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

An important point in this narrative is that this “great Ukrainian history” is not imagined to be overly political and military. Out of seventy-seven commemorative toponyms, only fifteen memorialize people who were somehow concerned with political and military activities at various periods of time. These include Cossacks, such as Petro Kalnyshevskyi, who initiated the construction of the post road passing via the territory of today's Kryvyi Rih; political figures involved in the 1917-1921 Ukrainian struggle for independence, such as Mykhailo Hrushevskyi and Panas Fedenko; military men defending the city during occupation in World War II, such as Ivan Bedianko, the commander of a local partisan group; as well as those who died in the current Russian-Ukrainian armed conflict, such as General Radiievskyi, whose former regiment is located in Kryvyi Rih. Notwithstanding the little attention paid to such aspects as war and politics, this constructed Ukrainian history is, nevertheless, explicitly masculine. In the group of commemorative toponymies, there are only two names belonging to women remembered for their significance at the city's local scale. The names are of musician and author of the city's anthem, Iryna Shevchenko, and local newspaper journalist and World War II veteran, Tetiana Voronova.

This gendered aspect was explained by the commission members in quantitative terms of commemorating people's direct contributions to the city's and country's histories: “It was namely their contribution, rather than gender, that was accounted for”. The paucity of political place names is caused by the perceived instability of an official state ideology and memory politics. “By contrast to science and art, political values are changeable,” explained the philosophy expert, who also expressed hope that a small number of political toponyms would help to prevent the chance of future renaming. “There should be more local place names, and then the chance of a new renaming is smaller,” said the geography expert, who insisted on including more topographical names in the suggested list. “This must be the final renaming. These place names should be of such a kind as not to ever be changed,” emphasized one of the experts in history. He also accounted for the very little number of commemorative names referring to contemporary Ukrainian history. “As in the case with the ongoing Russian-Ukrainian conflict, let's wait for some years and then figure out exactly whose names we should commemorate,” he said. This perceived changeability of Ukraine's present, and particularly its ideological doctrine, is the reason why political place names so rarely show up in the new toponymic landscape, and that political history is thus largely unobserved and unattended to in this way.

Conclusion

This study presents an original approach to capturing a “snapshot” of the decommunization process, embodied in the renaming of toponymic cityscape. While previous research concentrated on the officially approved lists of toponyms, this study examines a preceding stage in the process--the renaming recommendations authored by a local initiative group. Besides reviewing and comparing them with the officially endorsed place names, this research offers a deeply contextualized examination of the motives behind the group's renaming suggestions. From a methodological point of view, the study combines results from a questionnaire and in-depth interviews, while also taking a socio-onomastic approach to the problem of revealing the general tendencies for naming motives, which allows us to gain an insight into how certain place names are perceived. The framework of toponymic ideologies applied in the interpretation of these motives makes it possible to go beyond defining main regional strategies of renaming urban toponymy, and give account of the reasons why these particular strategies are preferred at a local level.

Analyses of the data show that renaming arises as a reconsideration and reconstruction of national identity, where history functions as an integral structural part. This toponymic ideology brings about the iconization of certain historical periods, such as Cossack times, 1917-1921 Ukrainian struggle for independence, and pre-Soviet and Soviet industrial growth--all of which are represented as commemorative, through association with specific personal and collective names. The multi-ethnic character of Ukrainian identity is iconized in the toponymic designation of the Roma minority, while this iconization is constrained by the major renaming ideology of belonging to the place.

The leading principle being “communist vs non-communist” opposition, the naming process redefines contemporary Ukrainian identity on the “non-communist” side, which evolves out of a general projection of the “our own vs foreign” dichotomy. Nonetheless, this logic also leads to the neglect in the renaming process of such historical periods as those of Kievan Rus and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. These periods go unrecognized, and the communist period is erased altogether. Ukraine's political and military history is also largely unobserved, due to the perceived changeability of political values and the current time as a whole. Women's history is also unaccounted for, hardly represented at all at the city's local level. The Soviet-related toponymy, which characterizes local identity, is not associated with communist ideology--and therefore, is perceived in Kryvyi Rih to be “our own.”

As shown by previous studies, Ukraine's decommunization renaming shares some common trends with other post-socialist European countries. The city of Kryvyi Rih is not an exception here. This study also suggests that appeals to the pre-Soviet era, as well as parts of the Soviet history of this particular city, arise as a result of an unclear nature of more recent historical events, and the general transience of any official state ideology. The decrease of political and military place names in favor of toponymy exhibiting local topographical features, as well as peculiarities of local industry and culture, can be seen as they are called forth by a desire among renaming commission members to avoid any future renaming situations. The overall dominance of the local toponymy testifies to a growing ideology of individualization (as opposed to previous universalization) in the current process of identity formation we see across Ukraine.

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