Reconfiguring identities within the cityscape: ideologies of decommunization renaming in Ukraine

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Kherson National Technical University

RECONFIGURING IDENTITIES WITHIN THE CITYSCAPE: IDEOLOGIES OF DECOMMUNIZATION RENAMING IN UKRAINE

Natalia Kudriavtseva

Abstract

toponym renaming kryvyi rih

This empirical case study focuses on the ideologies of decommunization renaming embraced by naming commission members, whose naming motives and toponymic choices are examined within a socio-onomastic approach. I employ the sociolinguistic concept of language ideology transformed from a belief about language into a belief about a linguistic form, the toponym, in this case. I suggest that the processes structuring language ideologies--iconization, fractal recursivity and erasure--also construct toponymic ideologies, or ideologies of place names. Drawing upon the list of the commission members' renaming suggestions, the data obtained from a questionnaire and in-depth interviews, I reveal perceptions of certain place names, and the renaming in general, in the local setting of the south-eastern Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih. I discuss the members' attitudes towards toponyms popular with the local political elites and those promoted by the officials, as well as towards their own suggestions, in terms of the toponymic ideologies' framework. I conclude that, while renaming arises as a reconstruction of national identity, the major naming motives include individualization and prevention of future renaming, which is reflected in the predominance of topographic place names and toponymic iconization of the periods related to the city's history, as well as in the decrease of political and military names.

Key words: place names, urban toponymy, renaming, ideology, identity, decommunization, Ukraine

Introduction

Recent research into the symbolic transformation of urban spaces in post-communist countries have analyzed the political significance of place names as vehicles of commemoration (Azaryahu 1997; Light 2004; Gil 2005; Palonen 2008; David 2013). This focus, partially intersecting with the linguistic landscape perspective (see e.g. Berezkina 2016; Pipitone 2019), allows us to go beyond the descriptive approaches to place-naming traditionally taken in sociolinguistics, and to adopt a critical standpoint on place names as means of re-constructing history. In landscape approaches, this view has been known as “place-making”--understood as “a way of constructing the past [...] and, in the process, personal and social identities” where place names are by all means involved in this “place” production (Basso 1996, cited in Pipitone 2019: 16-17; see also Azaryahu 2011: 32). In the field of cultural geography (see e.g. Berg & Vuolteenaho 2009), where the influence of linguistic theory has been recognized (Bucher et al. 2013: 25), place names, in their commemorative capacity, are considered to make up a “city-text” which reproduces a particular version of history and contributes to shaping a local and national sense of belonging (Azaryahu 2009).

Studies of urban toponymy, as a reflection of social memory and of renaming as a promotion of the ruling elite's ideology in the context of Central and Eastern Europe (Stipersky et al. 2011; Bucher et al. 2013), point out an iconic link between street names and official versions of history, which works as a structural component of the group identity authorities try to design. These studies draw on Duncan Light's notion of “iconographic landscapes”, as suggested in his research of renaming in post-socialist Bucharest (Light 2004). Light argues that iconographic landscapes arising as a consequence of renaming in post-socialist states are necessarily in accord with the ideals of new regimes, and that the examination of these toponymic changes can offer important insights into the ways in which these states are redefining their national identities and national pasts (Light 2004: 154). Light also notes that in this post-socialist identitybuilding, there are two processes that complement each other: that of commemorating certain historical facts and that of forgetting others (Light 2004: 156). Therefore, the citytext which results is doomed to highlight certain things and erase others as “the gesture of street naming constitutes an attempt to constitute and represent imagined communities” (Palonen 2008: 220). In this respect, the differentiation between city- related, regional, national, and international “identity levels” (Stipersky et al. 2011: 186) seems to be an effective methodological tool, as it allows us to check the intensity of each of these levels in a particular cityscape, as well as to examine whether the processes of commemorating and forgetting the past unfold similarly at different identity levels.

