Divided cities in the European cultural context (original) (raw)

1999, Progress in Planning

Although`without frontiers' is much in fashion, the control of space and territories is still very much one of the major issues that marks the end of the century at world level. In Europe, the paradox is apparent if one considers that the end of USSR, the last multinational empire, both in the East and in the West, led to a return to nations, and, therefore, to history or, rather, national histories necessarily partial and mythical. It is the national memory, with its baggage of victories and defeats, the`grandeur' and the humiliations, which dominates debates. Only a step separates the celebration of national history from the celebration of a nation's geography, which in its turn leads to the territorial issue. More than ever the future of certain nations seems linked to the possession of lieux de me moire, considered as vital. Wars erupted, or will erupt, all over the world for the possession of one or another morsel of land. From Transylvania to the Caucasus, from the Kashmir to the West Bank, territories are objects of passions all the more dangerous as they appear existential. It is in the notion of a nation-state that one ®nds the explanation of the current territorial contentions. It seems that the 20th century has de®nitely adopted the nation-state model. Did not the start of its development coincide with the fall of the Ottoman and Austrian±Hungarian Empires and its conclusion with the fall of the (pseudo) Soviet and Yugoslavian federations? With a few exceptions, the nation-state model has become universal. But there is a long way between the dream and the reality.`One people, one culture, governed by one sovereign power', if we persist with this de®nition of the nation-state; Eastern and Western Europe does not have many real nation-states which resemble the French model, hence the tensions generated around mixed areas. It is not very dicult to point out examples. The numerous, sometimes linguistic, sometimes religious or