Ego-dokument âk konstrukt obrazu mìsta (na prikladì tekstìv pro Odesu)

Authors:

• Yaroslav Polishchuk

Abstract

Th e author of the article writes about the identity of Odessa as about the kind of local identity that manifests itself in the historical context. He researches the individual examples of the local cultural specifi city, appealing to the thoughts of authoritative writers and scientists. Odessa’s identity was formed through the infl uences of diff erent factors, some of which were even contradictory. Th is gave rise to its uniqueness. It is characterised by liminality, independence (autonomy), cosmopolitanism. But it is important to understand that those infl uences were not equal, and their eff ects were oft en used for creating the ideological doctrines of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the presented research, the author revealsthe formative mechanisms of some stereotypical images that the concept of identity consists of. Th ese mechanisms express open or hidden Russian imperial strategy of colonisation. Th at is why the eff orts to glorify the local and specifi c are questionable. In this context, the well-known Odessa cosmopolitanism is oft en explained. But sometimes it is incorrect to understand it as the eff ect of the historical process of assimilation by the national, linguistic, or religious denominational groups which took place in the city during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Th e article is also about the discrimination against the culture of the national minorities, who in the so-called Odessa myth are represented in a fragmentary and incomplete way. Ukrainian element was also discriminated against. Th is may seem paradoxical, as Odessa and the Black Sea region are a natural part of the Ukrainian cultural space