Kumulative Dissertation, Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg, 2020

World Cultural Heritage in Germany and Russia: The Experience of Wismar, Stralsund, Veliky Novgorod and Pskov.
This dissertation is devoted to the impact of the World Cultural Heritage (WCH) status on urban space. Following the introduction (chapter 1), the remaining text is structured in three parts. The first part (chapter 2) focuses on approaches to assessing the impact of the WCH status. The second part (chapter 3) is an empirical investigation into the implementation of sociological conflict theory in analyzing the influence of the WCH status. The third part (chapters 4 and 5) analyzes the main actors influencing the process of obtaining the status, including official and non-official purposes for which the status was obtained, and the forms of its use. The dissertation considers two German cities (Stralsund and Wismar) and two Russian cities (Veliky Novgorod and Pskov) as case studies. The main research materials consist of interviews with the city administration, local activists, employees of museums and tourist centers, representatives of local businesses, and official documents and printed materials produced by the city administration. The analysis showed that the primary purpose of the WCH status was to enhance the cities’ welfare. However, the WCH status may be exploited by the local administration for their own interests. Moreover, WCH status “deflation” occurs when many cultural sites have the same status.