, бо я помятаю
добре...
Here behind our kitchen was one house,
and another house, the third house. In that
house, in the third one there was a dairy.
They made ice cream, milk and sour cream.
They made everything. But we didn’t need
it. My mother had a farm, but we used to
say to her that we were buying the “ice”,
for ice-cream. We used to go there. Mother
gave us milk or cheese for them. They gave
us ice-cream.
-And what was the name of these people
with ice-cream?
-I don’t know how they spelled it.
That house was called Brantsi, and the
second house was Hantsi’s, and the dairy
was Gedal’ja’s.. I don’t know how they
spelled it. He had a family name, but I
know […] They had a cofin-maker. There
was a house there. He lived there, he had
goats and he lived there. He took care of the
cemetery. But the house was here, in front,
I remember this well… (SGM, 1932).
Hasidic court
What makes Burshtyn markedly
different from other Galician settlements
is reminiscences about the Hasidic court
of Rabbi Moshe Branwine (1890-1943)
which functioned in the shtetl in the
late 1930s (Alfasi 1995, 350). In other
‘There Are No Jews Here’
The Jewish cemetery in Burshtyn
Galician towns, where Hasidic Rebbes
(Hasidic leaders) lived, the memory
about them has already disappeared.
Elderly Ukrainians in Burshtyn describe
how they peeped into the windows of
the Rebbe’s court in order to see him.
In addition, they remember the
hollowed grave of the previous Hasidic
Rebbe, Rabbi Nahum Branwine (18471915) in the local cemetery and say that the
Jewish funeral processions would stop at
this grave and only after paying respects
to the Rebbe’s grave would continue on
their way to the place prepared to bury
the deceased. Importantly, Hasidic
Rebbes and Jewish “miracle-working”
tombs were signiicant not only for Jews.
We managed to record narratives about
the once widespread practice, when non-
121
Jews asked Rebbes and graves for help in
important matters:
Я была мала, у меня очи не видели,
очи, а соседка еврейка каже: “Иди
до рабина, доню”. Мама меня повела
малу, детиной, я не знала, не знала.
У мэнэ так було. Дюже не видела! А
еврейка та сказала: “Сонечко, иди до
рабина”. Мешкай там недалеко от нас.
Я зазрела! Сами, сами. Еврейка. Рабин
такой, зробил так, что я зазрела
I was a child, my eyes did not see, my
eyes, and a Jewish neighbor said, “ Go to
the Rabbi, darling.” Mum took me, I was
a little child then and I didn’t know, I
didn’t know. I didn’t see anything. . And
that Jewish woman said, “Sonechko, go
to the rabbi.” The rabbi lived not far from
us. And I began to see! My eyes began to
Svetlana Amosova
see clearly! The Rabbi did something so
that I could see. (PYI, 1923).
Another old woman told us that she had
asked the holy grave make her healthy:
А то на середине [кладбища] зара був
рабин, я все шла и говорила: “Рабин,
рабин, дай мне здоровья!” Рабин,
рабин, дай мне здоровья. А рабины
такие поважные были, как ксендзы,
их уважали люди, великий, великий
був рабин. А даже когда парканы не
було, то я шла в том конце, я все равно:
“Рабин, рабин, дай мени здоровья
воны шлюб берут на мусорной куче.
А свадьбу они добре, они разные
блюда. Я не знаю. Я не знаю, я не
ходила. Спивают, спивают, так дюже
гарно: вай-вай-вай. Это я запамятала.
Они так поют”
Their weddings take place on piles of
garbage. But the wedding was good.
They made various dishes. I do not
know. I do not know, I did not go. They
sang so well: wai-wai-wai. I remember
this. They used to sing (MP, 1929).
Ховали по-моєму сидя і до сонця (на
восток), у цю сторону клали у білому
чи то халат був, чи покривало.
I think they were buried facing the sun
(on the east) and in this way they were
placed in a white robe or blanket (NFS,
1929).
In the middle of the cemetery there
was a rabbi’s grave. Each time I
passed by, I would say “Rabbi,
rabbi, give me health, rabbi, rabbi,
give me health.” The rabbis were
so important, like Catholic priests,
people respected them. This was
a great rabbi, a great, a great rabbi.
Even after the fence around the
cemetery had disappeared, I kept
saying, rabbi, rabbi, give me health
(GMT, 1922).
The practice of visiting synagogues and
rabbis still lingers on among Ukrainians
in the neighboring regions (Amosova,
Kaspina 2009, 1–24), but in Galicia it has
disappeared completely, and only some
reminiscences are still preserved.
In addition to the stories mentioned
above we collected many descriptions of
Jewish religious life, calendar rites and
rites of passage. These descriptions often
have folkloric nature and rely strongly on
stereotypes (Cała 1995; Belova 2005). For
example, Jews are believed to be buried
in sitting position, and Jewish weddings
to be organized on a pile of garbage:
122
It is interesting that among different
fragmented memories the best preserved
is the memory about funeral rites. The
reason may be that funeral is the most
noticeable rite for non-Jewish neighbors,
and there are many more stereotypes
about the funeral than about other life
events. Secondly, the reminiscences about
Jews are often connected to an existing
cemetery and therefore begin with the
funeral.
Conclusions
We have seen that the whole “Jewish local
text” in Burshtyn is based on the objects
in the townscape – the cemetery and the
synagogues. The “text about Jews” exists
only among those people, who lived in
the town before World War II and their
children. What is particularly signiicant
is that it exists only in the old part of the
town where Jews used to live. This “text”
is mostly widespread among the people
‘There Are No Jews Here’
living in Herzl – Herzen Street. Thus,
we may say that the existence of Jewish
objects in the townscape constructs
and preserves historical memory. This
illustrates the thesis of Pierre Nora: “The
less memory is experienced internally,
the more memory needs external support
and points of support. The memory exists
due to the points of support.” (Nora 1999,
17 – 18).
The local memory about an extinct
group exists very often only around
extant Jewish objects in the townscape
and only thanks to their existence.
The Jewish cemetery which nobody
visits, two former synagogues and the
“Jewish” name of a street in Burshtyn
play a signiicant symbolic role in the
town’s narrative. The less the degree of
preservation of these places of memory,
the less the preservation of the local
historical memory about the Jewish life.
In this context it is important to mention
that stereotypes are usually preserved
better than real facts about the Jewish
way of life and tradition, about Jewish
neighbors and their names. But in today’s
Galicia we see not only the disappearance
of real reminiscences, but also the
disappearance of ethnic stereotypes.
Young people have no memory about
Jews who lived in the town before the
war. Usually they only remember that
there used to be Polish population in
the area in the prewar period since the
border with today’s Poland is situated
nearby. Quite often they consider all
“strange,” non-Ukrainian objects in their
town to be Polish heritage, excluding
completely any remembrance of the past
Jewish presence.
The example of Burshtyn shows how
a multiethnic town becomes monoethnic
123
at the level of “local memory.” For the
majority of present-day inhabitants
of Burshtyn the memory about its
multiethnicity, about its “others,” and
non-Ukrainian history is meaningless.
This memory has no symbolical value.
Archive Material
SII, 1920 – Archive of the project “Jewish
History in Galicia and Bukovina”. Recorded from
Ivanna Shanc, 1920 year of birth.
NFS, 1929 – Archive of the project “Jewish
History in Galicia and Bukovina”. Recorded from
Fedor Narytnik, 1929 year of birth.
SGM, 1932 – Archive of the project “Jewish
History in Galicia and Bukovina”. Recorded from
Ganna Stec, 1932 year of birth.
GMT, 1922 – Archive of the project “Jewish
History in Galicia and Bukovina”. Recorded from
Mihailo Stec, 1922 year of birth.
PYI, 1923 – Archive of the project “Jewish
History in Galicia and Bukovina”. Recorded from
Julia Petriv, 1923 year of birth.
MP, 1929 – Archive of the project “Jewish
History in Galicia and Bukovina”. Recorded from
Maria, 1929 year of birth
Works Cited
Alfasi, Itzhak. 1995. Ha-hasidut midor le-dor (Hasidism from
generation to generation).
Jerusalem: Makhon Daat Yosef.
Amosova, Kaspina – Амосова,
Светлана, Каспина, Мария.
2009. “Парадокс межэтнических
контактов: Практика обращения
неевреев в синагогу (по
полевым материалам)”.
Антропологический форум Online
no 11: 1-24.
Belova – Белова, Ольга.2005.
Этнокультурные стереотипы м
славянской народной традиции.
Москва: Индрик.
Svetlana Amosova
Cała, Alina 1995. The Image of the
Jew in Polish Folk Culture.
Jerusalem: Magnes Press.
Nora, Pierre – Нора, Пьер. 1999.
Проблематика мест памяти. В
Франция – память, 17-50. СанктПетербург: Издательство СанктПетербургского университета.50.
Vitti, Vanda. 2011. “Jewish Culture
and Its Heritage in Slovakia
after 1989: Urban Sites of
Remembrance in Košice and
their meanings”. Cultural
Analysis 10.
124
The Case of the Island of Kos
Globalization in the life of
small island towns: Changes
for better or worse?
The case of the island of Kos
(Greece)
Kira Kaurinkoski
The French School of Athens,
France
Introduction
lobalization describes the process
by which regional economies,
societies and cultures have become
integrated through communication,
transportation and trade. The term is
most closely associated with economic
globalization: the integration of national
economies
into
the
international
economy through trade, foreign direct
investment, capital lows, migration,
the spread of technology and military
presence (Bhagwati, 2004). According to
the Oxford English Dictionary, the word
“globalization” was irst employed in a
publication entitled Towards New Education
in 1930, to denote a holistic view of human
experience in education. However, it was
only in the 1960s that the term began to
be widely used by economists and other
social scientists. Since its inception the
term has inspired numerous competing
deinitions and interpretations. Most of
them acknowledge the greater movement
of people, goods, capital and ideas due
to increased economic integration which
in turn is propelled by increased trade
and investment. Tom G. Palmer deines
G
globalization as “the diminution of stateenforced restrictions on exchanges across
borders and the increasingly integrated
and complex global system of production
and exchange that has emerged as a
result”.1 Thomas L. Friedman argues that
globalized trade, outsourcing, supplychaining, and political forces have
changed the world permanently, for both
better and worse. He also argues that the
pace of globalization is quickening and
will continue to have a growing impact
on business organization and practice
(2008, 49).
Globalization and international tourism
are interconnected processes. Tourism in
the small island context involves people
who come from other countries to enjoy
the special atmosphere of living on an
island. Usually, the tourists who come
to the islands have been attracted by the
image of the island environment: the sun
and the sea, white sandy beaches and
waving palm trees, lush vegetation and
friendly natives. Tourism thus depends for
its success on the quality of environment,
and good tourist development requires
protection and even improvement of the
environment.
Economically, tourism can create
jobs for local people and bring money.
However, many tourists like the comfort
they are used to at home, and increasingly,
import a large part of their requirements,
so that much of the money may leave the
country again to pay for these imports.
Moreover, if the hotels have been inanced
by foreign investors, they want to export
their proits. The social impacts may also
be important. Tourists often come from
other societies with different values and
lifestyles, and because they come seeking
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 125-139
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
125
Kira Kaurinkoski
pleasure, they may spend large amounts
of money and behave in ways that they
themselves would not accept at home.
Out of ignorance or carelessness, they
may fail to respect local customs and
moral values. Overall, tourism tends to
be a mixed blessing in its beneits and
impacts on the island environment. If
it is allowed to grow unplanned, it can
have serious social and environmental
repercussions while providing little real
economic beneit. If developed with care,
it can bring advantages to small island
communities with few other resources
(Dahl, 1982).
For Western and Northern Europeans
the Mediterranean region has for a long
time had a special aura of relaxed and
restful atmosphere. In this case, it is
similar to the Soviet Union, where the
idea of rest and vacation was closely
linked with the Black Sea. The local
populations of both the Mediterranean
and the Crimean and Caucasian coasts
to a large extent live off tourism, yet
they tend to dislike and despise holidaymakers.2
Likewise, the opening of borders
following the political changes in Europe
since 1990 has been often accompanied
by opposing processes of closure at the
level of the local society. Border regions
are particularly interesting places for the
observation of such phenomena as has
been demonstrated by recent research
(Green, 2005; Sutton, 1998). The aim of
this essay is to relect on the effects of
globalization, international tourism and
migration on the island of Kos. Particular
attention will be paid to the integration
of “foreigners” and to the coexistence of
different ethnic groups in the context of
an island community in contemporary
Greece.3
126
The case of the island of Kos
Kos is one of the main islands of the
Dodecanese and one of the most
important islands from an administrative,
demographic and economic point of
view. Because of its geopolitical location,
its history and the diversity of cultural
and religious inluences across time, this
island group is a particularly interesting
place for ieldwork. In the Middle Ages,
the Dodecanese belonged to the Knights
of Saint John (1309-1522) and from 1522
to the Ottoman Empire. In 1912, after a
war between the Ottoman Empire and
Italy, the Dodecanese were subjected
to Italian administration (1912-1943).
