Exploring the Face of the City

The book entitled “Exploring the Face of the City: Self-Representation Practices of Ukrainian Cities in the Industrial and Post-Industrial Age” (Kharkiv, 2021) was published at the end of 2021. It is devoted to the study of some theoretical and practical issues of urbanism. The main focus is on the symbolic spaces and cultural landscapes of five large cities of Eastern and Southern Ukraine — Dnipro, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Odesa, and Kharkiv. The authors of the book are participants of the scientific project “CityFace: Practices of self-representation of multinational cities in the industrial and post-industrial age” (https://cityface.org.ua/), which was supported by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies. They consider these cities as centers of socio-cultural interaction and various innovations, as dynamic systems that are constantly changing, searching for their own relevant “face.” The central place in the book belongs to the study of the practices of self-representation of cities (the use of symbols and emblems, the formation of a pantheon of local heroes, the celebration of “significant” events, etc.), as well as options for articulating certain achievements, features of the city and its citizens, that is, ideas that are able to rally the urban community around certain ideological constructions (self-stereotypes). In this regard, the authors were interested in places of collective memory, commemorative and ritual practices, the process of symbolic coding and recoding of urban space. This approach allows us to get closer to understanding the specifics of micro-regional identities, which is considered a very relevant scientific task today. The publication is intended for everyone who is interested in the history and current state of socio-cultural processes in Ukraine. In this case, the introduction to this book is published, which has been translated into English, with the hope that this text will attract additional attention of readers to the book.