NATIONAL IDENTITY THEFT
Four empires have had control over this land: the Polish-Lithuanian Confederation, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Second Polish Republic, and the Soviet Union. The city has had a nominal identity crisis and has been know by an assortment of names under its various conquerors: Leopolis, Levensburg, Lemberg, Lwow, Lvov, and finally back to the Ukrainian Lviv (pronounced as if it were spelled Lviw).
Identity, nationality, ethnicity – these are random things, genetic in some ways, happenstance in others. You’re born into them by accident of fate and time and place. If you’re born in this city in 1890, you’re a member of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. You could be Ukrainian, Polish, Jewish, Armenian, German, or Austrian – but you’re still a Hapsburgian. And besides you
