A new book has been published about the pre-war wall writings (advertisements and such) that one can still find in L’viv, Ukraine. They are visible in a number of places, in a number of languages, including Yiddish and Polish, reflecting the pre-WW2 make up of the city’s population.
And at the same time — it has been announced that there will be guided walking tours around the city to see them.
The new book is Imia budynku ta inshi napysy (Building Name and Other Inscriptions), by Kseniya Borodin and Ivanna Honak. The L’viv Center for Urban History writes that it is
dedicated to the study of prewar Polish inscriptions that remain in the cultural space of today’s Lviv, and can be found on residential buildings. This is the first book in the “Lviv in Polish” series, which intends to include five further books on related themes.
In their work, the authors have collected and studied advertisement and informational inscriptions (shields, hallmarks, plaque, marks), historical and religious inscriptions, signatures by architects and sculptors, title inscriptions (names of villas, street and number signs), memorial plaques, etc. – over 500 inscriptions in all.
It notes that the book contains about 300 photographs to illustrate the text and serve as testimony to the condition of Polish-language inscriptions in today’s Lviv.
Only the objects accessible for general viewing (both interior and exterior) are used, which allows to take a walk through Lviv as a free open-air museum.
And this is just what a new guided tour developed from Borodin and Honak’s book aims to do. The article is in Ukrainian — but Google translate works.