Bulgakov Case: the Can(n)on and the Context
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.15407/mics2025.01.138Keywords:
decolonisation, historical/cultural heritage, «Kyiv myth», symbolic landscape, imperial narrative, matrix of colonial imagination, nostalgia, olonial subjectAbstract
«The Bulgakov case» appears to be perfectly tailored for analyzing the changes in Ukrainian cities' symbolic landscape and public spaces today. This paper explores how decolonization affects current practices and «conceptualizations» of heritagization, de-heritagization, and re-heritagization (Harrison, 2013), and how these processes are approached on both institutional and popular levels. Starting with an analysis of how imperial imagery emerged and shaped the «Kyiv myth» and the overall image of Kyiv, to which Bulgakov contributed and which he zealously retransmitted, the paper will examine the role the «Bulgakov myth» still plays in heritagization as decolonization processes gain momentum. Finally, we will analyze possible ways of working with different groups of objects — monuments, and buildings — as part of the heritagization process, i.e., constructing a body of historical and cultural memory in contemporary Ukraine.
References
Anderson, B. Uyavleni spilnoti. Kyiv: Krytyka, 2001.
Nevzorov. V., red. Palomnik Kievskij. Kiev: Skaj Hors, 2009.
Nekrasov, V. “Dom Turbinyh”. Novyj Mir 8 (1967): 132–142, https://nekrassov-viktor.com/images/Books/Dom%20Turbinix/novy_mir_1967_08_ocr.pdf
Spivak, G. Inshih Svitah: Eseyi z kulturnoyi politiki. K.: VD Vsesvit, 2006.
Tolochko, А. Kievskaya Rus i Malorossiya v ХIХ veke. Kiyiv: Laurus, 2012.
Shlipchenko, S. “Istoriya odnogo parku: Prostorovi ta socialni transformaciyi parku Shevchenka v Kiyevi”. Zhivuchi v modernomu misti. Kiyiv kincya ХIХ – seredini ХХ stolit. Kiyiv: Duh i Litera, 2016.
Shlipchenko, S. “«Moj adres ne dom i ne ulica»: Pro imperskij radyanskij narativ v arhitekturi i mistoplanuvanni ta politiku kolonizaciyi”, 2022, https://ua.boell.org/uk/2022/06/09/moy-adres-ne-dom-y-ne-ulytsa-pro-imperskyy-radyanskyy-naratyv-v-arkhitekturi-i (accessed Aug 21, 2024).
Shlipchenko, S. “Chari j paradoksi istoricizmu”. Studiyi mistectvoznavchi. 3 (27) (2009): 7–19. https://sm.etnolog.org.ua/download/pdf/sm_2009_3.pdf
Ange, O., and D. Berliner, eds. Anthropology and Nostalgia. New York: Berghahn, 2016.
Appadurai, A. Modernity at Large. Cultural Dimensions of Globalization. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996.
Barthes, R. Mythologies. NY: FARRAR, STRAUS & GIROUX, 1972/1991.
Bauman, Z. Retrotopia. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2017.
Berliner, D.C. Losing Culture. Nostalgia, Heritage, and Our Accelerated Times. New Brunswick, Camden, Newark, New Jersey, and London: Rutgers University Press, 2020.
Berliner, D. “Multiple nostalgias: the fabric of heritage in Luang Prabang (Lao PDR)”. The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 18 (4) (2012): 769–786.
Bhabha, H. The Location of Culture. L&NY: Routledge, 1994.
Bissel, W. “Engaging Colonial Nostalgia”, Cultural Anthropology 20 (2) (2005): 215–48, https://eticproject.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/colonialnostalgia.pdf
Bukowski, C. A Little Book of Essential Quotes on Life, Art, and Love. Little Books of Wisdom. Independently published, 2021.
Cameron, L. J. Openings: A Meditation on History, Method, and Sumas Lake. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1997.
Cooper, F. Colonialism in question: theory, knowledge, history. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Cubitt, J. Imagining Nations. Manchester UP, 1999.
Davis, F. Yearning for Yesterday: A Sociology of Nostalgia. New York: Free Press, 1979.
De Certeau, M. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley, LA, London, 1988.
