Урбанистичните пространства като топоси на паметта
Urban spaces as memory topos

Dimitre Dinev, Sibylle Lewitscharoff, Ilija Trojanow

Summary/Abstract: Cities and towns are areas binding together all possible human activities and that fact is the reason why they collect the memories of minor and major events to a considerable degree. Not only great metropolia but also smaller towns are a focus of the collective memory of entire generations throughout different time spans, thus expressing the collective identity of their residents. Observations of the urban cultures of memory help in identifying deviations from collective memory on the part of individual memories that, through personal perceptions of the people, suggest alternative models of memory and identity for the ideologies dominating certain historical periods. A major emphasis in the researched novels, mentioned in the subtitle, is the intertwining of the discourses of the material and spiritual culture in Bulgarian towns and cities in two different time spans of Bulgarian history: the discourse of the old Bulgarian culture in the country (after its liberation from Ottoman reign) with its picturesque architecture from the Revival period, having European features and Christian traditions, and the discourse of the new ‘concrete’ atheistic socialist daily life viewed as a counterpoint.

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