During World War II, it was occupied by
Germany and then placed under British
control. It is the last region incorporated
into the Greek State in 1947.
There are substantial differences in the
manner these islands have developed
in the course of the twentieth century.
The Italians undertook important
infrastructure work on the main islands,
Rhodes and Kos. They created a naval
base and settled 14 000 colonists in Leros.
Yet, they did little to retain the inhabitants
of Kalymnos, Symi and Kastellorizo
after phohibiting sponge ishing on the
Libyan coast and when cultivation of
land in Asia Minor, where “many had
their ields” was no longer possible. As
a consequence, many inhabitants, in
particular from these islands, emigrated
overseas. Others, coming from smaller
islands, ind seasonal work in Kos and
Rhodes (Kolodny, 2004).
Since the 1970s Rhodes and Kos have
mainly followed a development pattern
meeting the demands of the tourism
sector. Each island has an international
airport and both were among the irst
The Case of the Island of Kos
The temple of Asklipeio on the island of Kos
international charter light destinations in
Greece. The other islands have followed
a different development pattern in the
ield of tourism. Patmos is mainly known
as a place for pilgrimage for Greek
Orthodox and Roman Catholics, whereas
Kalymnos, the only island where sponge
ishing is still practiced, has gained
international fame as a favorite meeting
place for rock climbers.
Kos is also known as the spiritual home
of Hippocrates (460-370 B.C.), considered
to be the greatest physician of antiquity.
The ancient sanctuary of Asklipeion and a
plane tree are consecrated to his memory.
There are Roman and Greek ruins, as
well as Latin, Byzantine and Ottoman
monuments there. The remains of an
old synagogue and the Jewish cemetery
remind us of the local Jewish community
of the past.
127
Rich and culturally diverse history of
Kos is relected not only in its monuments
but also in its population. Today, the
great majority are Greek Orthodox but
there is also a Muslim population of
ethnic Turks, as well as a small number
of Roman Catholics and Lutherans. Since
the 1980s Kos has been a home for large
numbers of foreign residents, as well as
economic migrants and refugees. The
former are mainly Western and Northern
Europeans, whereas the latter mainly
come from the Balkans, Eastern Europe,
South-East Asia and the Middle East.
Moreover, Kos is an island that has
water, an important resource lacking on
many Greek islands. All in all, the island
covers an area of 295 square kilometers
and has a population of approximately
30,000 inhabitants. The principal socio-
Kira Kaurinkoski
professional activities of the population
are tourism and agriculture; a smaller
number of residents are employed in the
public sector.
In the early 1990s, Kos became an
important venue for Scandinavian and
British youth and gained fame as a party
island. The irst large hotels with more
The central square in the town of Kos
A brief overview of
tourism development in Kos
The irst tourist groups arrived in Kos
in the 1970s. The 1980s saw the opening
of the irst larger hotels. In the 1980s,
the socialist government of Andreas
Papandreou granted long-term loans
to returning ethnic Greeks who wanted
to construct hotels or start their own
businesses. A small number of Greeks
from Kos who had migrated to Australia
in the 1960s repatriated to Greece taking
advantage of this opportunity.
128
than 200 rooms were constructed in the
1990s. These were “all inclusive” resort
hotels, which meant that a minimum three
meals a day, soft drinks, most alcoholic
drinks and possibly other services are
included in the price. Many also offer
sports and other activities. Thus a new
concept of tourism was born.4
Some of the owners of the all-inclusive
hotels in Kos are native Greeks, however,
the large chains are usually foreign
owned. This means that the money does
The Case of the Island of Kos
not stay on the island. According to the
representatives of the tourism sector,
the majority of clients who stay in these
hotels come from Germany, Austria and
Switzerland. Many spend their holidays
in the hotel compound – these are usually
located on the seashore at some distance
from the town of Kos – and do not even
visit the island. Some others take pleasure
in spending time in a tavern.
They come, sit down and order a
tzadziki or a choriatiki (Greek salad), for
two. And that is all. For dinner they
return to the hotel where everything
is included in the price. For the local
tavern owners, the situation is tragic.
(Representative of a tourism agency)
of the holidaymakers are concerned. As
mentioned earlier, the all-inclusive hotels
are gaining predominance. Moreover,
there has been a decrease in the number
of Nordic tourists. On the other hand,
new groups have found their way to
the island, mainly from Croatia, the
Czech Republic, Russia, Italy, France and
Turkey. From the local perspective, the
Russians and the Turks are particularly
welcome tourists.
When they travel they live well, they
eat and drink well, and they buy
presents for the entire family. They are
very good clients: they leave money
on the island.
Tourists’ geographic choices follow a
distinct pattern according to nationality.
Kardemena, Kefalos and Kamari on
the southern and eastern coasts are the
favorite tourist villages of the British.
There are numerous British pubs and
food places with a “British” menu. On
the western coast, Tigaki, Marmari and
Mastichari are the villages of choice
among the Germans and the Austrians.
Tourists from the Nordic countries
usually spend their holidays in the town
of Kos.
In the spring and fall, most tourists
are older people and families. July is the
preferred holiday month of young people
aged 20-30 and August of the Greeks.
Traditionally tourists in Kos come from
Germany, Britain, Holland and the Nordic
countries. The aicionados come back every
year, even twice a year. There are tourists
who have visited Kos regularly for more
than 20 years. Over the years, there have
been changes, especially as far as the
countries of origin and the type of stay
129
The duration of the season has also
changed. In the past, it started in April
and lasted until the end of October. Today,
it starts in May and ends in September.
There have also been other changes,
for example in the practice of holiday
romance. In the past, young girls, most
of whom were Western and Northern
Europeans, were often accompanied by
local men. The latter saw the girls off
to the airport (usually on a motorbike)
and waited for their return to the island.
Today, this is no longer the case. People
are well traveled and even villagers have
seen the world, so they are less attracted
by newcomers than in the past. A recent
documentary, The colossi of love by Maria
Koufopoulou depicts the practice of
kamaki5 in Rhodes during the golden
years of mass tourism.
One of my interlocutors, a historian
who works in the local archives of a
neighboring island, recalls this period
with nostalgia. In the 1980s, Greek society
and the island society in particular were
still rather conservative. The arrival of
Kira Kaurinkoski
Nordic girls in Kos and Rhodes in the
1980s was a “social phenomenon”.
All of a sudden, we saw large numbers
of Nordic women arrive on the island,
alone without men. They were tall,
blond, and wore shorts or bikini. We
had never seen anything like this
before. It was spectacular. We watched
them eyes wide open. In the evening
when one went to the disco, there
were couples everywhere. Everyday
was alike: the sun, the sea, alcohol
and sex. Some women returned to the
island two or three times, and some
couples got married. However, most
relations did not last. … Later things
changed. Greek society became more
liberal, Greek women started dressing
up and putting on make-up.
Social phenomena, according to John
Markey, are considered as including all
behavior which inluences or is inluenced
by organisms suficiently alive to respond
to one another (Markey, 1925-1926, 733).
Agneta, a Swedish woman who lives
in Kos with her husband and children
since the early 1980s told me about her
experience. She irst came to Kos in 1979
as a tourist. According to her, at that time
one did not see Greek women.
In the street, in the discos, there were
Greek men and foreign women. There
was a mutual curiosity; the foreigners
wanted to get to know the Greeks
and the Greeks wanted to meet the
foreigners. Today, the tourists spend
their time with their co-nationals;
they are not interested in Greeks. On
the other hand, today Greek women
also go out, so the Greeks do not need
foreign women anymore.
130
The irst mixed marriages between foreign
women and Greek men in Kos were
concluded in the 1980s. In most cases,
these were between Greek Orthodox men
and foreign Catholic or Lutheran women.
Mixed marriages between Greek Muslim
men and foreign women were relatively
few. Many couples would share houses
with the husband’s parents for years
before getting married. It was not easy
to get accepted because many Greek
families were “afraid” of foreign brides.
In particular, they feared they would
take the children and leave. Such cases
have been observed in mixed marriages
between Greek men and Swedish
women. Some foreign women converted
to Greek Orthodoxy. Others concluded
a civil marriage or were wedded in the
bride’s country of origin.
Children of mixed marriages between
foreign women and Greek Orthodox
men are usually baptized as Orthodox.
This is easily explained by the hegemonic
position of the Orthodox Church in Greek
society. Likewise, as a rule, male children
of Muslim fathers are circumcised. In the
choice of the name, the prevailing Greek
tradition is usually followed.
In the 1990s, with the increasing
number of children born out of mixed
marriages, the transmission of the mother
tongue to children became an issue.
Today, the Finns, the Scandinavians,
the Germans, the British and the Dutch
have their own associations and Sunday
schools where language education for
school children is provided in the mother
tongue. The Municipality of the town of
Kos has provided the associations with a
building, free of charge. After completing
the compulsory school education,
children tend to continue their studies
The Case of the Island of Kos
in Greece or in the mother’s country of
origin.
Political changes in Europe since 1990
and the effects of globalization
Political changes that occurred in Europe
in the 1990s led to the arrival of large
numbers of migrants from the Balkans,
South-East Asia and the Middle East,
causing further changes in the everyday
life in Kos and the neighbouring islands.
The estimated number of foreign migrants
in Kos is 3,000, which makes 10% of the
total population of the island and is
consistent with the situation nationwide.
Over the last decades, Greece formerly
better known as a country exporting
migrants and refugees turned into an
immigrant receiving country. Today, it has
one of the highest number of immigrants
per inhabitant in Europe. This means
that Greece has been confronted with
political, economic and social challenges
but also with cultural otherness: old
forms have been politicized and new
forms have taken shape in Greek space
(Papataxiarchis, 2005).
The situation of foreign migrants
varies from one case to another; as a rule,
the majority of migrants from Eastern
Europe are females while males prevail
among migrants from South-East Asia.
Albanians and Bulgarians often bring
families along. In addition to “regular”
migrants, there are migrants whose legal
situation in the country is “irregular”;
among the latter some are refugees
or asylum seekers. The geographical
position of Kos and the other Aegean
islands, – Rhodes, Leros, Patmos, Lesbos
and Samos – make them a passageway for
clandestine migration from the Turkish
shores. The majority are Iraqis, Afghans,
131
Iranians, Somali and Pakistani. Both
genders are represented; there are also
families and newborn babies. As a rule,
the Iraqis and the Afghans stay on the
island only as long as it takes to obtain
a medical certiicate and a certiicate that
grants them the status of asylum seekers.
Then they continue their journey to
Athens, Patras and other destinations in
Europe.
On the whole, the arrival of migrants
and new groups is not a new phenomenon
in Kos. In the late 19th century, Kos received
a number of Greek-speaking Muslims
from Crete. In the early 20th century, it saw
the arrival of Greeks from Asia Minor.
Residents of other islands also moved
to Kos attracted by the employment
possibilities offered by the Italians.
More recently, during the expansion of
the tourism sector, a signiicant number
of Greeks from neighboring islands,
Kalymnos, Pserimos, as well as from
central and northern Greece, came to
work on the island.
Ironically, the arrival of large numbers
of migrants from the Balkans, Asia and
the Middle East – who do the “worst” jobs
– has altered the old hierarchy of social
and ethnic groups present on the island.
“With the arrival of the East-Europeans, our
social status has degraded as well,” says
one of my Finnish interlocutors who has
lived in Kos since 1981.
All of a sudden, we have all become
foreigners, xenoi (in Greek). When we
came, we came from a better, more
advanced society. We knew English.
Among the locals, few knew English
in those days, mainly those who
had lived in Australia. We found
work immediately. Here, everything
was expanding. There was work for
Kira Kaurinkoski
The Ibrahim Defterdar mosque in the central sqaure in the town of Kos
everybody. The point of departure for
East-Europeans is different. There are
many East-Europeans who work here,
[…], many work in night clubs.
The change in social hierarchies is
particularly interesting as far as the
perception of the old Muslim minority
is concerned. Until recently, the latter
were largely considered to be people
of a “lower God”. According to my
foreign-born interlocutors, “Everybody
had his rile ready and was ready to shoot”,
in particular, after the events of Imia
(Kardak in Turkish) in 1996. Since 1999
the situation has been changing. This
should be seen as a consequence of the
political changes in Europe, pressure
from European institutions6 and the
recent rapprochement between Greece
and Turkey and more generally between
EU and Turkey.
132
Ethnic Turks in Kos: from Ottoman
subjects to Greek citizens
Ethnic Turks or the “Muslims”, according
to the oficial Greek terminology, are
part of a historic minority present in
Rhodes and Kos since 1522, as subjects
of the Ottoman Empire.7 In the late 19th
century, signiicant numbers of Muslim
Turks from Crete settled on these islands
(Savorianakis, 2000, 88). During the
Italian administration, the Muslims
were recognized as one of the three
existing religious communities with the
right to elect their own Councils. After
the incorporation of the Dodecanese
into the Greek State, the great majority
automatically became Greek citizens.
