Tapatumas, išliekantis kaitoje

Abstract

Since recently there has been an increasing number of discussions on the manifestations of identity in cities, we continue the exploration of the concept of this phenomenon and the criteria used to define it, which we have started in the previous issue. This time, we are having a conversation with the doctor of philosophy, chief scientist of the Lithuanian Culture Research Institute, poet, publicist and cultural critic Dr. Vytautas Rubavičius. It is difficult to clearly define the criteria of a city’s identity, and even if we did, such criteria are not something that we can easily go and measure. They include cultural and other values, visual matters that cannot easily be ascertained based on criteria. Yet, some things that form an identity are indeed clear. Identity also relates to uniqueness. When speaking of a city’s identity, we often imagine that it is a certain, very clear, material or visual item that can in some way be ascertained, but we fail to notice that when thinking in such a way, we must consider these things in relation to other cities, and thus in a broader context, identity equals uniqueness – after all, no-one is interested in identical cities. Identity is something that changes over time, there is no identity that could remain unchanged, even coastlines and the paths of rivers change. As identity is formed and defined by communities or the lifestyles of communities in that location. It is through lifestyle that we understand the connectivity of the whole urban structure, meanwhile an urban structure shows us what lifestyles have been interacting here, developing and changing over time.