PL EN


Preferencje help
Widoczny [Schowaj] Abstrakt
Liczba wyników
2020 | nr 10(3) | 5--15
Tytuł artykułu

Rethinking the Toponymic Politics in Belarus in the 20-21 Centuries: Toward the Post-Colonial Perspective

Autorzy
Warianty tytułu
Języki publikacji
EN
Abstrakty
EN
The article explores the historical trends and patterns in the politics of space in toponymic landscapes of Soviet and postSoviet Belarus through the prism of critical toponymy and the post-colonial theoretical approach. This work aims to reveal the colonial essence of the toponymic politics and policies in Belarus during the Soviet era and explore the unique national (post) colonial context of the post-independent place names. Based on the idea of methodological convergence of post-colonial and post-socialist paradigms, this article analyzes the "top-down" hegemonic toponymic practices implemented by the Soviet regime in Belarus in comparison with the place name policies of the colonial regimes in other parts of the world. Using the comparative analysis of historical (re)naming cases from the regional toponymic system of Belarus, the work shows that the Soviet regime used similar goals, methods, and technologies as other colonial powers. Such examples include ignoring the national language, history, and cultural traditions reflected in place names, inadequate renaming criteria and arrogant methods of choosing the new names, banalization of toponymic landscape and inconsistency in renaming, removing the Belarusian vocabulary from the toponymic landscape and inserting the foreign words and terms into the toponymic system, phonetic and grammatical mutilations of national toponyms according to the norms of the foreign language, symbolic resistance of local population toward new place names. The post-independent period can be defined by the selective post-colonial toponymic practices, which include the co-existence of the Soviet and national toponyms, symbolic (re)naming processes typical for new independent post-colonial states, and the resurrection of the ideologically motivated "toponyms-zombies" from the previous period. Therefore, the modern toponymic landscapes in Belarus can be considered post-colonial, and methodological and theoretical post-colonial perspectives on toponymic research can be applied to post-socialist states. (original abstract)
Rocznik
Numer
Strony
5--15
Opis fizyczny
Twórcy
autor
  • School of Interdisciplinary Studies, Conestoga College, Canada
Bibliografia
  • Abušenko V., 2004, Kreol'stvo kak ino-modernost' vostočnoj Evropy (vozmožnye strategii issledovaniâ) (Eng. Creoleness as a foreign modernity of Eastern Europe [possible research strategies]), Perekrestki, 1-2, 124-156.
  • Adams L., 2008, Can We Apply Postcolonial Theory to Central Eurasia?, Central Eurasian Studies Review, 7(1), 2-7.
  • Akudovič V., 2007, Kod adsutnasci: asnovy belaruskaj mental'nasci (Eng. A code of absence: the basics of Belarusian mentality), Lohvinaú, Minsk.
  • Azaryahu M., 1996, The power of commemorative street names, Environmental and Planning D: Society and Space, 14(3), 311-330. doi: 10.1068/d140311.
  • Azaryahu M., 2011, The Critical Turn and Beyond: The Case of Commemorative Street Naming, ACME: An International EJournal for Critical Geographies, 10(1), 28-33.
  • Azaryahu M., 2019, King George or King David? Renaming the Colonial Past in Israel, Zeitgeschichte, 46(1), 15-37. doi: 10.14220/zsch.2019.46.1.15.
  • Babkoú I., 1999, Ėtyka pamеžža: Transkul'turnasc' âk belaruski dos'ved (Eng. The ethics of borderland: transculturality as Belarusian experience), Fragmenty, 1-2, https://knihi.com/storage/frahmenty/6babkow2.htm (accessed 10 June 2020).
  • Basik S., Rahautsou D., 2019, Toponymic politics and the symbolic landscapes of Minsk, Belarus, Geographia Cassoviensis, 13(2), 107-120. doi: 10.33542/GC2019-2-02.
  • Basik S.N., Rogovcov D.A., 2003, Osobennosti formirovaniâ političeskoj toponimii (Eng. The features of the political toponymy formation), Vesnіk Maġіlёúskaġa dzâržaúnaġa unіverstèta іmâ A. A. Kulâšova, 2-3, 46-50.
  • Basik S.N., Rogovcov D. A., 2017, Politika i praktika toponimičeskoj nominacii v kontekste nacional'noj političeskoj simvoliki Belarusi: teoretiko-konceptual'nyj aspect (Eng. The politics and practice of the toponymic nomination in the context of national political symbols of Belarus: theoretical and conceptual aspect), Vesnik of the Yanka Kupala State University of Grodno. Series 1. History and Archeology. Philosophy. Political Science, 9(3), 116-123.
  • Bekus N., 2017a, 'Constructed "Otherness"? Poland and the Geopolitics of Contested Belarusian Identity', Europe-Asia Studies, 69(2), 242-261. D doi: 10.1080/09668136.2017.1295022.
  • Bekus N., 2017b, Ideological Recycling of the Socialist Legacy. Reading Townscapes of Minsk and Astana, Europe-Asia Studies, 69(5), 794-818. doi: 10.1080/09668136.2017.1350259.