Although the Dodecanese Muslims were
not recognized as a minority, because they
were not deemed as a category falling
under the protection of the Lausanne
Treaty,8 special status was acknowledged
for the waqfs9 and Turkish schools
(Kurban, Tsitselikis, 2010, 7; Georgalidou,
2004).
The Case of the Island of Kos
The incorporation of the Dodecanese
into the Greek State and the Cyprus
conlict which took the form of a military
confrontation in 1974 forced large numbers
of Muslims to leave their native islands
and migrate to Turkey. In many cases
migration was motivated by economic
considerations. In connection with the
Cyprus conlict, it was mainly a reaction
to the discrimination that Muslims faced
in Greece. Field research suggests that
the 1960s and the 1970s were particularly
dificult years for the Muslims, marked
by sabotage of shops, ields and cattle.
Discrimination in the ields of education
and health service continued even later.
Usually, those who left were deprived of
their Greek citizenship and also of their
property (Kaurinkoski, 2012).
Today,
the
estimated
Muslim
population in the Dodecanese is 5,000,
with 3,000 to 3, 500 living in Rhodes, and
1,500 to 2,000 in Kos. In Kos, the Muslims
mainly live in the town of Kos and in the
village of Platani (or Gkerme-Kermentes).
The latter is situated a few kilometers
outside the town of Kos and is the last
village on the way to the Archeological
monument of Asklipeio, which is one of
the most important tourist attractions
on the island. The Turkish name of
the village, Gkerme-Kermentes, most
probably derives from the homonymic
place of origin of its inhabitants whose
ancestors settled there in the sixteenth
century having migrated from the other
side of the Aegean (Savorianakis, 2000,
58). Today, half of the population of
Platani are Greek Orthodox and schools
are mixed, although all the teachers are
Greek Orthodox. Since the 1970s all pupils
have attended Greek public schools,
while the Turkish language is mainly
133
used for purposes of oral communication
within the communities.
Generally speaking, today the
Muslims in Kos and Rhodes wear the
same clothes,10 do the same jobs and
bring their children to the same schools
as their Greek Orthodox brethren. All
in all, the Muslims constitute a young
population. Young men are subject to
compulsory military service in Greece.
However, it seems they are not recruited
to the Military Academy.11
Locally, the Muslims have a reputation
of hard workers. Traditionally, many
used to work in agriculture and cattle
breeding. Today, the great majority are
self-employed and work in agriculture
and tourism. Other frequent occupations
are mechanics, technicians, shop and
restaurant keepers or specialists in the
construction ield. Some are employed
in the public sector but hold low
prestige positions. Among university
graduates a few are employed in
public administration or in education.
Some others have opened their own
businesses. Over the years, important
changes have taken place in Greek
society and polity, and entrance to Greek
Universities has been facilitated by laws
and quotas of positive discrimination.
As a consequence, an increasing number
of Muslims pursue their education in
secondary schools in Greece and later in
Greek Universities. In parallel, studying
in Turkey is not incompatible with
further career opportunities and a good
quality of life in Greece. Religion remains
a separating factor, and mixed marriages
between Greek Muslims and Christians,
Greek Orthodox in particular, remain
rare. In the case of Muslim women, they
are socially unacceptable.
In 2000, a local Muslim association
Kira Kaurinkoski
was founded in Kos, called the Muslim
Brotherhood of Kos. It is a cultural and
educational association of ethnic
Turks. The main issues on the agenda
of the association are promotion of
the institutionalization of the Turkish
language and Islamic education in the
context of the Greek public schools in
Kos with a large number of Muslim
pupils, as well as issues related to the
management of the waqf foundation.12
Recent migrants from the Balkans,
Middle East and South-East Asia do not
have their own associations.
As far as the rather successful
integration of the Muslims in Kos into
the wider Greek society and economy is
concerned, this can be partially explained
by the economic development of the region
and the effects of globalization which have
beneited the entire population of these
islands. However, what seems equally,
if not more important is the fact that the
Muslims in Kos pursue their education
in Greek public schools together with the
majority population. The public school is
perceived here as an institution providing
students with essential language skills in
Greek and developing Greek national
consciousness.
As regards neighborly relations, many
Muslims in Kos emphasize that today
they live like brothers with their Greek
Orthodox co-islanders. Some others claim
that “their best friends are Christians”. Their
children go to school together, they invite
each other to weddings and holiday
celebrations. Oficial relations between
the confessional groups are mutually
evaluated as very good. In the end, it
seems that relations between members
of different confessional groups, people
and individuals are characterized by a
134
savoir-vivre where everybody knows his/
her place (Kaurinkoski, 2012).
Globalization: changes for better or
worse?
Globalization has brought inter alia
tourism, migration and wealth to
Kos. It has also brought technology,
infrastructure and physical changes.
As late as in the 1980s, during summer
months telephone lines would collapse
frequently due to overloading. With
the advent of mobile phones and the
internet, the communications problem
has been resolved. At the same time,
technology and globalization have
brought uniformity.
Earlier, each bistro and tavern had its
own personalized character. Today, the
same white parasols are everywhere.
In the past, Greek music was played in
the taverns and the night clubs; today,
it is the same Anglo-Saxon tunes that
are heard all over.
Moreover, some feel that globalization
has brought about “laziness”. Indeed,
there has been a shift in the labor market.
In the past, there were a number of
small factories in Kos, and many people
were employed in agriculture and
ishing. Today, most of the factories have
closed down, and few people work in
agriculture and ishing perceived as hard
work. “It is easier to open a supermarket or a
mini-market.” Tourism has brought “easy
money” to the island.
Moreover, globalization has intensiied
social stratiication among the island
people. The cost of living has risen, in
particular after the introduction of the
euro in 2001. ”In the past people would work
ive months and relax the rest of the year;
The Case of the Island of Kos
today, this is no longer possible.” One of my
interlocutors who arrived in Kos in 1982,
recalls her irst years on the island:
In those days, there was work for
everybody. Everybody had money.
People were more sincere and happier.
Today, everybody is stressed. Life has
become very dificult.
often explained by the presence of large
numbers of foreign migrants on the island,
in particular of Albanians. Partially,
this should be seen as a relection of the
image portrayed by the national Greek
mass media throughout the 1990s and
the following decade. It is also explained
by numbers; 60% of migrants in Greece
are
Albanians
(Baldwin-Edwards,
2004). However, there are also positive
The central square in the village of Platani
The change in the rhythm of life is also
relected on the associational level. In
the past, the associations of foreigners
organized lotteries, carnivals, bazaars,
as well as celebration of Christmas and
other holidays every year. Today, only
the bazaar is left, its main aim being
money raising for the children’s language
education.
While
relecting
on
various
consequences of globalization, people
often mention growing crime rate,
insecurity and fear. Locally, these are
135
developments and signs of integration.
School
achievements
of
secondgeneration immigrants are often very
good. Moreover, some migrants have
bought plots of land and apartments on
the island. In parallel, Albanians and
Bulgarians also invest in their countries
of origin. There are signs that Albanians
are gradually becoming accepted by the
host society; it is Muslim immigrants
from the Middle East and South-East
Asia that have become the “disturbing
other” and “a cultural threat” to Greece
(Tsitselikis, 2010, 243).
Kira Kaurinkoski
Since traditional tourism is on decline,
local authorities in cooperation with
representatives of the tourism industry
began rebranding Kos in order to attract
new groups of tourists to the island. As
part of this process, bicycle roads have
been constructed in the town of Kos and
along the coast. In the summer months,
various cultural events are organized
to celebrate the history and the local
cultures of the island. There are daily
excursions to the neighboring islands
and several ferry connections to Turkey.
Today, despite the economic crisis that
has been raging in Greece since 2008, the
number of tourists in Kos is considered
to be satisfactory. The trouble is they are
reluctant to spend money.
In this context, the recent decision of
many EU countries, including Greece,13
to allow Turkish citizens with Green
passports (Yeşil Pasaport)14 to travel to EU
countries without a visa is a positive step
that facilitates border crossing between
the two countries. In the summer time,
Greek and Turkish excursion boats
and private yachts are frequently seen
in local harbors on both sides of the
Aegean. There are some signs of new
dynamics in border-crossing that are
economically beneicial for both sides.
As these examples show, globalization
has also had an effect on people’s minds
contributing to openness towards
otherness. Coexistence of different ethnic
groups, in particular of the ‘Greeks’ and
the ‘Turks’, is much more harmonious
than in the past.15 In this context, the
current crisis, which is not exclusively
economic as it also puts values to test,
affects everybody and may contribute to
greater social cohesion, at least on a local
and regional level.
136
The deepening of the crisis that began
in 2010 has triggered further changes
in everyday life in Kos. What survival
strategies are adopted to cope with
the crisis? Among the local residents,
many are property owners with ields
and shops that they rent. An increasing
number of plot owners have started
cultivating land and growing their own
vegetables for personal needs and for sale.
In parallel, new agricultural techniques
and biological processing methods are
becoming popular. For example, there
are people who are cultivating snails
for export. In winter months many
internal migrants and foreign nationals
return to their home places or look for
employment opportunities elsewhere.
Return migration is becoming a common
practice among Albanians employed in
construction and among mixed couples
with two homelands.
Globalization is widely known to
widen the gap between the “rich” and
the “poor” (countries). In the case of
Kos we can also speak of the widening
gap between the local and foreign
populations. Notably, the situation is
strikingly similar to that of Ancient
Greece. In Ancient Athens, there was
a clear distinction between the Greeks
and the barbarians on the one hand, and
between various groups of barbarians on
the other.
“A free man was only he who lived
in the city, possessed and cultivated
his land or had it cultivated by his
slaves; in other words, a master of
soil and a master of slaves, a citizen
who ‘represented’ the society, making
human order complete” (Godelier,
2010, 279-280).
The Case of the Island of Kos
Notes
1 Tom G. Palmer. Globalization is Great! The
Cato Institute, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Globalization, accessed November 24, 2011.
2 I wish to thank Dr. Larisa Fialkova and Dr.
Maria Yelenevskaya for drawing my attention
to this issue, in particular to the parallel
between the images of the Mediterranean
and the Black Sea resorts among the locals
and holiday-makers.
3 My initial ield research in Kos (October
2008) was enabled by a grant from the
French School of Athens. Subsequent ield
research (September 2010, May 2011) was
done in the framework of the BALKABAS
project supported by the “Young Scholars”
programme of the French National Research
Agency since January 2009 (ANR-08JCJC-0091-01). Any names of informants/
interlocutors quoted in the text are ictitious.
4 The all-inclusive model originated in the
Club Med resorts which were founded by the
Belgian Gerard Blitz.
5 The term kamaki literally means “harpoon”
or “ish-spear”, but is colloquially used for
“gigolo”. On kamaki in the Greek context
see e.g., S. Zinovieff. Έλληνες άντρες και ξένες
γυναίκες: το «καμάκι» σε μια επαρχιακαή πόλη».
In E. Papataxiarchis, Th. Paradellis (eds.),
Ταυτότητες και φύλο στη σύγχρονη Ελλάδα,
Athens: Alexandreia, 1998, 3rd edition., 251276.
6 In 2009 a motion for a resolution on “the
situation of the Turkish minority in Kos and
Rhodes” was presented by Mr. Andreas Gross
to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council
of Europe (PACE) (Doc.11904, 6 May 2009).
In 2010, the PACE criticized “the recurrent
invoking” of the “principle of reciprocity” by
both Greece and Turkey and reminded that
“irst and foremost the countries in which
the minorities live are responsible for their
own citizens, including the members of the
respective religious minorities”. Freedom
of Religion and Other Human Rights for nonMuslim minorities in Turkey and for the Muslim
Minority in Thrace (Eastern Greece), Resolution
137
1704, 2010, paragraphs 5 and 8, quoted in
Kurban, Tsitselikis 2010, 8.
7 According to the Ottoman population
census of 1884-1886, Kos had a population of
12,965, out of whom 10,449 were Christians,
2,439 Muslims and 67 Jews (Savorianakis
2000, 74).
8 The Lausanne Treaty sets the legal
framework for minority protection in both
states regarding “non-Muslims” in Turkey
and Muslims in Greece. The Treaty does not
enumerate the “non-Muslim” minorities
in Turkey and the “Muslim” minorities in
Greece. It grants legal protection to all nonMuslim communities in Turkey and all
Muslim communities in Greece. In practice,
Turkey has limited the protection of the
treaty to Greek Orthodox, Armenian and
Jewish communities. In Greece, likewise,
Muslims of the Dodecanese islands have not
been deemed as falling under the Lausanne
protection system (Kurban, Tsitselikis 2010,
7).
9 The waqf is an organization in charge of
the management and restoration of Muslim
community property. The waqfs in Greece (in
Thrace and in the Dodecanese) are regulated
by special laws that are part of the broader
minority protection measures designed for
Thrace. In practice, the established laws have
not always been implemented and the waqfs
have often been mismanaged (Kaurinkoski
2012).
10 Atatürk’s reforms, in particular with regard
to clothing ad secularism were implemented
in Kos and Rhodes in the 1920s. This was
not the case in Western Thrace, where head
scarves are widely worn by women.