In Ukraine, as in other countries of Eastern Europe, the rejection of communist past has been accompanied by the search for a new consolidating element that all Ukrainians might possibly share. Decommunization--which intensified after the Euromaidan Revolution, including two laws on the censure of the communist and Nazi regimes and on the commemoration of strugglers for Ukraine's independence (Law 2015a; Law 2015b) --triggered a large-scale toponymic renaming targeting primarily the south-east of Ukraine. In these regions, unlike in Western Ukraine, where a massive renaming already occurred as early as 1991, the bulk of toponymy In this paper, I use the terms “place name” and “toponym” interchangeably with no difference in meaning. was still of the Soviet origin; thus, the decommunization process has been most evident there. Though the renaming strategy pursued by authorities in this part of the country was to maximally avoid commemoration, as explained by the need to deideologize and depoliticize urban place names, it is possible to identify three memorialized historical strata in the officially sanctioned toponymy seen by the local authorities as readily accepted by all. These are the Kievan Rus and Cossack epochs, the 20^th century national liberation movements, and certain military events and figures of the Soviet period (Gnatiuk 2018: 128; see also Gomaniuk 2017; Pavlenko 2018). Among the commemorative names, which were not directly related to either the military sphere or politics, the most drew on pre-Soviet era heritage, specifically the Austro-Hungarian and Russian empires (Gnatiuk 2018: 129). Overall these trends in the toponymic renaming, as brought about by the 2015 decommunization, coincide with those exhibited by other post-socialist countries, specifically in their appeal to the pre-socialist era as an object of commemoration, a decrease of political and military place names, and an increase in local toponymy (Gnatiuk 2018: 134).

Reviewing officially endorsed renamings, however, it is possible to detect only officially expressed or imposed identities articulated by political elites. Those are not necessarily similar to the identities embraced by actual communities who inhabit cities and towns (Stipersky et al. 2011: 184). Maoz Azaryahu has stressed the necessity to refine our understanding of renaming by examining “the operation of naming commissions as municipal agencies that `author' the landscape-as-text,” and thus explore the relation between the “input” (i.e. names offered for commemoration) and the “output” (i.e. the actual names approved by the officials) (Azaryahu 2011: 29-30). It is only in the case of looking into these suggestions on renaming (i.e. in the case of input) that place names can be seen as “mirrors” of those identities that people tend to manifest. So far, such cases have rarely been subject to academic scrutiny, and even when studied, those surveyed were namely capital cities (see e.g. Azaryahu 1997). Similarly rewarding appears to be an exploration of renaming suggestions in provincial cities and towns, both in terms of additional empirical data (Azaryahu 2011: 29), and the specifics of the input that is analysed.

It is such a study of toponymic suggestions that I describe in this paper. The case is Ukraine's south-eastern provincial city of Kryvyi Rih. I set out to establish whether the suggested place names are in any way different from those authorized by the local officials. Do the authors of the suggestions and the authorities work on a similar range of objects which should be renamed under the law? Do the suggested toponyms relate to the same historical periods as those identified as common for the south-east of the country? How do any historical strata, expressed in the suggested toponymy, come to be realized at different identity levels? And which of these levels--local, regional, or national--is preferred?

I will not only review the full list of toponyms offered by a naming commission, but also survey the attitudes of its members towards the decommunization renaming as such. From a methodological point of view, I will thus follow a socio-onomastic approach, which allows for a discussion of the members' naming motives behind their choices, as well as their perceptions of the various roles that toponyms play. My main objective is to reveal what can be called the commission members' ideologies of place names, or their toponymic ideologies, as expressed in their associations, evaluations, and practices, connected to place names. In line with the abovementioned critical toponymy studies, where the focus moves from a mere description of toponymy to the processes involved in naming places and creating names, I aim to show the kind of processes that structure these toponymic ideologies and motivate the concrete choices that the commission members make.

Theoretical Framework

In this paper, I will not refer to “ideologies” in the sense often used in studies of socialist and post-socialist renaming, where it means an official state ideology legitimized in the symbols of urban space (e.g. Light, Nicolae & Suditu 2002; Gnatiuk 2018). Here, I draw on the sociolinguistic concept of language ideologies, broadly defined as “beliefs and feelings about language” (Field & Kroskrity 2009: 4). The notion of an ideology as a belief about something might readily lend itself to critical linguistic research on toponymy, as it can be extrapolated to denote people's attitudes to place names and their beliefs of the influence that place names have. Research on attitudes towards toponyms, including the issue of renaming, has been conducted in the field of cultural geography (see Kostanski 2009) as well as in the field of sociolinguistics (see Berezkina 2016). The concept of language ideologies was first used within the context of attitudes towards American indigenous place names (see Pipitone 2019). As I will show here, this framework can also be usefully extended to the discussions of decommunization renaming in Ukraine.

