City During the

City During the "Quiet War" 1939–1941: Literary Perspective

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May 13, 2017 / 12.00 pm

The period from September, 22, 1939 to June, 22, 1941, was the time of the ‘quiet war’ in Lviv. It was the war raging in a peaceful setting. The confrontation largely shifted from the military domain to the area of ideology and rhetoric. Writers, critics, and journalists were involuntarily turning into combatants. Over almost two years, the literary landscape had been undergoing some crucial changes that translated into the actual urban space. During the walk, participants took the road of memories on the literary life of Lviv left by Ukrainian and Polish writers. In addition, we shall talk about the following aspects:

  • continuity and intermittency in the identity of urban spaces as a sign of the epoch;
  • change of a literary canon;
  • private and public in the work of a writer;
  • the power of literature and the weakness of man;
  • imminence, anxiety, enforcement, silence, concealment and inability to keep silent.

The walk was guided by

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Danylo Ilnytskyi

literary scholar and essayist, works in the Ivan Krypyakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the NASU, Candidate of Philology. Compiler and author of comments to the three editions of works of Bohdan-Ihor Antonych, author of academic works on his artistic system, as well as articles, essays, author’s columns on different personalities, events, and problems of the humanitarian and cultural and artistic world.

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Viktor Martyniuk

literary scholar, literary editor, Candidate of philology. He works in the Department of Ukrainian Literature at the Ivan Krypyakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the NASU. Project team member in projects of the Center for Humanities at the Ivan Franko National University in Lviv, such as “University Dialogues”, “The Solo Is On… New Voices”, “8 Interpretations of Antonych”, “Intellectual Biography”, and “The Places of Future Heritage”.

City walk took place on the basis of the "Imaginary map of Literary Lviv (±1939)" research.