11 Until the late 1990s, the Muslims were not
exempt from military service; however, they
were discriminated against in other manner.
For example, they had to serve unarmed and
were mainly asked to carry out auxiliary
tasks.
12 Currently, the President and all Council
members of the waqf foundations in the
Dodecanese are appointed by the Greek
authorities.
Kira Kaurinkoski
13 In the case of Greece, this decision came
into force on July 28, 2010.
14 The Green passport allows its bearer
to travel visa-free to some countries. It is
issued to 1) former members of the National
Assembly; 2) irst, second or third grade public
servants; 3) pensioners formerly employed as
irst, second or third grade public servants;
4) mayors; 5) spouses of special passport
holders; and 6) unwed children of special
passport holders who live with their parents
until they turn 25.
15 On the perception of Turks in Greek society
see, e.g., Theodossopoulos 2007, and on the
situation of ethnic Turks in Kos and Rhodes,
see, e.g., Kaurinkoski 2012.
Works Cited
Baldwin-Edwards, Martin. 2004.
Statistical Data on Immigrants
in Greece: An Analytic
Study of Available Data and
Recommendations for Conformity
with European Union Standards.
A Study Conducted for IMEPO,
Greece: MMO, Panteion
University.
Bhagwati, Jagdish. 2004. In Defense of
Globalization. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Dahl, Arthur Lyon. 1982. Conservation
planning and environmental
monitoring for tourism
development. S. Paciic
Commission Env. Newsletter 4:
22-26. http://islands.unep.ch/
siemi7.htm, accessed November
8, 2011.
Friedman, Thomas L. 2008. The Dell
Theory of Conlict Prevention.
In Emergin: A Reader. Ed. Barclay
Barrios. Boston: St Martins.
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Georgalidou, Marianthi. 2004. Η
Αφήγηση: Η συνομιλιακή
διαπραγμάτευση ζητημάτων
ταυτότητας στο πλαίσιο της
δίγλωσσης γλωσσικής κοινότητας
των μουσουλμάνων της Ρόδου.
In Proceedings. 6th International
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Godelier, Maurice. 2010. L’idéel et le
matériel. Pensée, économies,
sociétés. Paris: Flammarion.
Green, Sarah. 2005. Notes from the
Balkans. Locating Marginality and
Ambiguity on the Greek-Albanian
border. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Kaurinkoski, Kira. 2012 (in press). “The
Muslim communities in Kos
and Rhodes: relections on social
organisation, migration and
identities”. In Balkan Encounters.
Slavica Helsingiensia. Eds. J.
Lindstedt & M. Wahlström.
Kolodny, Emile. 2004. Îles et populations
en Méditerranée orientale. Istanbul:
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TESEV/KEMO.
Markey, John Fordyce. 1925-1926.
“A Redeinition of Social
Phenomena: Giving a Basis
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Ethnologie française, Numéro
spécial : Grèce, igures de l’altérité,
XXXV, 2.
Savorianakis, P. 2000. Νησιωτικές
κοινωνίες στο Αιγαίο. Η περίπτωση
των Ελλήνων της Ρόδου και της
The Case of the Island of Kos
Κω (18ος-19ος αιώνας). Rhodes:
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Sutton, David. 1998. Memories cast in the
Stone. The relevance of the Past in
Everyday life [Kalymnos]. Oxford:
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Theodossopoulos, D. (ed.) 2007. When
Greeks think about Turks.
The view from Anthropology.
London & New York: Routledge.
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139
Festival in Haifa
“Holiday of Holidays”
Festival in Haifa: between
Hope and Reality
Yelenevskaya, Maria
Technion-Israel Institute of Technology,
Israel
Fialkova, Larisa
The University of Haifa, Israel1
Introduction: Haifa as a Mixed City
ll localities in Israel are divided
into three groups according to
their ethnic composition: Jewish,
Arab and mixed. According to the Israel
Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), eight
urban localities are deined as mixed.
These towns “with a large majority of
Jews, but with a considerable minority
of Arabs” are: Jerusalem, Tel Aviv-Yafo,
Haifa, Akko, Ramla, Lod, Ma’alotTorshiha and Nazerat Illit (CBS, Statistical
Abstract of Israel 2010, 2011, 29). Life in
these cities is a subject of heated academic
and public discussions. Academics
who study planning and development
strategies, distribution of housing, public
space and resources believe that on the
one hand, Arab neighborhoods are treated
as ‘internal frontiers’ into which Jewish
presence keeps expanding thus turning
mixed cities into urban ethnocracies,
where citizenship is unequal, and
resources and services are allocated on
the basis of ethnicity rather than residency
(Yiftachel, and Yacobi 2003, 680, 690). On
the other hand, the mixed city context may
be favorable for forming perceptions of
coexistence (Falah et al. 2000, 792). Among
the mixed urban localities, Haifa, the
A
third largest city of Israel, has gained the
reputation of a model of tolerance among
mixed localities. This might be partially
explained by the history of Haifa, where
Jews and Arabs lived under the same
municipality prior to the establishment of
the state of Israel in 1948 (Yacobi 2009, 1).
In the empirical study conducted by Falah
et al., the ranking for positive perceptions
of coexistence is highest in Haifa for
Arab respondents and second highest
for Jewish respondents (2000, 787). At the
same time, the international conference
From Mixed to Shared: The Haifa Alternative
organized by the NGO New Israel Fund
reported results of a study based on the
discussions with 165 residents in 22 focus
groups which indicated that “the majority
of the town’s residents live in a sort of
cultural indifference devoid of neither
desire to interact with members of other
populations nor outright hostility” (New
Israel Fund 2010). In addition, like in other
Israeli towns, the interethnic relations in
Haifa visibly deteriorated in the period
of the 2nd Intifada also known as Intifada
Al Aqsa (2000-2005), when there were
several terrorist attacks in Haifa buses
and restaurants and clashes between
Arab demonstrators and policemen.
Animosities that soared in that period
were hardly alleviated by the fact that
among the victims of the terrorists were
not only Jewish but also Arab and Druze
residents of Haifa.
The total population of the Haifa
district which includes the city’s suburbs
is 880,000. The Arab sector makes 213,600,
the rest being “Jews and others” (CBS,
Statistical Abstract of Israel 2009, 2010,
106). 2 Like other mixed cities, Haifa is
still ethnically divided into the so called
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): 141-156
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
141
Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
“Arab” and “Jewish” neighborhoods.
The former are located in the lowprestige areas of the city. In fact, Jews
also live there, although not by choice
but due to inancial constraints. Rich
neighborhoods are primarily occupied
by Jews, although socially upward
mobile Arab families have corners in
them as well. One Arab neighborhood in
the old part of the city stayed empty for
50 years after the War of Independence
which took place in 1948 after the State of
Israel had been proclaimed. According to
Israeli law, abandoned houses cannot be
transferred to other owners for a period
of 50 years. Since Palestinian refugees
are not allowed to return to Israel, the
real estate was appropriated by the city
and today this district is in the process
of renovation. Most of the restored
buildings house ofices and shops.
On a daily basis interaction between
Jews and Arabs occurs in the work place,
for example in hospitals where both Jews
and Arabs can be found among the staff
and patients, in shopping centers and
malls, in pharmacies and post-ofices, and
at the universities and colleges (see Orna
Blumen and Shay Tzafrir’s article in this
issue). One can add that at the universities,
there are many more Arabs among the
students than among the professors,
engineers, librarians, and secretaries.
Notably, although there are four mixed
bilingual schools in Israel3 none of them
is in Haifa (Mor-Sommerfeld et al. 2007,
11). Yet some Arab and Druze parents
send their children who intend to go to
the university to Jewish high schools in
order to facilitate their further studies,
because instruction at Israeli universities
is in Hebrew. In addition, both Arab
and Jewish children, including Russian-
142
speaking immigrants, study together at
the Rubin Conservatory located in one
of the Arab neighborhoods of the city.
Despite a long history of living under
the same jurisdiction and abundance
of contact zones, Jews and Arabs in
Haifa continue being apart maintaining
social networks and engaging in leisure
activities primarily within their own
ethno-cultural groups.
Attempts to bring Haifa communities
closer to each other are made by Beit
Hagefen—the
Arab-Jewish
Center
founded in 1963 (information about Beit
Hagefen’s activities can be found on its
website (http://www.beit-hagefen.com/En_
Web/En_%20Home_Index.htm, accessed
9/01/2012). Its current head, Asaf Ronen,
says that from 2003 to 2010 the center
was in crisis and only now is trying to
reinvigorate residents’ interest in its
initiatives (Korin 2012). One of the most
successful among them is the December
festival known as Holiday of Holidays. It
was launched in 1993 as a joint venture of
the Municipality of Haifa and Beit Hagefen.
The name and the time of the festival
was chosen because the holidays of the
three main religions represented in Haifa
- Christmas, Hanukkah and Ramadan
happened to be almost at the same time
in that year. Moslems use the lunar
calendar, and since then neither Ramadan
nor any other Moslem holiday fell on
December, yet in the consciousness of the
residents the festival is still associated
with the three religions, although the
events of the festival are secular. The irst
experience of holding an intercultural
festival was successful and from year to
year it is getting more popular attracting
Israelis from all over the country as well
as foreign tourists. Today it is generously
Festival in Haifa
covered in the media, including electronic
sources. The festival has its own web
page which posts the schedule of events,
announcements and photographs (http://
www.haifahag.co.il/, accessed 10/12/2011).
It is covered on the site of the Haifa
Municipality
(http://www.haifa.muni.il/
Haifa/Pages/NewsItem.aspx?One1Id=306,
last accessed 20/01/2012) and on
the homepage of Israel’s Ministry of
Foreign Affairs (http://www.altawasul.com/
MFAAR/israel+beyond+politics/society+coexistence+and+peace/Holiday-of-HolidaysFestival-celebrated-in-Haifa-13122011.htm,
last accessed on 20/01/2012). Note that
on the municipal site the page is given
in Hebrew, Arabic and English, and the
Ministry adds the Russian page. In 2011 we
also found that the festival was advertised
on the web pages of travel agencies in
Russia and Ukraine (see for e.g., http://
tours-service.ru/news/9161 and http://www.
rv.org.ua/blog/prazdnik-prazdnikov-v-haife/
,4 last accessed 20/01/2012). The articles
on the oficial Israeli sites underscore the
inter-confessional nature of the holiday,
contributing to peaceful coexistence
of ethno-religious groups. Sites for
tourists, on the other hand, emphasize a
playful and happy atmosphere and the
entertaining nature of the events.
This essay is based on participant
observation and monitoring of websites.
We have attended events of holiday of
holidays since the year it was launched,
irst coming as curious members of the
audience, and in the last two years talking
to participants, watching behavior
and reactions of children and adults,
collecting advertising lealets, making
notes in our ethnographic diaries. In
January 2012 we interviewed the head
of Beit Hagefen, Asaf Ronen. We read
143
and analyzed internet materials devoted
to the festival on institutional and noninstitutional sites, such as discussion
forums and blogs in English, Hebrew
and Russian. Unfortunately, we were
unable to cover sites in Arabic, although
we spoke about the festival with our
Arabic-speaking colleagues and students.
Moreover, we conducted a short online
interview with Roseland Daeem, a Ph.D.
student in the Department of Hebrew and
Comparative Literature of the University
of Haifa, specializing in folklore, and a
lecturer at the Academic Arab College of
Education.
The Holiday of Holidays in Haifa is
an attempt to promote Haifa’s image of
a tolerant multicultural city by creating
a unifying festival. At the same time,
for years Haifa has struggled to shed its
image of a provincial city, which has little
to offer to young and ambitious people.5
A widely used method of revitalization
of a city’s image, developing its economy
and place identity, and capitalizing on
cultural resources is conducting festivals
(Cheng-Yi and Woan-Chiau 2009, 13171322). This trend is a distinctive feature
of post-industrial societies, where
urban landscapes “become less tied to
production and more concerned with
organization of consumption” (Zukin
1991, 57).
The Festival and Its Chronotope
The term “Chronotope” (literally “timespace) was introduced into literary
studies by Mikhail Bakhtin for the
analysis of novels. He deined it as
“intrinsic connectedness of temporal and
spatial relationships that are artistically
expressed in literature” (Bakhtin 1981,
84). Although initially understood as
Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
a formally constitutive category of
literature, this concept was later extended
to the study of culture and folklore.
Speciically, Bakhtin discussed at length
the Chronotope of the carnival in the
feudal society, and some of his insights
seem to be relevant to the festivities
of our age. According to Bakhtin, as
opposed to the oficial feast, carnival in
Middle Ages , “celebrated temporary
liberation from the prevailing truth and
from the established order; it marked
the suspension of all hierarchical rank,
privileges, norms and prohibitions”
(Bakhtin 1984, 10).
Although there
is a marked difference between
feudal and post-industrial societies,
hierarchies, norms and prohibitions
have not disappeared from the way
our contemporaries celebrate holidays.
