The Central European City and Its Identity

Authors

  • Jacek Purchla Kraków University of Economics

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.15.2018.57.08

Keywords:

Central Europe, urbanisation, creative cities, local government, townscape, identity

Abstract

The form and shape of the city are, in a way, the sum of the development of its civilisation, and this is why urbanisation is so often cited as a symbol of Europe’s cultural advancement. A particular triumph of urbanisation is the concept known as “creative cities”, that is, cities that contribute creatively to the universal values of our civilisation without losing any of their local flavour or compromising their unique identity. This paper claims that the best evidence of Central Europe’s achievements as a civilisation, and the essence of its identity, are its cities. Indeed, an understanding of the phenomenon of these cities, in particular their changing meanings and stories, and a broader historical perspective on the changing nature of their functions in relation to Europe’s settlement network, are crucial to comprehending the very essence of Central European identity.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

PlumX Metrics of this article

Author Biography

Jacek Purchla, Kraków University of Economics

Polish Art Historian and Economist, Professor of Humanities, a member of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was the founder of the International Cultural Centre in Krakow and has been its director since its inception in 1991. He is the head of the Department of Economic and Social History and the UNESCO Chair for Heritage and Urban Studies at the Kraków University of Economics. He specializes in urban studies, social and art history, as well as the theory and protection of cultural heritage. Since 2015, he has been the President of the Polish National Commission for UNESCO. Between 2016 and 2017 he was the President of the UNESCO World Heritage Committee. In 2018 he has been elected vice‑president of Europa Nostra. In recent years, he has initiated interdisciplinary studies in the theory of heritage and historic city management. He is the author of over 400 academic works, including a number of books published in many languages.

References

A Cultural History of Hungary. In the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, K. Laszlo (ed.), Budapest 1998.
Google Scholar

Bayly C.A., The Birth of the Modern World, London 2004.
Google Scholar

Bąk‑Koczarska C., Juliusz Leo. Twórca Wielkiego Krakowa, Wrocław–Warszawa–Kraków–Gdańsk–Łódź 1986.
Google Scholar

Beller S., Vienna and the Jews 1867−1938. A Cultural History, Cambridge 1989.
Google Scholar

Benevolo L., Miasto w dziejach Europy, Warszawa 1995.
Google Scholar

Berend I.T., Ránki G., The Hungarian Economy in the Twentieth Century, Beckenham 1985.
Google Scholar

Bogucka M., Samsonowicz H., Dzieje miast i mieszczaństwa w Polsce przedrozbiorowej, Wrocław−Warszawa−Kraków−Gdańsk−Łódź 1986.
Google Scholar

Brix E., Z powrotem w Europie Środkowej. Eseje i szkice, Kraków 2012.
Google Scholar

Budapest and New York. Studies in Metropolitan Transformation: 1870‑1930, B. Thomas, C.E. Schorske (eds.), New York 1994.
Google Scholar

Calvino I., Invisible Cities, transl. by W. Weaver, London 1997.
Google Scholar

Davies N., Moorhouse R., Mikrokosmos. Portret miasta środkowoeuropejskiego, Kraków 2002.
Google Scholar

Deak E., Das Städtewesen der Länder der Ungarischen Krone (1780‑1918), vol.1, Wien 1979.
Google Scholar

Dziewoński K., Jerczyński M., Baza ekonomiczna i struktura funkcjonalna miast, Warszawa 1971.
Google Scholar

Eysymont R., Kod genetyczny miasta. Średniowieczne miasta lokacyjne Dolnego Śląska na tle urbanistyki europejskiej, Wrocław 2009.
Google Scholar

Gerschenkron A., An Economic Spurt That Failed. Four Lectures in Austrian History, Princeton 1977.
Google Scholar

Gerschenkron A., Economic Backwardness in Historical Perspective. Cambridge, Mass., 1962.
Google Scholar

Good D.F., The Economic Rise of the Habsburg Empire, 1750‑1914, Berkeley−Los Angeles−London 1984.
Google Scholar