Defined as “the cultural (or subcultural) systems of ideas about social and linguistic relationships, together with their loading of moral and political interests” (Irvine 1989: 255), language ideologies are otherwise described as accustomed cultural stereotypes about language in general, particular languages, linguistic structure, or language use. On a large scale, these ideologies always concern more than just language, since they “envision and enact links of language to group and personal identity” (Woolard & Schieffelin 1994: 56).

The associations between languages and identities are formed through the three semiotic processes, identified by Judith T. Irvine and Susan Gal (2000) as iconization, fractal recursivity, and erasure. Iconization means that certain linguistic features are perceived as iconic representations of particular groups of people--as if “a linguistic feature somehow depicted or displayed a social group's inherent nature or essence” (Irvine & Gal 2000: 37). The notion of fractal recursivity, reminiscent of geometric fractals, suggests that intergroup oppositions between linguistic varieties or groups are projected onto intragroup relations, or vice versa: “[...] the myriad oppositions that can create identity may be reproduced repeatedly, either within each side of a dichotomy or outside of it” (p. 38). The process of erasure renders certain phenomena invisible, since language ideology is “a totalizing vision, elements that do not fit its interpretive structure [...] must be either ignored or transformed” (p. 38). For example, Aneta Pavlenko (2011: 49) uses this scheme to illustrate associations between languages and identities in Latvian and Ukrainian postcolonial narratives:

In the process of fractal recursivity, a political opposition between Russia and the new nation-states is projected inward, onto the relationship between Russian speakers and the titulars and between Russian and the titular language. In the process of iconization, Latvian and Ukrainian are symbolically linked to morally superior ethnic and national identities and a European or Western identity, and Russian to an inferior `colonizer' identity. Its linguistic features, such as swearwords, become an iconic representation of the moral inferiority of its speakers. And because linguistic ideology is a totalizing vision, elements that do not fit its interpretive structure, such as variation within both groups, are rendered invisible through the process of erasure.

Since a toponym is, in the first place, a Linguistic form (and therefore a sign), the three processes that construct language ideologies can also be seen as structuring the ideologies of place names. These processes can be employed in the analysis of associations between identities and place names. Under this framework, the use of a certain place name can be considered as symbolizing and indexing a particular identity, as this place name refers to a specific historical vision iconically represented by certain figures and events. Applied to the previous research on post-socialist renaming, this scheme explains the link that brings about “iconographic landscapes,” where commemorating and forgetting are grounded by the processes of iconization and erasure.

Methodology

Toponymie Classification

In this study, I have adhered to the methodology used in previous works on urbanonymy, seen as reflecting identity in some central and regional European cities (Stipersky et al. 2011; Bucher et al. 2013) and thirty-six of the largest cities in Ukraine (Gnatiuk 2018). This included the quantification and classification of toponyms according to themes and scales, or identity levels. In order to enable comparisons of the “input” names with the “output” names approved by the officials, I used the following thematic classification, based on (Stipersky et al. 2011 and Gnatiuk 2018). First, I distinguished between (I) restored historic toponyms, and (II) non-historic, or newly given, place names. Then, I classified the non-historic names into (1) commemorative, (2) topographic, (3) poetic, (4) denoting crafts and trades, and (5) others. Of these five groups, only topographic and commemorative names were further subdivided into classes. Topographic names were classified into geographic (various geographic designations, such as rivers, towns, mountains, etc.), localities (vicinity to some significant locality, such as a hospital, railway station, etc.), and appearance (physical nature of a street, such as wide, narrow, etc.). Commemorative names, including personal and collective names, were grouped into names referring to political and military spheres, and into other names.