We still witness ethnic and religious
divisions: festivals of one group leaves
members of other groups indifferent at
best, but sometimes trigger alienation
and hostility.6 The rejection of national
holidays by Arab citizens of Israel seems
to be strongest on the Independence
Day (cf. almost identical conlict in the
perception of the Victory day among
Estonian and Russian denizens of KohtlaJärve in Jago in this issue).
The spatio-temporal framework of the
Holiday of Holidays festival has clear-cut
borders. The oficial opening takes place
on the afternoon of the irst Saturday in
December, which already demonstrates
the secular nature of the festival, because
due to the conventions of Judaism, public
events in Israel are limited from Friday
evening to the Saturday evening, the
time of Sabbath. The rest of the program
encompasses Thursday nights, Fridays
and Saturdays until the 31st of December.
144
Most shows, concerts and happenings of
the festival take place in the two adjacent
neighborhoods: Wadi Nisnas7 and the
German Colony which are populated
primarily by Christian and Muslim
Arabs. The district known as the German
Colony had been established in 1868 by
German Templers, whose descendents
were expelled at the beginning of
World War II by the British for pro-Nazi
sympathies. In post-war years the area
gradually deteriorated, but in the 1990s
its main street, Ben-Gurion Avenue,
located at the bottom of the Bahai
gardens that stretch from the top to the
bottom of Mount Carmel was renovated.
Numerous restaurants opened there and
turned it into one of the favorite locations
of nightlife entertainment. The Europeanstyle architecture of the Templers and
the Bahai shrine visible from any point
of the street make the street attractive
and exotic by its “otherness”. This area
is easy to reach for those who come from
other towns because it is situated close to
a train station and the port.
The second main location of the
festival, Wadi Nisnas, is visually separated
from the adjacent streets and has just a
few narrow entries. The impression of
separateness and autonomy is reinforced
by the absence of public transport and
scarcity of cars there. With its narrow
streets Wadi Nisnas seems to be an
inappropriate location for mass festive
happenings; on the other hand, the
combination of shabbiness, disorderliness
and often naïve but moving decorations
makes it picturesque. Many houses look
dilapidated needing repairs badly, but
this seems to be beyond the means of lowincome owners (cf. with the situation of
the Moorish historical district of Albaicin
Festival in Haifa
in Granada discussed in Shaw et al. 2004,
1986). Despite its pitiful state, Wadi Nisnas
was chosen by Arab and Jewish artists for
displaying their works. The streets and
houses of the district are decorated with
numerous sculptures, frescos, ceramic
bass reliefs, and metal installations which
turned it into an open-air museum. On
the pavement of the streets one can see
painted foot prints indicating the route
of “Coexistence Walks” – guided tours
organized by Beit Hagefen. Besides its
art, Wadi Nisnas attracts secular Jews
who like to visit it on Friday afternoon
and Saturday, when shops in the Jewish
quarters are closed.
During festival events these two
neighborhoods become
exclusively
pedestrian and are separated from the
rest of the city by railings with guarded
entrances. Used to check-ups at the
entrance to any public building, members
of the audience patiently queue at the
gates, opening their bags for inspection
which should boost the perception of
personal safety (cf. with the importance
of ‘gateways’ in Shaw et al. 2004, 1991).
Festive atmosphere presupposes the
feeling of trust. As Giddens indicates,
“Risk and trust intertwine, trust normally
serving to reduce or minimize the dangers
to which particular types of activity are
subject” (Giddens 1990, 35). At the same
time, the clearly marked border between
alleged risk and safety may be viewed
from a different angle:
Although security is vitally important
during mass public events, a whole
neighborhood is blocked. If residents
leave it in order to do their shopping
in a nearby store or have to do some
chores outside their district, when they
come back home, they have to pass
145
through security control, and their bags
are checked. It is also humiliating for
youngsters to be checked by security at
the entrance to their own house (from
an interview with Roseland Daeem).
The interconnection of risk and trust is
particularly meaningful for Israeli society
for years tormented by military conlicts
and terrorist attacks. According to the
study conducted by Jabareen, the area of
the German Colony is perceived by both
Arab and Jewish Israelis as a safer place
than other parts of Haifa. This is explained
by lively economic and social activities
attracting members of both sectors, and
by the belief (unfortunately, mistaken)
that Arab quarters and Arab-owned
businesses are unlikely to be targeted
by suicide bombers (Jabareen 2009, 9798). Our own participant observation
of both the German Colony and Wadi
Nissnas based on multiple visits to these
neighborhoods on week days, weekends
and during holidays is ambivalent.
Although we share with Jabareen’s
subjects the feeling of trust and safety,
we know that many Jewish residents
of Haifa avoid Arab neighborhoods.
Moreover, on the occasions we guided
guests from other Israeli towns and
from abroad through the area, we were
often confronted with their fear and
suspicion. Sometimes it requires quite
a bit of an effort to convince visitors
to “set foot on the Arab territory” (cf.
reluctance of international tourists to visit
predominantly Moslem neighborhoods
in London after 09.11.2001 in Shaw et al.
2004, 1992). In the last years when the
events of the festival have become more
diverse, the Holiday of Holidays has not
been conined to the two neighborhoods
described here. In December admission fee
Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
The German Colony decorated for the festival. The lamp posts ly the lags of Israel and
Haifa, and plastic Christmas trees are covered with garlands. (Photo courtesy of Hadas
Itzcovich)
to Haifa museums is reduced from 30 to 5
shekels, and in the Jewish neighborhood
of Bat-Galim artists open doors of their
private apartments and studios for free
visits. Thus, the Holiday of Holidays
festival offers both “high” and popular
culture. In the literature about festivals,
researchers observe that the audiences
that choose high culture events tend to
ignore popular culture and vice versa.
Speciically, high culture events with low
ethnic minority participation are more
attractive to older audiences (Richards,
and Wilson 2004, 1932, 1940, 1942). We
also observe that during the Holiday of
Holidays ethnic groups mix primarily in
restaurants and open-air happenings.
146
The two main locations of the festival
are decorated with garlands lit in the
evenings, posters in four languages
(Arabic, English, Hebrew and Russian),
multicolored
balloons,
Hanukkah
candlesticks and imitative Christmas
trees. The latter deserve a special
description. Some are young cypress
trees, others are plastic. In the last two
years a 10-meter plastic tree assembled
of 5,000 mineral water bottles is mounted
on one of the roundabouts of the German
Colony. Designed by Hadas Itskovich,
who specializes in ecologically-friendly
installations, this semi-transparent blue
structure looks slightly weird in the
daytime, but closely resembles a ir tree at
Festival in Haifa
night when it is decorated with blinking
lights. When it was irst installed in
December 2010, it immediately became
a curiosity and attracted numerous
residents to gaze at it and photograph
it. In 2011 one of the Christmas trees in
the German Holiday had to be removed
because it had been placed in front of a
synagogue, which was perceived as an
offensive gesture by the religious Jews.
While walking through the area during
December festivities we looked for
decorations associated with Islam, but
the only one we found was a crescent
crowning one part of the metal installation
permanently attached to the building of
Beit Hagefen. It presents stylized Christian,
Jewish and Moslem temples, each with
a respective symbol, and embodies the
unity of the three groups of the Haifa
residents. When we asked Asaf Ronen
about the lack of Moslem symbols in the
festival decorations, he explained that
they would be out of place in the absence
of a Moslem holiday at the time, so on
his initiative, in 2011 posters advertising
the festival did not mention the names
of the three holidays. He added that
although there were no complaints about
it on the part of the Moslem community,
it was worth considering how to present
Moslem symbols during future festivals.
Importantly, 5 % of the festival’s budget
had been spent for Ramadan festivities
that took place in August 2012.
Objectively speaking, we have
to admit that these are not three
holidays.
Decorations
relected
December holidays: Hanukkah and
Christmas. Holiday of Holidays is a
trademark that emerged under speciic
circumstances but they have changed.
The dynamics of the festival remain
147
the same: celebration of coexistence
in Haifa. The Holiday of Holidays is
the trademark of coexistence in Haifa
(from an interview with Asaf Ronen).
The main events are the opening of the
festival taking place in Wadi Nissnas,
a happening in the German Colony at
the end of December and a Hanukkah
procession in the old city center, Hadar. All
the three are advertised as “happenings
for the whole family”. Indeed, the variety
of entertainment can satisfy people of
different ages, tastes and inancial means.
The Hanukkah procession is organized
by the municipality, a Hadar community
center and the Chabad-Lubavitch Center
8
of the Russian-speaking Jews of Haifa
and suburbs. The procession is headed
by a large truck brightly lit with torches
and dubbed in the press the “Habbad
tank” (Igoshina 2011). Participants of the
procession also carry torches. Although
a ire brigade and an ambulance
accompanied the procession, some of
the Internet users commenting festivities
in 2011 expressed anxiety about the
danger of ire9 (http://haifa.israelinfo.ru/
comments/?id=7825#rules, last accessed
on 02/02/2012). At the same time all
admitted that the atmosphere was
festive thanks to the abundance of light,
Hanukkah songs, ireworks and torch
juggling. Notably in 2011, the two big
happenings in Hadar and in the German
Colony were held on the same day. So
it was possible for the festival goers to
attend both, and in their reports about
the festival some bloggers mentioned
attending both events.
During the festival events the streets
of Wadi Nissnas are overcrowded. They
are lined with stalls where crafts, toys,
Christmas decorations and religious
Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
The roof of a two-storey house in Wadi Nisnas used as a stage for music bands and street theater
groups.
books in different languages as well
as various foods are offered to the
customers. Importantly, shop owners of
Wadi Nissnas do not necessarily proit
from the festival:
Festival goers coming to the Wadi
mostly buy food or toys for children.
On the other hand, stores selling
clothes, shoes, building materials, and
so on do not attract visitors; just the
opposite, the entrances to their stores
are blocked by the stalls, and so traders
from all over the country, not the local
people try to make a buck. The local
jeweler simply closes his shop for
this period (from an interview with
Roseland Daeem).
148
Children are drawn to body-art stalls and
to young people on stilts dressed as angels,
fairy-queens and various characters of
Christmas tales. Street theater groups,
some of them with Jewish-Arabic casts,
perform one after another using the roof
of a low building on a small square as a
stage. On the balcony across, young men
disguised as females dance provocatively
exchanging jokes with the audience
illing the square. Notably, guards can
be seen on other balconies making sure
that no provocation would disturb the
festivities.
One of the main events of the big
happening in the German Colony is
a parade of Santa Clauses. This made
Festival in Haifa
Santa-style red caps with blinking
light popular. Made in China, they
can be found in numerous shops
selling
Christmas-tree
decorations
and paraphernalia in Wadi Nisnas, and
many children and young people both
Christian and Jewish wear them during
festival events. Notably, some caps
have one of the following inscriptions
in Russian: Люблю Снегурочку, Ищу
Снегурочку, Хочу Снегурочку (I love Snow
Maiden, I am looking for Snow Maiden,
I want Snow Maiden). Snegurochka, Snow
Maiden, is the granddaughter of Ded
Moroz, Grandfather Frost - the Russian
counterpart of Santa Claus. Unlike Santa,
Ded Moroz and Snegurochka have a folk
rather than a religious background. They
are inseparable from childhood memories
of those who grew up in the former Soviet
Union and who make a large part of the
Russian-speaking community in Israel
(Fialkova and Yelenevskaya 2007, 275280). Noteworthy, when we interviewed
Asaf Ronen, he asked what was missing
for us in the festival. Without a minute
of hesitations we both mentioned
Snegurochka and were promised to see
her at the next year festivities. It is worth
mentioning that Snegurochka dolls have
been on sale in Russian and Arab-owned
shops for years. This year we also saw the
typical blue-white-and silver Snegurochka
dress in one of the Arab-owned shop.
Music is an important component
of the festival. First to be mentioned is
liturgics concerts in churches which are
also situated in the area of festivities
and nearby. The rest of the music
program of the festival consists of openair performances by professional and
amateur musicians. Several stages are
installed in the German Colony on the
149
The best known Santa-Claus of Haifa is
always in demand: children want to be
photographed with him, and journalists
come to interview him. (Photo courtesy of
Avner Korin)
day of the big happening. One can hear
classic music performed by chamber
ensembles, Latin-American dance music
played by guitarists, marches by the
local scout brass band, Arabic music
performed on darbuka (goblet drum,
an Arabic percussion instrument.) and
Israeli pop. Sometimes these various
tunes overlap, but the cacophony does
not disturb listeners wandering from
stage to stage. Noteworthy, the person
responsible for the music is Professor
Amos Lanir, a retired chemist of one
of the Haifa hospitals involved in the
festival organization along with other
Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
volunteers.
During the festival one of the
buildings of Beit Hagefen accommodates
a fair of antiquities. As usual for such
places, most people come to have a look
at curious and exotic things without
intentions of buying, but those who wish
can acquire objects ranging from cheap
trinkets to expensive collectors’ items.
Like everything else during the festival,
the fair is multicultural displaying
Passover dishes and crosses, Stars of
David and rosaries, antique European
dolls and carved oriental boxes and
pieces of furniture. In 2011 we visited the
fair several times and did not hear Arabic
spoken nor did we see visitors wearing
traditional Druze and Moslem attire. This
made a contrast with open-air events
where Moslems and the Druze were both
acoustically and visually represented.
