Cosmopolitan Spaces in an Urban Context: A Case Study of Odessa, 1880-1925

The research group offers a new interdisciplinary perspective on cosmopolitanism and urban spaces in Odessa. The group will explore the interstices and crossovers as well as demarcations between Jewish, Russian, and Ukrainian culture in the period 1880-1925, using Odessa as a case study. We will employ the notion of cosmopolitanism as a critical tool for understanding the concrete spatial processes of cultural production and identity negotiation in an urban context. Odessa was mythologized as unique, but may also be a model case for studying other cities with large ethnic minorities in early twentieth-century Eastern Europe.