'Human Component' in Urban and Architectural Hertage Management: Russian Context

: The overall history of approaches to urban architectural heritage and the understanding of the notion fluctuates significantly in terms of attached meanings, justification and reasoning. Apparently, each of the approaches reflects the value system along with the socio-cultural situation of its period (Choay & O’connell, 2001). The history of attitudes in Russia illustrates this statement brightly (Deschepper, 2018; Ahmad, 2015). Currently, the human-values-oriented discourse dominates many scopes of academic and professional debates, and debates around "heritage management" are not an exclusion (Watson & Waterton, 2010). Stating heritage as a process, D. Harvey, among many other researchers, shifts the focus from the problem-solving paradigm to the identity-building potential of heritage (Harvey, 2010). Supposedly, the definition of such a controversial issue as the identity of the city through social narratives and connotations makes the notion more measurable and adds the degree of predictability to any operation within it. Following this logic, historical layers, embodied in the urban and architectural heritage of modern cities, include the particular "human component", both consciously and unintentionally, through the history of decision-making within heritage management. In this case, the certain "democratisation" of the decision-making process may ultimately lead to the positive feeling of attachment of people and their environments. The article examines the development and the state of the notion of "human component" in heritage management, focusing on Russian context, questioning the potential applicability of more "democratic" approach to heritage management, in particular case of Siberia, Krasnoyarsk.