As mentioned earlier, the Holiday of
Holidays attracts craftsmen and caterers
offering products for people with different
means. Hand-made chocolate, colored
glassware and candlesticks, ethnic
dresses, jewelry and various other goods
are examined, touched, tasted or tried
on. One can eat in gourmet restaurants
located in the German colony, but most
relish Hanukkah sufganiot (doughnuts),
Druze pita, Middle-Eastern falafel with
humus and tehina, or Chinese ravioli
sold on the streets and served on plastic
plates. Advertisers also take advantage of
the amicable atmosphere of the festival,
and young girls wearing stylized Santa
dresses and Santa-caps distribute liers
of cell phone companies, galleries and
restaurants. Although we did not ind
any reports about the economic impact of
Holiday of Holidays, the festivalization
of consumption seems to be an additional
factor attracting audiences.
150
Druze pitas baked on a street of Wadi Nisnas
are tasty to eat and fun to watch.
Participation and Self-Exclusion
According
to
various
scholarly
publications, one of the most important
criteria of festivals’ success is growing
participation of local residents and
outsiders, although all admit that hard
data on the numbers is dificult to obtain
(see e.g., Quinn 2005, 932; Lin, and Hsing
2009, 1321). The article devoted to Holiday
of Holidays which is posted on the site
of Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs cites
the following numbers: approximately
200,000 visitors across Israel and abroad,
with over 40% of festival goers being
out-of-towners (http://www.altawasul.com/
MFAAR/israel+beyond+politics/society+coexistence+and+peace/Holiday-of-HolidaysFestival-celebrated-in-Haifa-13122011.
Festival in Haifa
htm, last accessed on 20/01/2012). As
mentioned earlier, festivals attract
diverse audiences and some groups
are more noticeable than others. Like
in other societies, in Israel members of
different groups are identiied by the
elements of clothes such as skull caps,
wigs and head dresses of religious Jews,
black dresses and white scarves of Druze
women, sherwal and tarboush of Druze
men, and Hijabs of Moslem women. In
addition, members of different groups
may be recognized by symbols worn on
the neck, such as the cross and the starof-David pendants. In a divided society
like Israel, people are used to taking
notice of such distinguishing artifacts in
order to identify members of one’s own
group and “others”. At the same time,
there are secular individuals in all ethnic
groups who do not wear any of these
identiication signs. Then it is the language
they speak or their accent in Hebrew that
serves as an identiier (Cf., description
of the language as the marker of group
belonging in Janev in this volume).
Against this background we could see
very few religious Jews at the popular
culture events in Arab quarters. The
prevailing languages spoken by festival
goers were Arabic, Hebrew and Russian.
One could also see and hear multilingual
Asian tourists and guest workers. Judging
from the abundance of Russian speakers
and the detailed coverage of the festival
events on Israeli Russian-language web
sites, it attracts members of this group,
which is numerically almost as large as
the group of Arab citizens of Israel, and
makes up approximately one sixth of
the total population. For secular Russian
speakers, whether they are Jews or nonJews, this festival is associated not only
151
with Hanukkah but also with New
Year celebrations, much loved in their
country of origin. While on the whole
the attitude to New Year celebrations
by Jews is negative in Israeli society
and is often critically discussed in the
media, the attachment to it by Russian
Jews is gradually making government
institutions and individuals more tolerant
of it:
В этом году в фестивале принимает
активное
участие
Управление
абсорбции города Хайфа. Ханука - это
близкий нам по духу праздник: мы с
детства праздновали Новый Год. И этот
фестиваль предоставит возможность
нашим соотечественникам устроить
праздник для всей семьи - пообщаться
с клоунами, известными “русскими”
артистами, великолепным ансамблем
клейзмеров “Калинка” (Заместитель
мэра Хайфы Юлия Штрайм).
This year the Haifa Division of the
Ministry of Absorption will take an
active part in the festival. We closely
identify with the holiday of Hanukkah
because we have been celebrating the
New Year since childhood. And this
festival will enable our compatriots to
make a holiday for the entire family:
to meet clowns, famous “Russian”
artists, and the Klezmer ensemble
“Kalinka”, (Yulia Shtraim, Deputy
Mayor of Haifa, http://ru.local.co.il/
EventPage.asp?nav=4,50,7,6,28678, last
accessed 31/01/2012)
This statement is interesting in the way
a government oficial is mixing up two
traditions. While it is ideologically
“correct” to celebrate the Jewish
Hanukkah,
Shtraim
inadvertently
admits that it is the New Year that the
Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
“Russians” are attached to. Another
amusing detail pointing to the hybridity
of Russian-speaking Israelis is the name
of the ensemble mentioned by Shtraim.
Founded by immigrants in the early
1990s, it is a frequent participant in
Haifa public events. Although today
the musicians position themselves as
performers of traditional Klezmer music
of the shtetl, they have preserved the
name “Kalinka” – the title of a famous
Russian folk song.
Clearly, members of the public show
their attitude to the festival by either
attending its events or avoiding them.
In addition, popular attitudes to it can
be traced in web talk-backs. Holiday of
the Holidays festival triggers narratives
evaluating inter-ethnic relations as
part of the urban culture. According to
our observations, the discussion about
the festival was livelier in Russian
than in Hebrew. The attitudes of the
commentators range from extremely
positive to negative and angry, and it is
the latter that prevail on the Hebrew sites
we found. The contrast in the assessment
of the festival can be summarized as
dichotomies of “our own” vs. “their”
holiday, interesting vs. a waste of time
and public money. The nicknames of
the commentators are sometimes irst
names, but others are ethnonyms or
phrases expressing political statements.10
have never tried it before. As far as I
know, the price is 39 shekels. It was
cool (Sharon, 20/12/2011).
תותדה לכל גח היה הנשה לכו יאוולה:) יאוולה
חישמ עיגי זא( דחי תויחל דמלנו, 21.12.11)
I wish there were holidays of all the
religions all year round. I wish we
could learn to live together. (And then
the Messiah will come, 21/12/2011)
ןיינעמ אל. םיעוריאה אלו םוקמה אל. זובזב
ילארשי הדוהי( הנונרא יפסכ, 01.12.11)
It’s of no interest. Neither the place
nor the event. It’s a waste of land-tax
money. (Yehuda Israeli, 01/12/2011)
תא םיגגוח אל המל ?הכונח הפיא ?תסנכה יתב הפיא
תימואל תוהז שוטשט( ?הפיחב הכונח, 01.12.11)
Where is the synagogue? Where is
Hanukkah? Why don’t we celebrate
Hanukkah in Haifa? (Erosion of
national identity, 01/12/1/2011)
יברע
הפיח
םיניגפמש
דגנ
הנידמה
דעבו
?וניבייוא
(תשלוג,
02.12.11)
Haifa Arabs who demonstrate
against the state and support our
enemies?
(Browser,
02/12/2011)
(http://www.ynet.co.il/Ext/App/TalkBack/
CdaViewOpenTalkBack/0,11382,L-41556
36,00.html last accessed 30/01/2012)
Russian comments:
Hebrew comments:
не понимаю-какое отношение имеет
сильвестр к евреям- русским-русским
евреям- арабам.и с какой стати весь
израиль его празднует. чей это праздник
и что он означает. если его празднует
католическая европа- какое отношение
это имеет к израилю. или арабы-католики.
так значит это арабский праздник. а
הפיח ןוינקב ומיקה םיאלפנה םירבדל ףסונב
םיעגושמל חרקה לע הקלחה חטשמ ילאירזע
הסינ אל םעפ ףאש ימו ןיינעל. יתעדל ריחמ
39 ח”ש. ןורש( הלחא היה, 20.12.11)
Among other wonderful things, they
built a skating rink in the Azrieli mall,
for the crazy guys, to tempt those who
152
Festival in Haifa
что он означает (еврей, 21/12/2011).
I cannot understand what Sylvester
has to do with Jews-Russians-Russian
Jews-Arabs. Why on earth would the
whole of Israel celebrate it? Whose
holiday is it and what does it mean
if it is celebrated by Catholic Europe?
What does it have to do with Israel? Or
if Christian Arabs celebrate it, then it is
an Arab holiday. This is what it means
(Jew, 21/12/2011).
the festival all inclusive. The reaction of
the residents differs: some embrace the
possibility to have fun, whatever motives
are behind it; others militantly reject
the very idea of combining holidays of
the three religions, still others remain
completely indifferent and are not even
aware of the festivities.11
Чем спорить давайте будем праздновать
все праздники еврейские, христианские,
мусульманские,
буддийские.
Это
лучше чем букой смотреть друг
на друга. Всех с праздником.
УРАААААА (влади, 19/12/2011)
Instead of arguing, let’s celebrate
all the holidays, Jewish, Christian,
Moslem, Buddhist. It’s better than
to look surly at each other. Happy
Holiday to all. HURRAYYYYYY (vladi,
21/12/2011),
(http://haifa.israelinfo.
ru/comments/?id=7799, last accessed
02/02/2012).
Было очень красиво, все улицы
украшены
елками,
сантами
и
всякими
праздничными
украшениями. Первый раз за 12 лет
в стране, мне передалась атмосфера
праздника:))))) (Алена, 24/12/2011)
It was very beautiful, all the streets
were adorned with ir-trees, Santas
and various festive decorations. For
the irst time in the 12 years I’ve lived
in this country I was overwhelmed
with
festive
atmosphere)))),
(Aliona, 24/ 12/2011,
http://
www.babyblog.ru/community/post/
izrael/1691521#comments, last accessed
02/02/2011).
The organizers of the Holiday of
Holidays festival make their best to make
153
Conclusions
In Israeli context, the Holiday of Holidays
is a unique attempt to bring Arabs and
Jews together in terms of the scope of
the events and the involvement of both
governmental institutions and NGOs. It
is not accidental that the festival emerged
in Haifa boasting peaceful coexistence of
ethnic groups. The celebration of “unity
in diversity”—the catch phrase used in
scholarly discussions of multicultural
urban festivals and in the oficial
discourse of festival organizers serves
to boost the political image of Israel as
a whole, and Haifa in particular. The
festival also contributes to the upgrading
of the city image. During the Holiday of
Holidays it is no longer perceived as a
“sleepy” provincial city that is only good
for work, but turns into a boisterous
and vivacious center of recreation.12
Notably, one of the singers addressed
his audience in the German colony in
exhilaration: “Look around! This is no
longer Haifa, it’s Champs-Élisées”. Even
though the comparison of the German
Colony with the celebrated Parisian
avenue is preposterous, it relected the
pride of some residents in their city. Yet
for those who prefer the city space to be
predominantly Jewish this was hardly a
compliment.
According to our observations and
informal discussions with residents
Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
of Haifa belonging to different ethnic
groups, political agenda of the festival
does not really concern those who attend
its events. People come to enjoy the festive
atmosphere of the carnival. Among
those who avoid the festival, however,
the rejection or skepticism towards the
political agenda of the festival is more
pronounced.
In the last two years the scope of the
festival and its popularity among Israelis
and international tourists has clearly
increased, which makes the organizers
think of how to expand its territory to the
rest of the city. Indeed, the events of high
culture take place in a variety of districts
where concert halls and museums are
located. But is it possible today to place
Hanukkah candlesticks side by side with
Christmas trees not only on the streets
of mixed districts, but also in the Jewish
ones?
According to Bakhtin, the carnival
and similar marketplace festivals are
“the second life of the people, who
for a time entered the utopian realm
of community, freedom, equality and
abundance” (Bakhtin 1984, 9). Although
the long-term beneits of the festival in
terms of politics and economy remain
unresearched, the presence of numerous
children exhilarated by the cultural mix
gives hope.
Notes
1 The research reported here is a joint project.
The authors alternate priority of authorship
in their publications.
2 Although not speciied by the authors of this
document, the Arab population, apparently,
includes not only Christians and Muslims
but also the Druze. We can also infer that
“Jews and others” primarily refers to non-
154
Jewish members of mixed families perceived
as members of the Jewish sector.
3 In 2005 the Jewish-Arab Center at the
University of Haifa began implementing the
program “Into the Future - Towards Bilingual
Education in Israel” sponsored by the ZEIT
foundation (Mor-Sommerfeld et al. 2007, 16).
4 One of the reasons why Holiday of Holidays
has been advertised on the sites of Russian
and Ukrainian travel agencies is that Israel
is one of the few countries which citizens of
Russia and Ukraine can visit without a visa.
Moreover, many of potential tourists have
friends and family among Russian-speaking
Israelis, which makes visits easier and more
attractive.
5 Paradoxically, the image of the city
has improved thanks to the 2nd Lebanon
war, when the city suffered from heavy
shelling. The government allocated money
to renovate the city’s infrastructure and
build roads. Among the projects aimed at
attracting the young was construction of a
new campus in the area adjacent to the port.
