Identity of the city's communities (thе case of Мinsk)

Abstract

The article reveals the problems of the urban identity of the individual and communities that are relevant for cultural research. They are resolved in the aspect of belonging to the city as to a certain place, manifesting its own uniqueness and values. The city is not only a space in which a person works and rests. It is a place where he communicates feels affection, stores important events in his memory. The city is viewed not from the position of its functioning as an economic and social organism but is explicated as a cultural system with its own historical, memorial, cultural configuration, and content. The purpose of the article is to determine the values that allow a person and socio-cultural communities to refer themselves to the city. The values, the identity of the city’s communities are built around, include the historical past and the present; a sense of pride in the place where a person lives; rational and emotional attachment to the city, district, courtyard as a community, where you can communicate, solve social and other issues based on a sense of solidarity and mutual assistance. Urban identity is considered at two levels - city-wide and local. The city-wide identity is manifested in the symbolism of objects significant for the city, activities carried out, etc. Local identity is expressed in attachment to the district, courtyard, in holding common events, in the emergence of joint chats. The process and result of the development of authentic objects and industrial landscape have great importance for the formation of a sense of community identity. “Initiated” identity of the city is examined as a process of reanimation of old places of the city and new spaces, which are marked with meanings and values that form the identity. One of the successful examples of the revitalization of “forgotten” locations is Oktyabrskaya Street in Minsk.

Keywords

• city
• culture
• identity
• community
• unity
• values