The 'Other' Warsaw: Narrating Marginalized Urban Experience as Cultural Ecology

• In Event: Reclaiming Urban Space: Fighting Unequal Representation and Spatial Marginalization in Urban Narratives

Abstract

According to Hubert Zapf, literature is to be regarded as an ecological force within culture. It has the capacity to critically assess historical processes of technological-economic modernization and reactivate culturally repressed elements. In my paper, I aim to discuss the cultural-ecological functions of urban texts about Warsaw—a city that has been undergoing several transformations since 1945. The post-World War II reconstruction, followed by the transition into a market economy center, not only brought about alterations in the cityscape but also in the social structure of the Polish capital. Through an examination of selected literary texts about Warsaw, this paper seeks to elucidate the cultural-ecological functions that literature can assume within transforming urban structures. It illustrates how literature as cultural ecology can render visible marginalized or suppressed elements of urban space and respective narratives, initiate counter-discourses, or alternatively, exert integrative influences.

Author

• Anna Seidel, Humboldt U Berlin (Germany)