Grodziski S., “Samorząd gminny i powiatowy w Galicji epoki autonomicznej”, Krakowskie Studia Prawnicze, vol. 25 (1992), pp. 77‑90.
Google Scholar

Grodziski S., “The Organization and Role of Galician Municipal Government at the Turn of the Century”, in J. Purchla (ed.), Mayors and City Halls, Cracow 1998, pp. 25‑33.
Google Scholar

Hamann B., Hitler’s Vienna. A portrait of the tyrant as a young man, London–New York 2010.
Google Scholar

Hoszowski S., Ekonomiczny rozwój Lwowa w latach 1772‑1914, Lwów 1935.
Google Scholar

Hrycak J., “Lwów w Europie Środka”, in J. Purchla (ed.), Kraków i Lwów w cywilizacji europejskiej, Kraków 2003, pp.11‑33.
Google Scholar

Jakubowska U., Lwów na przełomie XIX i XX wieku. Przegląd środowisk prasotwórczych, Warszawa 1991.
Google Scholar

Jászi O., The Dissolution of the Habsburg Monarchy, Chicago 1961.
Google Scholar

Klabouch J., Die Gemeindeselbstverwaltung in Osterreich 1848‑1918, Wien 1968.
Google Scholar

Komar Ż., “W poszukiwaniu stylu żydowskiego. Archeologia lwowskiego modernizmu”, Herito, no. 2 (2011), pp. 99‑101.
Google Scholar

Lewicki J., Między tradycją a nowoczesnością, Architektura Lwowa lat 1893‑1918, Warszawa 2005.
Google Scholar

Lukacs J., Budapest 1900: A Historical Portrait of a City and Its Culture, New York 1988.
Google Scholar

Kraków i Praga – dwie stolice Europy Środkowej, J. Purchla (ed.), Kraków 2002.
Google Scholar

März E., Oesterreichische Industrie‑ und Bankpolitik, Wien 1968.
Google Scholar

Moravanszky A., Competing Visions. Aesthetic Invention and Social Imagination in Central European Architecture, 1867‑1918, Cambridge, Mass.–London 1998.
Google Scholar

Musil R., Człowiek bez właściwości, transl. K. Radziwiłł, K. Truchanowski, J. Zeltzer, Warszawa 2002, vol. 1.
Google Scholar

Paczoska E., “Stolica nowoczesności. W poszukiwaniu «tekstu lwowskiego»”, in E. Paczoska, D.M. Osiński (eds.), Modernistyczny Lwów. Teksty życia, teksty sztuki, Warszawa 2009, pp. 11‑26.
Google Scholar

Poche E., Libal D., Reitharova E., Wittlich P., Praha narodniho probuzeni, Praha 1980.
Google Scholar

Popławski Z., Dzieje Politechniki Lwowskiej 1844‑1945, Wrocław−Warszawa−Kraków 1992.
Google Scholar

Ptaśnik J., Miasta i mieszczaństwo w dawnej Polsce, Kraków 1934.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., Cracow in the European Core, Cracow 2016.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., “Dziedzictwo lokacji Krakowa. Garść uwag na marginesie jubileuszu 750‑lecia nadania miastu prawa magdeburskiego”, Zeszyty Naukowe Uniwersytetu Ekonomicznego w Krakowie, nr 835. Prace z zakresu historii gospodarczej i studiów nad miastem, Kraków 2010, pp. 41‑46.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., Jak powstał nowoczesny Kraków, Kraków 1990.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., Krakau unter österreichischer Herrschaft 1846‑1918. Faktoren seiner Entwicklung, Wien−Köln−Weimar 1993.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., “Kraków i Lwów: zmienność relacji w XIX i XX wieku”, in J. Purchla (ed.), Kraków i Lwów w cywilizacji europejskiej, Kraków 2003, pp. 81‑90.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., Miasto i polityka. Przypadki Krakowa, Kraków 2018.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., “Patterns of Influence: Lviv and Vienna in the Mirror of Architecture”, in J. Czaplicka (ed.), Lviv. A City in the Crosscurrents of Culture, Harvard Ukrainian Studies, vol. 24, Cambridge, Mass. 2000, pp. 131‑147.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., Teatr i jego architekt. W stulecie gmachu Teatru Miejskiego w Krakowie; Das Theater und sein Architekt. Zum hundersten Jahrestag der Eröffnung des Juliusz‑Słowacki‑Theaters in Krakau, Kraków 1993.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., “Wpływy wiedeńskie na architekturę Lwowa 1772‑1918”, in J.K. Ostrowski (ed.), Sztuka kresów wschodnich, vol. 2, Kraków 1996, pp. 263‑282.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., “W stulecie Powszechnej Wystawy Krajowej we Lwowie 1894 roku”, in Lwowska Wystawa Krajowa 1894, Kraków 1994.
Google Scholar