Duncan, Nancy & Duncan, J. “Doing Landscape Interpretation”. The SAGE Handbook of Qualitative Geography, 2009, https://www.academia.edu/51208238/Doing_Landscape_Interpretation
Edensor, T. “National Identity and the Politics of Memory: Remembering Bruce and Wallace in Symbolic Space”. Environment and Planning. Society and Space 15 (2) (1997): 175–194, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/248881445_National_Identity_and_the_Politics_of_Memory_Remembering_Bruce_and_Wallace_in_Symbolic_Space
Ellin, N. Thresholds of fear: Embracing the urban shadow. Urban Studies Review 38 (2001): 869–883.
Garsha, J. Red Paint: The Defacing of Colonial Structures as Decolonization. Transmotion vol. 5, № 1 (2019): 76–103.
Harrison, R. Heritage: Critical Approaches. Routledge, 2013.
Harvey, D.C. “Critical Heritage Debates and the Commemoration of the First World War: Productive Nostalgia and Discourses of Respectful Reverence During the Centenary”. In: Silverman, H., Waterton, E., Watson, S. (eds) Heritage in Action. Springer, Cham, 2017, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-42870-3_8
Herzfeld, M. Cultural Intimacy: Social Poetics in the Nation-state. London: Routledge, 2005.
Hoare, L. Disgraced: Whither Vienna’s Monument to Karl Lueger? 2021, https://k-larevue.com/en/disgraced-whither-viennas-monument-to-karl-lueger/
Iacono, M. Wertz and Esmée Quodbach The Evolving House Museum: Art Collectors and Their Residences, Then and Now, 2024.
Krauss, R. Sculpture in the Expanded field. In: Hal Foster, ed. The Anti-Aesthetic. Essays on Postmodern Culture. Seattle: Bay Press (1983): 31–42.
Lord Byron Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, Canto II. Genius, https://genius.com/Lord-byron-childe-harolds-pilgrimage-canto-2-annotated (accessed July 24, 2024).
Lowenthal, D. Nostalgia Tells It like It Wasn’t. The Imagined Past: History and Nostalgia, edited by M. Chase and C. Shaw. Manchester, NH: Manchester UP (1989): 18–32.
Lowenthal, D. The Heritage Crusade and the Spoils of History. London: Viking Press, 1997.
Lowenthal, D. The Past is a Foreign Country. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1985/2015.
Lynch, K. The Image of the City. The MIT Press, 1964/1988.
Lyotard, J-F. La Condition Postmoderne: Rapport sur le Savoir. Paris : Les Éditions de Minuit, 1979.
Moore, D. Is the Post- in Postcolonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Postcolonial Critique. PMLA. Special Topic: Globalizing Literary Studies. Vol. 116, № 1 (2001): 111–128, https://www.academia.edu/70342472/Is_the_Post_in_Postcolonial_the_Post_in_Post_Soviet_Notes_Toward_a_Global_Postcolonial_Critique
Musil, R. Monuments. In: Posthumous Papers of a Living Author. NJ: Archipelago, 1936/2006.
Riasanovsky, N. Russian Identities: A Historical Survey. Oxford & NY: Oxford UP (2005): 132–46.
Riegl, A. The Modern Cult of Monuments: Its Character and its Origin. In: M. Hays, ed. Oppositions Reader: Selected Essays. NY: Princeton Architectural Press (1998): 621–654.
Schorske, C. Fin-De-Sciecle Vienna: Politics and Culture. London : Vintage;
Stock, B. (1993) Reading, Community and a Sense of Place. In: Duncan, J.S., & Ley, D. (Eds.). Place/Culture/Representation (1st ed.). Routledge, 1980.
Schutz, A. The Homecomer. Collected Papers II. Studies in Social Theory (1976): 106–119.
Spivak, G. C. Can the Subaltern Speak? In: C. Nelson, & L. Grossberg (Eds.), Marxism and the Interpretation of Culture. Urbana/Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Terry, A. Family Ties: Living History in Canadian House Museums. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2015.
Tlostanova, M., Mignolo, W. Learning to Unlearn: Decolonial Reflections from Eurasia and the Americas. Columbus: The Ohio State UP, 2012.
Watkin, D. A History of Western Architecture. Laurence King Publishing; 6th ed., 2015.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Світлана Шліпченко, Алла Петренко-Лисак

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