The political and military group of the commemorative names was additionally categorized according to historical periods, such as those identified by Oleksiy Gnatiuk (2018: 124): Kievan Rus; Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth; the Cossack State between the middle of the 17^th and 18^th centuries; Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires; the Ukrainian Struggle for Independence 1917-1921; the Soviet Union; the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and related liberation movements; Independent Ukraine (including the Euromaidan Revolution and the Donbass military conflict). The group of other names includes commemorative names related to spheres other than war and politics, such as science, culture, religion, industry or business. These names were also specifically arranged into historical categories of pre-Soviet, “Soviet-persecuted” and “Soviet- favored” (i.e. people having no obvious problems with the Soviet regime), ex-Soviet, and post-Soviet people.

In terms of scales, which is another criterion used in the classification, all commemorative names were related to the kind of historical context that a certain figure is perceived to represent -- local, regional, national -- which, in its turn, symbolizes a particular dimension (or level) of identity. Thus, names of persons commemorated for their contribution or relation to the city's history are thought to be local-specific. Names of persons having somehow influenced a wider region where the city is located belong to the regional level. Names of persons who have historical significance for the whole of Ukraine are seen as embodying the national identity dimension.

Socio-onomastic attitudinal survey

To allow a deeper insight into the ideologies embraced by the authors of the toponymic suggestions that I examine, I have surveyed their attitudes towards renaming, as well as place names themselves, to find out more about the reasons for toponymic preferences and the associations related to them. I used both a questionnaire and indepth interviews for this study, as outlined in previous research (Kostanski 2009; Berezkina 2016).

Besides traditional questions of age, gender, and nationality, the questionnaire was comprised of three parts, including thirteen different questions. Two of these parts included multiple-choice questions, and the other part contained two open-ended questions. The three questions in the first part identified beliefs about the nature and significant characteristics of the toponym, as well as the kinds of toponyms to which the respondents paid most of their attention. The second part listed eight different place names in the city which had to be renamed under the decommunization legislation, and asked the respondent to choose the most suitable variant for the renaming. The final part with the open-ended questions asked about the respondents' opinion on the officially approved list of renamed toponyms in Kryvyi Rih, and also about their ideas of why / whether this renaming is altogether important.

As for the interviews, I followed a conversational-style interview -- also known as the “open” semi-structured interview question routine (Kostanski 2009: 113). It is a method of open-ended questions, which allows the interviewer to build upon new information gleaned in the process of an interview, as it arises. While the list of questions asked was therefore not identical for each participant, basic themes were eventually covered by all of them. These themes concerned the interviewees' associations with the city, their reflections on the work of the naming commission, as well as their perceptions of the functions of place names and of the impact of the decommunization renaming as a whole. As such, my methodological approach has been fundamentally qualitative in nature, with occasional uses of quantitative methods, the Latter applied in the toponymie classification part.

Data and Analysis

The city of Kryvyi Rih lies on the junction of the Inhulets and Saksahan rivers in the southwestern part of the Dnipropetrovsk region, a central-eastern region of Ukraine. The region borders the Donetsk region in the east and the Zaporizhzhia and Kherson regions to the south. Kryvyi Rih is its second largest city, itself being located close to the central Kyrovohrad region and to the southern regions of Kherson and Mykolaiv. Founded in 1775 by Zaporizhzhia Cossacks as a post station, Kryvyi Rih first evolved into a town and then a city, largely due to the extraction of rich iron ore deposits. The discovery of Ukraine's largest iron ore field was made by Ukrainian-German archaeologist and landowner Oleksandr Pol in 1866. This kicked off the first mine and a railway connection in Kryvyi Rih, bringing the city into the industrial conglomerate of Prydniprov'ia and Donbas.

In 1918, this industrial cohesion was even seen as sufficient grounds for creating a separate Soviet quasi-state--the Donetsk-Kryvyi Rih Soviet Republic, which existed for hardly a month before it was joined with the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, where it became completely dissolved as an independent territory by 1919. The city's iron ore potential was most exploited during the Soviet period, which brought its push for heavy industry. This included the construction of Ukraine's biggest mining and smelting complex “Kryvorizhstal” (1931). During World War II, Kryvyi Rih was occupied by German troops for almost three years (1941-1944), and the city's industrial equipment was either evacuated to Russia or blown up. The post-war period, however, saw even greater industrial expansion, as well as housing and infrastructure growth. Today Kryvyi Rih is one of the country's largest industrial centers--home to more than 600,000 people.

