Cultural Life

The Great City Theater before the war

Although in November 1918 the citizens of Lviv had to solve more actual problems related to safety, everyday life or food, cultural and artistic life did not stop immediately. On the afternoon of November 1, the performance at the Great City Theater took place as usual, and only after the first act in the evening the theater was visited by Ukrainian soldiers who sent the audience home. After the fighting started, cinema and theatrical performances stopped, part of the actors left the city. In the Dilo newspaper, the latest announcements of film shows were dated November 5: Lviv residents on that day could watch a drama entitled "The Tragedy of Eternal Life" at the cinemas Kopernik and Maryseńka.

Polish theaters restored their activity in the city only after December 1. The city theater opened the "new" season with the play "The Defense of Częstochowa." November season tickets for the theater were valid in December.

News on literary processes were also considered untimely. Zofia Romanówiczówna wrote that it was impossible to read because of the rumble of guns in the streets, as it did not let her concentrate. Newspapers were desirable, because they provided at least some information about events in the city. The premises of the Ossolineum library passed from hands to hands, some of the funds were destroyed. At that time, the so-called Ukrainian bookstores worked in the city. In the office of the Prosvita Society on the Rynok square one could buy a new historical novel entitled "Prince Yaroslav Osmomysl", and the publishing house "Ukrainian Literary Treasury" offered "The Treasure Island" by Robert Lewis Stevenson. The newspaper Dilo reported the release of new works of the Ukrainian writer Orest Avdykovych dedicated to the war.

The November days gave impetus to the development of memoir literature in the interwar period. In the 1920s and 1930s, both Poles and Ukrainians published texts of memories of those who had taken part in the confrontation, created special series and even gave recommendations on how to write memoirs in the best way.

Cultural Life

The Great City Theater before the war
Page no. 4 from DILO newspaper from November 3, 1918, advertising film screenings in cinemas
A pre-war advertisement of Kopernik and Marysieńka, "first-class" cinemas
Library at the National Ossolinski Institute. Source: Semper Fidelis, 1930