The "Marginalized Modernity"

At first glance, in the interwar period in the new Polish nation state Lviv had to solve almost the same problems as in previous decades. However, the overall context changed substantially, creating entirely new conditions. In the Second Polish Republic, Lviv, relegated to the margins of economic and cultural life, tried to protect its status of a "modern urban center." The same can be said of private enterprise. Some important developments in the process of modernization of Lviv also should be noted. After the First World War modernization strategies, used by the advanced Western world, got firmly established and provided extensive scientific and functional approaches which sought to embrace the city in general. These trends could not pass over Lviv, but here, on the outskirts of Central and Eastern Europe, they were certainly implemented in a little different way. Figuratively speaking, Lviv had not managed to fully pass the previous course of "steam" modernization, when the circumstances demanded already further, more systematic actions. The situation was not very good for Pidzamche. Before the First World War, this was an industrial area, which was important in the contemporary city limits and could still expect a gradual improvement and development as well as the recognition of its important key position in the structure of the city. Moreover, Pidzamche could claim the recognition of its fundamentally modern and progressive character, gain a higher status and more attention on the part of the local authorities than before. In the new post-war situation, the perception of the city by the authorities moved to another level and was determined by new senses. There was a leap from the progressive developing and "refining" the city "from the center" to the "care" of the whole city at once and, moreover, within its extended limits. Thus, during the interwar years Pidzamche as "industrial outskirts" generally received a smaller portion of "civilizing" attention on the part of the city than at the turn of the twentieth century. The working district found itself in an intermediate "grey zone" of the general conditions of urban development: between ensuring the minimum standards of "civilization" in the whole city and concerns over the incorporation of the suburban villages. After all, these two horizons of development should have converged in Pidzamche, but, as it turned out after the war, the district's industrial "specialization," which played a major role in the development of Lviv in general, in some way hindered the local development at the same time.

     From Pidzamche's perspective, the establishment of the Soviet regime did not bring any radical changes in its material landscape, as could be expected. Soviet officials were guided by the same general categories of "care" and "large scale" as Polish ones and, quite naturally, with even greater enthusiasm. So it was decided not to touch the "birthmark" of early and "steam" modernization in some special way, since it was too important for the city, and, anyway, there were not enough resources for a radical transformation of the densely housed neighborhoods, which were still not the most important ones. The Soviet socialism's space is, obviously, not only new model neighborhoods or wide squares, but a powerful penetration of the corresponding ideology in all spheres of life as well. In this sense, Pidzamche was reformatted almost completely. In the first post-war decade the effect of the ideological and symbolic "Sovietization" was amplified due to the violent blocking of communication channels between those who remembered or knew old Polish-Austrian Lviv and those who had no such experience or information. However, while for many other Lviv residents "Soviet Lviv" meant new convenient apartments, wide boulevards, and modern transport, it was, in fact, only "communist labor" that remained for the residents of Pidzamche. We can assume that the "Sovietization" of social, working and personal relations also had many modern features and greatly changed the nature of the local social space, but it is necessary to confirm this opinion by a more detailed study.

     In this way, Pidzamche finally became a hostage and symptom of the "pursuing" "under-modernization" of Lviv, in whose process an essentially modern district was formed, but there were not enough resources for its consistent regulation.