2026/01/01 by Jagoda Wierzejska
Social Sciences · #Central European national history #Soviet and Russian History #Eastern European Communism and Reforms
paper · pdf · doi:10.1017/slr.2026.10386
Abstract This article analyzes the Lviv pogrom of November 1918 as an epistemic event embedded in the postimperial transformation of east central Europe. It argues that the violence and its subsequent narration became a critical site for negotiating the boundaries of political legitimacy, historical memory, and minority recognition. Tracing competing Polish and Jewish knowledge practices—ranging from official denials and mythologized narratives of urban defense to acts of documentation, legal contestation, and international advocacy—this article conceptualizes pogroms as structured scenes of epistemic asymmetry. These dynamics reveal how emerging nation-states instrumentalized epistemic violence not only to contain minority testimony but also to stabilize symbolic authority. The case of Lviv illustrates how discursive control, no less than coercion, underwrote the consolidation of national narratives in the wake of imperial collapse. In advancing this framework, the article contributes to broader debates on political violence, memory, and the epistemology of state formation.