The social perception of historical monuments in culturally heterogeneous cities. The case of Bialystok and Lublin

The social perception of tangible cultural resources of a city is one of the elements shaping the identity of the city, the collective identification of individuals with their place of residence. The construction of distinctive and coherent identities is an important process for urban communities, as it involves the capacity to convert their cultural resources into capital, both economic and cultural. This process becomes particularly complicated in heterogeneous cities, where representatives of different groups can have diverse, often contradictory, attitudes towards the city in which they reside. In such communities it can become a site of struggle for the symbolic and/or political dominance in the city. The social perception of historical monuments can be seen as a measure of identity construction. The data used in this article are taken primarily from the research “History and Memory in the communities of Bialystok and Lublin”. It shows that in the case of Bialystok one may speak of the domination of the largest cultural groups over the minorities. A part of the responsibility for this situation falls on the local authorities, who, despite declarations, do not take action that would effectively support the multicultural identity of the city.Zakład Historii Społecznej, Instytut Socjologii, Uniwersytet w Białymstok