Helka Molnár
Being nostalgic is an inherent part of being human. It is often described as a longing for a home that no longer exists, or perhaps has never existed. Yet nostalgia is more than a private emotional state; it has spatial, material, and political dimensions that make it far more complex than personal longing.
Shtromka is in a moment where the inbetweenness is tangible: with current development plans and ongoing changes, the ground itself feels unstable. In my project I aimed to enlarge this moment and, through it, examine not only nostalgia as a reaction to the insecurity produced by multiple, overlapping changes, but also its political nature.
Nostalgia is a term we all recognize at first glance. Remembering, recalling, and reliving memories are universal practices; some of us engage in them daily, others perhaps more intensely around birthdays or annual rituals that are deliberately structured as reminders of time passing. The term has also become part of our everyday language: we casually invoke “nostalgia” in almost any situation related to memory, applying it freely and often indiscriminately, until nearly everything is labeled as such.
The term “nostalgia” was first introduced in 1688 by Swiss medical student Johannes Hofer in his dissertation, where it described a pathological condition. Initially understood as a curable disease, nostalgia was associated primarily with displacement. Soldiers, migrants, and students far from home were believed to suffer from a dangerous longing that could manifest in physical symptoms and even death.
During Romanticism in the late 17th and 18th centuries, nostalgia underwent a significant conceptual shift. In reaction to Enlightenment ideals of rationality and universality, emotional particularity and subjective experience became increasingly valued. Longing for home and roots transformed from a medical condition into a culturally celebrated sentiment. Nostalgia became associated with authenticity, belonging, and emotional depth.
By the mid-19th century, nostalgia was further institutionalized. The past became heritage, and nostalgia became embedded in museums, monuments, national histories, and urban memorials. Through these institutions, selective versions of the past were preserved, displayed, and legitimized. Nostalgia moved from individual feeling to collective framework, shaping how societies narrated themselves. (Boym, 2007)
How nostalgia works?
The political core of nostalgia is exposed through Boym’s distinction between its two primary forms: restorative and reflective. Restorative nostalgia is politically charged and problematic because it attempts a "transhistorical reconstruction of the lost home". This drive seeks a fixed, absolute identity, a "unique and pure homeland" This form of nostalgia risks becoming "politically manipulated," tempting individuals to "relinquish critical thinking for emotional bonding". Restorative nostalgia is thus a dangerous political tool that promotes exclusivity and rejects complexity.
In contrast, reflective nostalgia embraces ambivalence and actively engages in "critical reflection". This reflective mode is intellectual and ethical, choosing instead to cherish "shattered fragments of memory" and temporalize space rather than seeking a rigid reconstruction. Reflective nostalgia aligns with "nostalgic dissidence," transforming the mourning of displacement and temporal irreversibility into a critical stance on the modern condition. (Boym, 2007)
The distinction highlights that while nostalgia is a rebellion against the modern idea of time, the outcome of that rebellion determines whether it is a constructive political intervention or a destructive emotional retreat.
The manifesto is an articulation for rejecting the notion that time and space are fixed, neutral dimensions, arguing instead that they are deeply contested human creations.
By refusing this lie of linearity, the manifesto demands acceptance of space as always under construction. This realization means rejecting the idea that continuity is inevitable, arguing instead that continuity is a choice, an arrangement upheld by power.
The inherent dynamism of space, its permanent state of being unfixed and open, means that the future is never predetermined. Instead, the future must be understood as actively constructed, negotiated and produced.
Because I believe that the underlying problem in current urban changes is deeply connected to our false perception of linearity of time.
Boym, Svetlana. “Nostalgia and Its Discontents.” The Hedgehog Review 9, no. 2 (Summer 2007): 7-18. https://hedgehogreview.com/issues/the-uses-of-the-past/articles/nostalgia-and-its-discontents.
Rovelli, Carlo. The Order of Time. New York: Riverhead Books, 2018.
Harvey, David. “Between Space and Time: Reflections on the Geographical Imagination.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 80, no. 3 (1990): 418–34. http://www.jstor.org/stable/2563621.
Massey, Doreen. For Space. London: SAGE Publications, 2005
Löw, Martina. The Sociology of Space: Materiality, Social Structures, and Action. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016.