Voices of (for) the City

Natalia Otrishchenko, project manager of U Stories, taught a month-long course "Voices of (for) the City: Oral and Public History in East Central Europe" at the Martin Luther University of Halle-Wittenberg (Germany) at the invitation of the Aleksander Brückner Center for Polish Studies.

During the course, students worked with digital archives comprising oral history interviews and elaborated frameworks for their own projects to be implemented in urban spaces based on stories from eye-witnesses and participants of different events. The project "The Search for Home in Postwar Lviv: The Experience of Pidzamche, 1944-1960" was used as a case study showcasing the use of oral history knowledge for telling the story of a specific place to various audiences. German students embarked on a virtual journey to Pidzamche by working with the interactive map "Pidzamche: Places and Spaces" as well as by familiarizing themselves with the educational and exhibition projects developed by the Center for Urban History based on, among other things, oral stories from the district inhabitants.

The Urban Media Archive boasts a number of space-oriented oral history collections. One of them – "The Search for Home: The Experience of Post-War Pidzamche" – is available here. The collections "Lviv in the 20th Century: The History of One Street" dedicated to Bohomoltsia Street and "Kastelivka: Houses and People" are works in progress.