Classifying, Comparing, Connecting: The Postwar Urban Matrix of Soviet Ukraine

• In Event: Elements for the Future: Materials and Practices of Post-WWII Reconstructions

Abstract

This paper explores comparisons as a practice in the postwar reconstruction and spatial reordering by looking at the 1946 study that attempted to produce a classification of cities in Soviet Ukraine, a heavily destroyed and reconfigured republic. Newly annexed territories brought within the republic as a part of the “liberation” narrative included many cities and towns, which required extensive efforts to expand and expedite descriptions and categorizations, to map the new postwar reality in order to cope and deal with it. The paper traces how in this context comparisons became a tool of establishing connections, ordering relations, and thus integrating new into the existing order of knowledge and management, while also challenging it.

Author

• Sofia Dyak, Center for Urban History of East Central Europe (Ukraine)