ABSTRACT
In 1876 Michal Greim, a Pole and photographer in Kam'ianets'-Podil's'kyi, made several versions of the city's panorama. Among the pictures shot in 1876 there is an exceptional view, known today only from one preserved copy, focused on a small fragment of the city walls with a row of apparently insignificant houses. Cultural heritage is indeed a Western invention, and photography - with its scientific and technological qualities, and with the universality of its language - is a transnational and essentially Western practice. Russian national identity, springing from the conviction of the predominance of Russian culture and of the Orthodox religion, was shaped in contrast or in superiority to the Western canon. Despite the popularization of photography in the last quarter of the nineteenth century and the growth of a wider awareness about history, art and its precious material traces, the photographic heritage discourse essentially remained in the elite domain in eastern Europe.