Buildings that stayed empty for years were
renovated and the new ones constructed. The
“Port Campus”, as the project was dubbed,
provided universities and colleges with new
buildings where teaching is conducted, and
opened the doors of new dorms to out-oftown students. Moreover, it breathed new
life into a previously rundown area. In the
last several years the municipality has also
undertaken various projects to develop
tourism in the city which did not use its
potential of a coastal town with sandy
beaches and picturesque terrace streets on
the green slopes of Mount Carmel.
6 A good example of hierarchical and sectoral
approach to festivals of different ethnic and
religious groups in Israel is the university
system. There are no classes during Jewish
holidays, while on the days of Christian,
Moslem and Druze festivals classes are
not cancelled. However, professors do not
penalize students for absences and avoid
holding exams and tests on these days.
Festival in Haifa
7 Wadi is Arabic for a dried-up river bed.
8 Chabad-Lubavitch is a branch of Hasidic
Judaism.
9 Fear of ire may have been exacerbated by
the fresh memories of a devastating forest ire
in the suburbs of Haifa in December 2010.
10 Like her predecessor, Yulia Shtraim is an
immigrant from the former Soviet Union and
settled in Israel in 1990-s.
11 The style and spelling of the comments
has not been edited.
12 From time to time the local media reports
incidents of interethnic clashes and damage
to property in mixed districts. Most of them
are classiied as petty crime, but on December
24, 2011, there was one that had clear political
background. All four tires were punctured in
a car parked in the German Colony because
the owner put a scarf colored as a Palestinian
lag and having the inscription in English
“Palestine” on the windshield (Cf. Janev
in this volume about the incident with the
Albanian lag). Note that this happened
during Holiday of Holidays. The article
reporting the incident on the portal Israel.info
was headlined “Who punctured the tires of
the car with Palestinian accessories?” (http://
haifa.israelinfo.ru/news/7818, last accessed
03/02/2012).
13 In common parlance, each of the three
biggest cities of Israel is assigned its own
role: Jerusalem prays, Tel Aviv entertains
itself and Haifa works.
Works cited
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and of the Chronotope in the
Novel: Notes toward a Historical
Poetics. In The Dialogic
Imagination: Four Essays by M.
M. Bakhtin, edited by Michael
Holquist, translated by Caryl
Emerson and Michael Holquist,
84-258. Austin and London:
University of Texas Press.
_____. 1984. Rabelais and His World,
translated by Jacques LeClercq.
Bloomington: Indiana University
Press.
Blumen, Orna, and Tzafrir, Shay.
2011. Sentenced to Commute:
Indigenous Young Women at a
City University. Cultural Analysis
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Falah, Ghazi, Noy, Michael, and Sarker,
Rakhal. 2000. “Coexistence in
Selected Mixed Arab-Jewish
Cities in Israel: By Choice or by
Default?” Urban Studies no. 37(4):
775-796.
Fialkova, Larisa, and Yelenevskaya,
Maria. 2007. Ex-Soviets in Israel:
From Personal Narratives to a
Group Portrait. Detroit: Wayne
State University Press.
Giddens, Anthony. 1990. The
Consequences of Modernity.
Stanford: Stanford University
Press.
Igoshina, 2011. Игошина, Татьяна. 2011.
«Факельное шествие осветило
город светом Хануки.» Новости
Хайфы, 27 декабря, http://haifa.
israelinfo.ru/news/7825, last
accessed on 02/02/2012.
Israel Central Bureau of Statistics. 2009.
Statistical Abstract of Israel 2009.
Localities and population. http://
www.cbs.gov.il/shnaton60/
st02_08.pdf , 23/12/2012.
_____, 2011. Statistical Abstract of Israel
2010. Population. http://www.cbs.
gov.il/www/shnaton61/st_eng02.pdf
, accessed 05/01/2011.
Jabareen, Yosef. 2009. “Ethnic Groups
and the Meaning of Urban
Place: The German Colony and
Palestinians and Jews in Haifa.”
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Maria Yelenevskaya and Larisa Fialkova
Jago, Tiiu. 2011. One Area, Several
Cultural Spaces: Comparative
Analysis of Stories As the
Bases of Local Identity. Cultural
Analysis 10
Janev, Goran. 2011. Narrating the
Nation, Narrating the City.
Cultural Analysis 10
Korin – Корин, Авнер. 2012. «Центр
арабо-еврейской дружбы
«Бейт ха-Гефен» (The Center
for Arab-Jewish Friendship,
in Russian). Вестник «Бейт
Оле»: Периодическое издание
Хайфского Управления
Абсорбции. No. 13: 2.
Lin, Cheng-Yi, and Hsing, Woan-Chiau.
2009. “Culture-Led Urban
Regeneration and Community
Mobilization: The Case of the
Taipei Bao-an Temple Area,
Taiwan.” Urban Studies vol 46(7):
1317-1342.
Mor-Sommerfel, Aura, Azaiza, Faisal,
and Hertz-Lazarowitz, Rachel.
2007. “Into the Future: Towards
Bilingual Education in Israel”.
Education, Citizenship and Social
Justice no. 2(1): 5-22.
New Israel Fund. 2010. “From Mixed to
Shared: The Haifa Alternative”,
http://www.nif.org/component/
content/article/13-stories/490-frommixed-to-shared-haifa-as-a-sharedcity-international-conference ,
accessed 09/01/2012.
Quinn, Bernadette. 2005. “Arts Festivals
and the City.” Urban Studies vol.
42)5/6: 927-943.
Richards, Greg, and Wilson, Julie. 2004.
“The Impact of Cultural Events
on City Image: Rotterdam,
Cultural Capital of Europe
2001.” Urban Studies vol. 41(10):
1931-1951.
Shaw, Stephen, Bagwell, Susan, and
Karmowska, Joanna. 2004.
“Ethnoscapes As Spectacle:
Reimaging Multicultural
Districts As New Destinations
for Leisure and Tourism
Consumption.” Urban Studies
vol. 41(10): 1983-2000.
Tzfadia, Erez and Yacobi, Haim. 2011.
Rethinking Israeli Space: Periphery
and Identity. London and New
York: Routledge.
Yiftachel, Oren, and Yacobi, Haim.
2003. “Urban Ethnocracy:
Ethnicization and the Production
of Space in an Israeli ‘mixed
city’.” Environment and Planning
D: Society and Space no. 21(6):
673-693.
Yacobi, Haim. 2009. The Jewish-Arab
City: Spatio-Politics in a Mixed
Community. London and New
York: Routledge.
Zukin, Sharon. 1991. Landscapes of
Power: From Detroit to Disney
World. Berkley and Los Angeles:
California University Press.
156
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Reviews
for Global Advantage” (Part I), “Idea
of the City: Cinematic Futures and the
Grounds of the Present” (Part II), and
“‘Family Histories: The Remembered
City” (Part. III ), and a philosophical Coda
(Part IV ).
In the introduction, the editors explore
“Processes of Cosmopolitanism and
Parochialism” in an attempt to lay out
a framework for the remaining chapters.
The central issue articulated by the editors
is whether branding cities advances
cosmopolitanism or parochialism. They,
along with all the contributors, assume
that branding cities is both necessary
and beneicial. In descriptions that vary
from quasi-ethnography to historical
narratives, most of the writers do refer
to cosmopolitanism and parochialism
and show that they are far from being
opposites. While most places work on
how to deine their ‘brand’ with an eye to
the cosmopolitan (in the sense of roundthe-world) acceptance and appreciation,
they do this by highlighting parochial
attractions and values. Consequently,
branding may often lead to conlicts of
interest.
The three chapters on branding London
neatly illustrate alternative possibilities
and potential conlicts. Two were written
by social policy experts whose research
focuses on issues of migration. In the
one, included for an unclear reason in the
cluster of the three introductory chapters,
Hatziprokopiou (14-27) focuses on new
migrants and the diverse ways in which
they remain strangers while attempting
to learn to belong. ”London’s Chinatown”
by Sales, d’Angelo, Liang, and Montagna
(Part I, 45-58) describe how Chinatown
confronts a three-pronged dilemma.
Branding
Cities:
Cosmopolitanism,
Parochialism, and Social Change. Edited by
Stephanie Hemelryk Donald, Eleonore
Kofman, and Catherine Kevin. London/
New York: Routledge, 2009. xiii+232 pp,
ilmography, bibliography, index. ISBN
10:0-415-96526-8 (hbk) ISBN 10: 0-20388429-9 (ebk).
L
et it be said at the outset: this
collection of thirteen articles on
how cities are branded was a kind
of ‘fun’ read once I got past my initial
astonishment and accepted the editors’
claim that “the most prominent ‘brand
guru’ on the circuit,” Simon Anholt, may
have gotten on to a useful bandwagon
(7). As the founder of Anholt-GfK Roper
Nation Brands, Anholt holds that a “brand
image” of a country or a city is important
to “its national reputation” to “future
prosperity and progress” (see Anholt, 21
September, 2011. Current Affairs Podcast,
the Business Radio Station, retrieved, 13
February, 2012). Also serving as policy
adviser to governments, Anholt has
institutionalized the branding of places
as a necessary strategy for boosting their
economic, political, and cultural charm
to appeal to tourists, migrants, and
international corporations.
From this
point of view, the humanitarian concern
with the pain caused to cattle by branding,
in addition to the critique of branding as
a device for exploitation publicized by
Naomi Klein in No Logo: Taking Aim
at the Brand Bullies (New York, 2000),
appears to be outmoded.
The thirteen chapters of this book are
divided into ive parts: An Introductory
section with three chapters is followed by
“Branding the City: Selling Contradiction
Cultural Analysis 10 (2011): R1-R8
© 2011 by The University of California.
All rights reserved
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First, it is in London but shares only
partially in what can be called an English
lifestyle. Second, it is a kind of showcase
that serves as an attraction to visiting
tourists. Yet at the same time, the Chinese
immigrants who live in Chinatown
by choice are attempting to carry on
their lives in a congenial community. In
contrast to these chapters, Christopher
Lindner’s “London Undead” analyzes
uncanny overviews of the city in poetry
(Wordsworth from Westminster Bridge),
in the 2002 ilm, 28 Days Later, and in
the tourist attraction, The London Eye.
As a professor of English literature,
Lindner shows that “the voyeuristic
fantasy of the empty [of people] city
exerts a powerful hold over the cultural
imagination …. a fascination derived
not only from the oddly compelling
experience of estrangement, but also
from the perception of beauty involved
in that aesthetic encounter … a strange
yet beautiful vision of the everyday
metropolis caught between the living
and the dead” (103-4).
Most of the chapters describe the
diverse elements that inluence the
branding of a city. Kosick’s study on Berlin
stresses the opportunities for mobility
that are available to tourists and migrants
alike because it is such a culturally diverse
city. As Roodhouse (‘Understanding
Cultural Quarters in Branded Cities’, 7588), explains, however, branding often
involves the actual creation de nihilo
of cultural quarters that emphasize
the openness of given locations to
strangers of all kinds and thus supply
opportunities for clashes. The revival of
a cultural quarter that recalls the past of
Jewish communities and their revival that
emphasizes cosmopolitanism in Shanghai
today is described as the outcome of a
rather complex historical narrative by
Jakubowicz (‘Cosmopolitanism with
Roots: The Jewish Presence in Shanghai
before the Communist Revolution and as
Brand in the New Metropolis’, 156-171).
Dealing more generally with branding
in China, Yi Zheng (‘A la Mode: the
Cosmopolitan and the Provincial’, 172186) shows that cosmopolitanism and
parochialism meet in the contradictory
approach to fashion that prevails. Fashion
is a ield with a strong tradition, but there
is also a curiosity and even a longing
for acquiring everything contemporary.
Looking at textiles, Donald writes
about stripes and their signiicance in
remembering her elitist textile-producing
family in a cosmopolitan Liverpool and
deining the low status of ‘convicts’ in
Australia.
The remaining chapters in Part II
discuss post-World War II ilms and
the branding of Rome (Shiel, ‘Branding
the Modernist Metropolis’, 105-122)
and Nantes’ struggle with its search for
effective branding (Marshall, ‘Nantes’s
Atlantic Problem’, 123-136).
All told, the book is well written and,
as I note above, entertaining. However,
even when I reread the introduction and
the ‘Coda’ by the philosopher Jeff Malpas,
I must admit that I was still puzzled
as to the theoretical basis for putting
these chapters together in this way and
what the term “branding” adds to the
mixture. Although the book is listed as
the second volume in Routledge’s series
entitled “Advances in Geography,” none
of the chapters deal seriously with any
geographical issues. And there is good
reason. Among the contributors, there are
students of the media, sociologists, social
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policy experts, an English literary scholar,
and a cultural anthropologist; not one is
identiied with geography as a discipline.
[awkward] Perhaps it is all to the good
that from this book one cannot conclude
that marketing cities is anything more
than trying to make money on tourism.
Since there is no convincing theorizing
of ‘branding’ offered, it is possible to
read the book as advice for urban policymakers (like a how-to manual), and
the rest of us can enjoy the read, while
learning implicitly about the potential
negativity of neo-liberal trends in local
policies.
Cultural Diversity in Russian Cities. The
Urban Landscape in the Post-Soviet Era.