The naming commission--whose particular toponymic suggestions and ideologies I have examined--was independently organized in one of the city-based universities in Kryvyi Rih. It involved eight members, including the rector of the university (Korotaiev 2017: 136). This commission was not affiliated with an official municipal agency, but was rather a citizens' grassroots initiative (working group). However, it was their activity that triggered a massive public discussion and encouraged the city officials to attend to decommunization renaming foreseen by the law. The city council and mayor were supposed to facilitate and administer the process from the very beginning, but they did not end up making any decisions regarding the renaming of city places within the specified time of nine months. The working group, however, did prepare renaming suggestions and initiated their own discussion long before the decision was to be made on the subject by the regional self-government. Two representatives of the working group were then invited to work on a special naming commission created at this official level, where the final decision on the renaming process in the city of Kryvyi Rih was to be made and endorsed.

I have concentrated my research on seven of the nine members who made up the core of the group and also authored the list of toponyms submitted to the officials. Of the seven researchers, there were two historians, two geographers, two Ukrainian Language experts, and one researcher specializing in philosophy and Logic. It is important to note that in the group's work on toponymic suggestions, it was on their own that they identified objects that had to be renamed under the decommunization Legislation. As a result, they actually ended up with even more decommunized place names than was originally recommended by the Ukrainian Institute for National Memory (Viatrovych et aL. 2015). Out of the 239 streets, squares, parks, ponds, city districts, and metro stations that the working group saw as bearing communism-reLated Labels, 231 objects were recommended new names, and 8 streets were suggested to reorganize. The group's most intensive work on the renaming suggestions took pLace in January 2016; of course, much historical and geographic research preceded these January discussions.

Toponymic classification

The List of toponymic suggestions, which I have cLassified according to the abovementioned themes and identity LeveLs, was given to me by the university rector. TabLe 1 shows quantities in the designated categories of commemorative names, such as vulytsia Kostia Hordiienka (Kost Hordiienko Street), park Mershavtseva (Mershavtsev Park), and vulytsia Ukrainskykh voiniv (Ukrainian Warriors Street); topographic names, such as vulytsia Umanska (Uman Street), vulytsia Hoverlivska (HoverLa Street), and vulytsia Staroinhuletska (OLd InhuLets Street); denominations of crafts and trades, such as vulytsia Hirnykiv (Miners Street) or vulytsia Kobzarska (Kobzar Street); poetic names, such as vulytsia Chervneva (June Street) and maidan Svobody (Freedom Square); restored historic names, such as vulytsia Tserkovna (Church Street) or vulytsia Poshtova (Post Street); and other names, which incLude at Least one habituaL name of popuLar origin--maidan 95 kvartal (95^th KvartaL Square) and one name homonymous with the previous toponym park Pravdy (Truth Park), which was formerLy known as the park named after the communist newspaper Pravda (Truth).

The tabLe aLso indicates the numbers of commemorative names with reference to the identity scaLes (LocaL, regionaL, and nationaL), and with respect to particuLar historicaL periods. One of the main probLems that arose during this cLassification was deciding which of the identified historicaL periods shouLd this or that figure be assigned to. For exampLe, VoLodymyr Byzov and PavLo Shevchenko, both former rectors of two of the city's universities, were suggested to be commemorated in the names of the streets where the universities are Located. They served as rectors and contributed to the deveLopment of their respective universities during both the Soviet and post-Soviet times. Another instance is Eduard Fuks, a geoLogist and photographer known to have been the most quaLified expLorer of iron ore deposits in Kryvyi Rih during both the pre-Soviet and earLy Soviet period. He was Later persecuted by the Soviets and died of a seLf-imposed hunger strike in 1938. Further, such coLLective names as “Ukrainian warriors” and “Heroes of Ukraine” might have associations with various historicaL periods.

Table 1

Classification of toponyms suggested for places in the city of Kryvyi Rih (quantities in dubious categories marked by means of ±)