Purchla J., Sepioł J., “Metropolie a rozwój regionalny Polski”, in J. Purchla (ed.), Metropolitalne funkcje Krakowa, vol.1, Kraków 1998, pp. 13‑32.
Google Scholar

Samsonowicz H., Życie miasta średniowiecznego, Poznań 2012.
Google Scholar

Schlögel K., Die Mitte liegt ostwärts. Europa im Übergang, Frankfurt 2008.
Google Scholar

Schorske C., Fin‑de‑siecle Vienna: Politics and Culture, New York 1980.
Google Scholar

Shaping the Great City. Modern Architecture in Central Europe, 1890‑1937, E. Blau, M. Platzer (eds.), Munich–London–New York 1999.
Google Scholar

Sheehan J.J., “Liberalism and the City in the Nineteenth‑Century Germany”, Past and Present, vol. 51, no. 1 (1971), pp. 116‑137, https://doi.org/10.1093/past/51.1.116. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/past/51.1.116
Google Scholar

Sjoberg G., The Preindustrial City. Past and Present, New York–London 1965.
Google Scholar

Strasburger E., Gospodarka naszych wielkich miast, Warszawa–Łódź–Kraków–Lwów–Poznań 1913.
Google Scholar

The Structure of Nineteenth‑century Cities, J.H. Johnson, C.G. Pooley (eds.), London–New York 1982.
Google Scholar

Trawkowski S., Opuscula Medievistica. Studia nad historią społeczną Polski wczesnopiastowskiej, Warszawa 2005.
Google Scholar

Urbanitsch P., “Functions and Tasks of the Municipal Government in the Monarchy”, in J. Purchla (ed.), Mayors and City Halls, Kraków 1998, pp. 11‑23.
Google Scholar

Wandycz P.S., Cena wolności. Historia Europy Środkowo‑Wschodniej od średniowiecza do współczesności, Kraków 1995.
Google Scholar

Wolff L., “Dynastic Conservatism and Poetic Violence in Fin‑de‑Siecle Cracow: The Habsburg Matrix of Polish Modernism”, The American Historical Reviev, vol. 106, no. 3 (2001), pp. 735‑764, https://doi.org/10.2307/2692322. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/2692322
Google Scholar

Wood N.D., Becoming Metropolitan. Urban Selfhood and the Making of Modern Cracow, DeKalb 2010.
Google Scholar

Wyrozumski J., Dzieje Krakowa, vol. 1, Kraków do schyłku wieków średnich, Kraków 1992, pp. 160‑199.
Google Scholar

Wyrozumski J., “Lokacja czy lokacje Krakowa”, in J. Wyrozumski (ed.), Kraków. Nowe studia nad rozwojem miasta, Kraków 2007, pp. 121‑151.
Google Scholar

Downloads

Published

2018-08-13

How to Cite

Purchla, Jacek. 2018. “The Central European City and Its Identity”. Politeja 15 (6(57):125-48. https://doi.org/10.12797/Politeja.15.2018.57.08.