Edited by Cordula Gdaniec. Space
and Place Series, vol. 2. New York and
Oxford: Berghahn Books, 2010. Pp. x+185.
Illustrations, references and index.
T
his edited volume explores the
themes of multiculturalism and
competing claims to urban spaces
in Russian cities. Published as part
of Berghahn Books’ Anthropology of
Space and Place series, the collection is
a welcome addition to existing literature
on post-Soviet Russian cities, which
has tended to focus on macro-level
issues of regional development and
capital accumulation, rather than on
social divisions, spatial segregation and
individual negotiations of city space
(see for example the collection edited
by Axenov, Brade and Bondarchuk, The
Transformation of Urban Space in PostSoviet Russia, London 2006).
The volume includes contributions
from
researchers
from
different
disciplinary backgrounds, including
human geography, sociology and
anthropology; each of the nine case
studies featured is based on empirical
qualitative research and focuses on “a
group, a phenomenon or a space that is a
constituent part of cultural diversity” in
Russian cities (13). The aim of the book,
as stated in the introductory chapter, is to
explore two dimensions: irst, how city
authorities manage cultural diversity,
and how this diversity is relected
(or not) in the image of the city they
promote; second, how different cultures
are inscribed in urban space, and what
strategies are used to navigate, inhabit
and claim urban space by different
Devorah Kalekin-Fishman
University of Haifa, Israel
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multiculturalism as ‘the cultural logic
of multinational capitalism’ that coopts and commmodiies difference
without fundamentally challenging
social exclusion (see New Left Review no
I/225, Sept/Oct 1997); a more critical
discussion of multiculturalism, however,
would have been useful here to fracture
rigid juxtaposition between Russia and
‘the West’.
The book makes for an enjoyable read,
and the case studies offer unique insights
into how cultural difference is negotiated
in the cities of Moscow, Saint Petersburg,
Novosibirsk, and Sochi. The case studies
illustrate the construction of urban space
as racialised, gendered and sexualised,
competing claims over urban space,
different entitlements to public visibility,
and the strategies used to navigate the
city landscape, or collectively carve out
subcultural spaces.
Interesting
themes
cut
across
different contributions: for example,
Dixon’s chapter on Chinese space
in Saint Petersburg highlights how
Chinese restaurants reproduce the
commodiication of the ethnic ‘Other’
in the gentriied city centre, while also
embodying the threat of new immigration
for many Russians (28-45); similarly,
Kosygina points out that migrants from
the former Soviet Union are racialised
as ‘non-Russian’ and ‘Oriental,’ but that
racialisation may result in both exclusion,
through discriminatory practices by law
enforcement agencies and inclusion,
through racial stereotyping that facilitate
migrant employment in ‘Oriental’
restaurants (54-60). Brednikova and
Tkatch’s chapter explores concept of
‘home’ for migrants from the former
Soviet Union, highlighting how limited
marginalized or subaltern groups,
including migrants from China, Africa
and the former Soviet Union, lesbian
women, youth subcultures and street
beggars (3). In fact, most of the case
studies privilege the second dimension,
focusing on the ‘everyday’ social and
cultural practices used collectively and
individually to navigate and appropriate
urban space.
The preface and introduction chart the
evolution of the book, which originated
as one offspring of a broader research
project on urban cultures in Berlin and
Moscow at Humboldt University, Berlin.
A workshop organized in Moscow in
2005 at the Russian State Institution
for the Humanities brought together
researchers from Russia, Germany and
nations further aield, and one of the
collection’s undoubted contribution is
that it makes available to an Englishspeaking global audience valuable
new research on urban Russia. The
introduction effectively introduces the
aims and scope of the book; however,
I would have liked to have seen more
in-depth discussion of current debates
on global cities, multiculturalism, and
cosmopolitanism. While Gdaniec argues
that multiculturalism is ultimately
a Western concept, and therefore
not a useful paradigm to explore
cultural diversity in Russian cities, she
nevertheless emphasises the difference
between ‘Western’ cities, where cultural
diversity is valued and marketed as
cultural capital, and Russian cities,
which fail to implement multicultural
policies and merely tolerate diversity.
Gdaniec does not acknowledge wellrehearsed critiques of multiculturalism,
such as Žižek’s famous reading of
4
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new perspectives on urban life in postSoviet Russian cities, addressing the
themes of multiculturalism, socio-spatial
divisions and competing claims to urban
space. It will be of interest to Russian
studies scholars, as well as to urban
studies researchers within the disciplines
of anthropology, sociology and human
geography.
economic resources, overcrowding, and
long working hours mean that home is
understood not as a private and safe space
that is worth investing and spending time
in, but rather as a shelter chosen on the
basis of functionality and convenience
(70-93). Sarajeva’s contribution addresses
the themes of private and public, and
safety and comfort through lesbian
appropriations of Moscow’s urban
spaces. She points out that lesbian space
remains largely invisible in the city
landscape, but that it is precisely this
ambiguous in/visibility which allows
lesbians to socialise in and appropriate
very public spaces; conversely, overt
and politicised claims to urban space
exempliied by the Moscow Pride are
met with violence from law enforcement
agencies and hostile right-wing groups,
but also with resistance from within the
gay and lesbian community, as increased
visibility results in risks of unwanted
exposure and homophobic violence
(138-163). Like Sarajeva, Kosterina and
Andreeva also consider competing claims
to public space in their investigation
of the Fun Box, a meeting place for
an informal youth group (tusovka) in
central Sochi. The chapter discusses,
among other things, the construction
of symbolic boundaries between the
tusovka’s ‘insiders’ and ‘outsiders’ along
ethnic, class, and gender divisions:
indeed, members of the tusovka identify
as ethnic Russian, whereas Armenians,
Georgians, and Abkhazians are portrayed
as aggressive working-class thugswho
might be physically or verbally violent
towards members of the ‘progressive’
Fun Box tusovka (124-133).
The volume is a well-integrated
collection of chapters, which explore
Francesca Stella
London South Bank University, UK
5
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Штетл ХХ1 век. Полевые исследования.
(Сост. В.А. Дымшиц, А.Л. Львов,
А.В. Соколова.
Спб.: Издательство
Европейского университета в СанктПетербурге. Studia Ethnologica, 5). СанктПетербург, 2008, 292 стр. Аннотация на
английском языке. Введение, сноски,
библиография,
списки
цитируемых
интервью, информантов и упомянутых
населенных
пунктов,
иллюстрации.
ethnologist S. An-Sky, who, between
1911 and the beginning of the First World
War, made ethnographic expeditions
in Podolya and Volhynia. At the same
time, for the assimilating German and
French Jews, the shtetl on the boundaries
of Ukraine symbolized the refusal of the
ephemeral and the active preservation of
Judaism Jewish values. After the Shoah,
the shtetl was apparently nothing more
than a still place, a dead place which
only remained in Chagall’s paintings or
in musicals like “Fiddler on the Roof.”
The rehabilitation of shtetls as
authentic places to live began in the
1970s with the publication of Shmuel
Gordon’s writings, generally considered
as the pioneer of neo-shtetl literature.
The stories and essays about Jewish
families who returned to their shtetls
in the Podolian part of Ukraine and
continued to preserve the pre-Holocaust
way of life have widely contributed to
the rediscovery of the traditional Jewish
world. However, the main books about
the way of life and the dwellings of the
Jews in the small villages of Podolya and
Volhynia were published in the 1990s
and at the beginning of the twentyirst century with, for example, L.V.
Sholokhova’s books (Phonoarchive of Jewish
Musical Heritage, Kiev, National Library
of Ukraine, 2001), about the Jewish tunes
and songs collected by the musicologist
Julii Engel during the expeditions
organized by An-Sky. Research has
continued with the publication of two
important studies: Arkadii Zel’cer’s
Evrei sovetskoi provincii: Vitebsk i mestechki,
1917-1941 (Jews in the Soviet countryside,
Vitebsk and Shtetls, Moscow, ROSSPEN:
2006], and A. Shternshis’ book, Soviet
and Kosher: Jewish Popular Culture in the
Shtetl. XXI Сent. Fields studies, Collection
of Articles, in Russian). ED. by V.A.
Dymshits, A.L.L'vov, A.V.Sokolova, StPetersborg, Evropeiskij Universitet v
Moskve, 2008, 292 p., introduction, notes,
bibliography, lists of quoted interviews,
interviewees and of locations mentioned
, illustrations.
A
s pointed out by Alla Sokolova in
her article” Evrejskie mestechki
pamjati: lokalizacija shtetla”
(Jewish lieux de mémoire: localization of
Shtetl, 29-64), for the children, the grandchildren, and now the great- grandchildren of those who left the traditional
Jewish world of villages from “Russia”
and emigrated to the United States, France
or Israel, the shtetl is a mythical place
on an imaginary map. To a large extent,
the idealized representation of shtetl
life on a wide territory corresponding
to the former Pale of Settlement at the
end of the 19th and the beginning of the
20th century was encouraged by Jewish
populists driven by Rousseauist and
Tolstoian conceptions of “the good wild
man” and the necessity of going back to
nature to ind the mysterious energy of the
Jewish people, its culture and its folklore.
The most famous representative of this
movement was the writer, journalist and
6
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Soviet Union (Bloomington-Indianopolis,
Indiana University Press: 2006 ).
Compared to these recent books, Shtetl
XXI cent has a much more optimistic
approach, which is illustrated by the
surprising, oxymoronic association of
the two words “shtetl” and “XXI.” For
everybody, included the scholars who
participated in the writing, the shtetl
did not belong to the present time any
longer, and even less to the future. It
was a dead place, a place of memory. But
during expeditions made between 2004
and 2007 in the areas of Balta, Tulchin,
and Mogilev-Podolski, the contributing
historians and ethnographers to Shtetl.
XXI century witnessed the vitality of a
Jewish life that had been miraculously
preserved. If the quality of a book is to
be judged by its ability to surprise and
fascinate the reader, then Shtetl. XXI
century is indeed an excellent book. The
title and the content of the articles succeed
in deconstructing preconceived, and
often inaccurate, ideas. This revisionism
is particularly true with A. L’vov’s article
on
“Mezhetnicheskie otnoshenija…”
(Interethnic
relationships),
which
convincingly resituates rumors on the
Jewish use of christian blood for the
preparation of matsa (azym bread)
for Pessah within a wider context of
relationships between Jewish and nonJewish neighbors. Likewise, two articles
give a new light on some familiar
topics: V. Dymshits explains why Jewish
graveyards usually look derelict in
“Evrejskoe kladbishche, mesto, kuda
ne khodjat” (Jewish Cemeteries, Places
Not to Be Visited) (135-159) and M.
Khakkarajnen’s
essay
“Mestechko
vspominaet o proshlom” (Shtetel
Remembers the Past, 159-177) shows how
the small Jewish craftsmen who, during
the Soviet period were considered as
social elements, became its emblematic
representatives by an irony of history,
despite the prestige of knowledge and
education in Jewish culture.
The other articles deal with other
engaging topics, like V. Fedchenko and
A. L’vov’s chapter on Jewish birth rites,
their origins of nobility (ikhes), or the
socio-economic importance of wedding
and engagement rites in (226-261).
Others focus more on the folklore, be it
traditional, like the legends about the bad
eye and the curses (M.Kaspina, 219-226),
the songs in Yiddish (D. Gidon and V.
Fedchenko, 261-279), or an unstudied ield
like urban folklore “Slovar’ lokal’nogo
teksta (Dictionary of a particular text,
186-219). This article is related to A.
Sokolova’s essay, which presents very
clearly the lexical, geographical and
historical differences between the words
shtetl, village (selo), town (gorod) and
mestechko (the Russian “equivalent” of
shtetl).
However, in spite of the quality of each
article, the book as a whole is disappointing
on account of the discrepancy between
the title and the content of the articles.
The reader expects a description of a
Jewish Atlantis, a territory where the
Jewish population would have kept its
culture despite the sovietization and
passing of time. But the book concerns
at most ifty or one hundred families,
many of them elderly women and men,
who instead recollect the maranisation of
Spanish and Portuguese Jews and their
subsequent loss of all links with Judaism.
Of particular note are inhabitants’
references to literary works rather than
to a reality of daily life in the shetl. Some
7
Reviews
of the scholars who have collaborated
in this book quote Jewish writers,
particularly Sholem Aleychem and Isaac
Babel, qualiied as a “mystiicator” by V.
Dymshits a few years ago ( Narod knigi
v mire knig, Peterburg, 2002, p. 1-6). If
literature is a kind of mystiication--and
what else can we expect from literature?-then I do not understand the necessity
to confront reality and literary creation,
which is what is done in some articles.
Despite my remarks and criticisms,
I enjoyed reading the anthology. I have
been surprised, puzzled, seduced as
well by the photographs and the maps
enabling time travel time. Maybe the
trip is not to a twenty-irst century shtetl,
but to one of the nineteenth or twentieth
century; still, it is a beautiful trip.
Boris Czerny
University of Caen-Basse Normandie/
Laboratoire ERLIS
France
8