Between Flux of Space and Stillness of Place: Urban Periphery in Early Twentieth Century Russian Poland

• In Event: Neighborhoods in Flux: Colonial Impacts and Decolonial Prospects in and beyond Eurasia

Abstract

This paper examines the production of suburban space in early twentieth century Russian Poland, revealing the urban periphery as a battleground for differing visions of order: the Russian imperial state envisioned the suburbs as tranquil centers for industrial production, disrupted by labor unrest, whereas the liberal intelligentsia aspired to transform them into garden cities akin to Hampstead or Charlottenburg, and socialists saw them as the potential Polish Montmartre, symbolizing the labor movement’s genesis, with all these perspectives aiming to simplify, order, and stabilize heterotopic spaces. Using postcolonial theory and subaltern studies, the paper aims to read elite sources against the grain to give justice to the complexity of suburban social life, highlighting how its predominantly Polish and Jewish residents navigated and contested elite endeavors to reshape their environments, employing the concept of the neighborhood to clarify this multipolar scenario. Through this approach, the paper not only contributes to the fields of urban studies and imperial history but also seeks to enrich these domains with postcolonial insights, carefully adapting them to a distinct setting without oversimplification.

Author

• Antoni Porayski-Pomsta, U of Cambridge (UK)