Life in an “Ideal Socialist City”: Narrative Representations of Nová Dubnica’s Pas

• Authors: Janto Juraj

Title variants

SK

Život v „ideálnom socialistickom meste“: Naratívne reprezentácie minulosti Novej Dubnice

• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

The study deals with narrative representations of the past of the Slovak city of Nová Dubnica that was built on a green-field land in the 1950s as an “exemplary socialist city” to accommodate workers of the engineering plant in Dubnica nad Váhom. While interpreting research data within the theoretical framework of collective memory, the author addresses memories of the first and long-term residents (60 years old and older) who look back on their life in the city in the 1950s−1980s. Based on ethnographic research, it was (1) industrial plant and work, (2) city construction, and (3) family and social life that were identified as major areas of narrative representations. These areas feature similar contents of individual interpretations of the past, and their intersection is formed by themes that can be qualified as the above-mentioned group’s collective memory of the life in Nová Dubnica in the past. Collective memory, as a socially conditioned category, is formed in Nová Dubnica, among other things, by important factors − regular events (celebrations of the foundation of the city, lantern parade) and mutual meetings of seniors. The study is to present Nová Dubnica as a “place of memory”, which shapes the inhabitants’ ideas about the past and which is also formed by local memories of the years of the socialist regime.

Keywords

EN

Socialism; urban research; way of life; memories; collective memory

• Publisher: The National Institute of Folk Culture
• Journal: Národopisná revue (Journal of Ethnology)
• Year: 2022
• Volume: 32
• Issue: 4
• Pages: 268 - 279

Contributors

author

Janto Juraj