UNIFICATION VS UNIQUENESS: LVIV'S HOMONYMS IN THE FIRST YEARS OF THE SOVIET OCCUPATION

DOI: https://doi.org/10.17721/1728-2640.2024.159.1

Abstract

Background. The article analyzes the influence of the Soviet government on the change of Lviv's urban names during the Second World War. The author characterizes the main priorities of the Soviet toponymic policy towards the place names of the Polish era, which included rethinking and re-filling the symbolic space of the city to establish Soviet ideology. The objectives of the article were, in particular, to assess the general trends of renaming; to analyze the complete list of Polish and Soviet place names renamed during the Second World War; to identify and characterize the main values and symbols that the Soviet authorities imposed in the public space in order to reformat historical memory and collective consciousness.

Methods. This work should be considered an example of interdisciplinary research. It combines the use of both general scientific methods (analysis, typification) and methods of historical and geographical analysis (comparative and historical), in particular, an analysis of cartographic works of different periods of time in Lviv.

Results. The quantitative analysis of renamed Polish and new Soviet urban names has identified the main groups that the Soviet authorities emphasized during the renaming process. The vast majority of the new place names were Russian. Their appearance on the map of Lviv was intended to show that the city belonged to the Soviet symbolic space The purpose of the renaming was to replace historical memory in the urban space in order to prevent the development of national patriotism and to form a new symbolic space and a new social consciousness. Ultimately, all of these measures were aimed at constructing a new identity to foster a loyal citizen, the so-called “Soviet person.”

Conclusions. The unification of the symbolic space of the Soviet republics was supposed to ensure the consolidation of regions that differed significantly both in their historical past and in their national composition. The unification of Soviet place names resulted in their artificiality and abstractness due to the loss of connection with a specific territory, its history and traditions. This led to their rejection by the local population. Other features of the Soviet toponymic policy were the ideologization of symbolic urban space; monopolization by the authorities of the right to create and change urban names; replacement of the original descriptive and orientation functions of urban names with ideological ones.