Description
Book SynopsisAn urban biography, Brody: A Galician Border City in the Long Nineteenth Century reconciles 150 years of the town’s socioeconomic history with its cultural memory. The first comprehensive study of this city under Habsburg-Austrian rule, Börries Kuzmany advises against reading urban history solely through the national lens. Besides exploring Brody’s extraordinary ethno-confessional structure—Jews, Poles, and Ukrainians—Kuzmany examines the interrelation between the city’s geographical location at the imperial border, its standing as a key commercial hub in East-Central Europe, and its position as a major springboard for the dissemination of the Haskalah in Galicia and the Russian Empire. After delving into the contradictory perceptions of Brody in travelogues, fiction and memory books, Kuzmany uses contemporary and historical photographs to provide an illustrated walking tour of this now Ukrainian town.
Table of ContentsPreface List of figures, maps and tables List of abbreviations and specific terms 1 Introduction Part I: The Economic Rise and Fall of the Town of Brody 2 The Success Story (1630–1815) Part II: An Extraordinary Galician Small Town 4 Austria’s Most Jewish City 5 The Christian Minorities 6 Religion–Language–Nation School: A Multicultural Lebenswelt 7 Border City Part III: Perceptions of Brody in History 8 Placing Brody 9 Places of Memory in and of Brody 10 Conclusion: Brody—A Story of Failed Success? Appendix Bibliography Index
