The Anthologizing of Tradition: Lviv as the Imagined Ukrainian Literary City of 1930s

Abstract

In 2006 there came out anthology “Twelve” compiled by Vasyl Gabor and designed by Andriy Kis. The edition represents a literary group formed in the 30s of the 20th century in Lviv. The members of this group started their meetings in 1934, and in 1935 they published the first (and the last) joint edition. Today “Twelve” returned to its readership in the form of anthology, - a separate genre with its peculiarities. Anthology is a collective edition that asserts or claims a certain phenomenon. It has a thorough structure; it reflects the phenomenon in its entirety: national literature, genre, period, theme, generation, style etc. Anthology has by default a selective character, which means it is conceptual. In the 30s the group “Twelve” lost its future (with the advent of the Soviet and German forces), at the beginning of the 21st century anthology “Twelve” is seeking the lost past, Ukrainian Lviv, - the city that expresses itself through urban prose in a full-fledged manner. The result of the creative nostalgy is the invention of tradition (Eric Hobsbawm) – turning to the past, that re-creates it and re-lives it in accordance with the needs and wishes of contemporaneity.