Between the Bank and the Theatre: Retrieving Social and Cultural History of Two Landmarks of Pre-World War One Jewish Lemberg
Between the Bank and the Theatre: Retrieving Social and Cultural History of Two Landmarks of Pre-World War One Jewish Lemberg

Summary/Abstract: This study aims at exploring new ways of researching the history of Pre-WW1 Jewish Lemberg/Lwow, taking the example of two landmarks and cultural institutions: the Jewish bank Sokal and Lilien and the Yiddish Gimpel theatre. Gathering Yiddish, Polish and Ukrainian testimonies, memoirs, archives, press articles, old photographs and iconographical sources, sheet music and even early recordings, it is possible to reconstitute minutely a multimedia history of Jewish culture in the city. It is possible to link the history of a building with that of the individuals that lived and worked in them, with their pictures, their words, memories, and even with tapes of how they spoke, sang or entertained themselves.Interesting findings of this research point to a much greater cultural diversity than present day accounts let it appear. There were many contacts between the different ethnic and religious communities in Lemberg, between High and Low culture, and permeability between the linguistic, national, religious, social, cultural and artistic arenas. The transgenerational history of Jewish families also shows great transformations in identities from one generation to the other. Collecting the multimedia traces of the city’s past and retrieving the voices of the past could form a collaborative housed on the internet.

• Details
• Contents