  • Berg L., Vuolteenaho J. (eds.), 2009, Critical toponymies: the contested politics of place naming, Ashgate, Farnham - Burlington.
  • Bigon L. (ed.), 2016, Place Names in Africa: Colonial Urban Legacies, Entangled Histories, Springer International Publishing AG, Cham.
  • Bigon L., Njoh A.J., 2015, The Toponymic Inscription Problematic in Urban Sub-Saharan Africa: From Colonial to Postcolonial Times, Journal of Asian and African Studies, 50(1), 25-40. doi: 10.1177/0021909613510246.
  • Bobkov I., 2008, Refleksii na polâh kritiki znaniâ: Vostočnoevropejskoe pogranič'e (Eng. Reflections on the Margins of the Critique of Knowledge: East European Borderland), Perekrёstki, 1, 5-12.
  • Chelcea L., Druţă O., 2016, Zombie socialism and the rise of neoliberalism in post-socialist Central and Eastern Europe, Eurasian Geography and Economics, 57(4-5), 521-544. doi: 10.1080/15387216.2016.1266273.
  • David J., 2011, Commemorative Place Names - Their Specificity and Problems, Names, 59(4), 214-228. doi: 10.1179/002777311X13082331190074.
  • Demska O., 2016, Sučasnyj toponimnyj landšaft Ukraїny: miž pam'âttû I spogadom (Eng. Modern Toponymic Landscape of Ukraine: Between Memory and Remembrance), Slavia Orientalis, 65(3), 601-611.
  • Fiut A., 2014, In the Shadow of Empires: Postcolonialism in Central and Eastern Europe - Why Not? Teksty Drugie, Special Issue - English Edition, 1, 34-40.
  • Forest B., Johnson J., 2002, Unraveling the Threads of History: Soviet-Era Monuments and Post-Soviet National Identity in Moscow, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 92(3), 524-547. doi: 10.1111/1467-8306.00303.
  • Ġardzeâú Û., 2017, Urbananimičny dyskurs u pastsaveckaj Belarusi (Eng. Urbanonymic discourse in the post-Soviet Belarus), Acta Baltico-Slavica, 41, 212-250. doi: 10.11649/abs.2017.009.
  • Giraut F., Houssay-Holzschuch M., 2016, Place naming as dispositif: toward a theoretical framework, Geopolitics, 21(1), 1-21. doi: 10.1080/14650045.2015.1134493.
  • Gnatiuk O., 2018, The renaming of streets in post-revolutionary Ukraine: regional strategies to construct a new national identity, AUC Geographica, 53(2), 119-136. doi: 10.14712/23361980.2018.13.
  • Grabar H.S., 2014, Reclaiming the city: changing urban meaning in Algiers after 1962, Cultural Geographies, 21(3), 389-409. doi: 10.1177/1474474013506361.
  • Horsman S., 2006, The politics of toponyms in the Pamir mountains, Area, 38(3), 279-291. doi: 10.1111/j.1475-4762.2006.00697.x.
  • Hui D.L.H., 2019, Geopolitics of Toponymic Inscription in Taiwan: Toponymic Hegemony, Politicking and Resistance, Geopolitics, 24(4), 916-943. doi: 10.1080/14650045.2017.1413644.
  • Kapur A., 2019, Mapping place names of India, Routledge, Abingdon-New York.
  • Kołodziejczyk D., Şandru C., 2012, Introduction: On colonialism, communism and east-central Europe - some reflections, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 48(2), 113-116. doi: 10.1080/17449855.2012.658242.
  • Lazarus N., 2012, Spectres Haunting: Postcommunism and Postcolonialism, Journal of Postcolonial Writing, 48(2), 117-129.
  • Lehr J.C., McGregor B., 2016, The politics of toponymy: naming settlements, municipalities and school districts in Canada's Prairie provinces, Prairie Perspectives: Geographical Essays, 18, 78-84.
  • Lemcûġova V.P., 2010, Pradmova (Eng. Preface), [in:] Nazvy naselenyh punktaú Rèspubliki Belarus'. Brèsckaâ Voblasc. (Eng. The names of settlements of the Republic of Belarus. Brest Region), Tėhnaloġiâ, Minsk, 7-23.
  • Lewis S., 2019, Belarus - Alternative Visions Nation, Memory and Cosmopolitanism, Routledge, Abingdon - New York.
  • Light D., Young C., 2017, The politics of toponymic continuity: the limits of change and the ongoing lives of the street names. [in] R. Rose-Redwood, D. Alderman, M. Azaryahu (eds.), The political life of urban streetscapes: naming, politics, and place, Routledge, Abingdon - New York, 185-201.
  • Marin A., 2017, Toponymic changes as temporal boundarymaking: Street renaming in Leningrad/St. Petersburg, [in] R. Rose-Redwood, D. Alderman, M. Azaryahu (eds.), The political life of urban streetscapes: naming, politics and space, Routledge, Abingdon - New York, 132-149.
  • Moore D.C., 2001, Is the Post- in Post-colonial the Post- in Post-Soviet? Toward a Global Post-colonial Critique, Publications of the Modern Language Association, 116(1), 111-128.
  • Nash C., 1999, Irish Place-names: Post-colonial Locations, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, 24(4), 457-480. DOI:10.1111/j.0020-2754.1999.00457.x.
  • Oushakine S.A., 2013, Post-colonial Estrangements: Claiming a Space Between Stalin and Hitler, [in] J. Buckler, E.D. Johnson (eds.), Rites of Place: Public Commemoration in Russia and Eastern Europe, Northwestern University Press, Evanston, 285-315.
  • Oushakine S.A., 2017, How to Grow out of Nothing: The Afterlife of National Rebirth in Postcolonial Belarus, Qui Parle, 26(2), 423-490. doi:10.1215/10418385-4208451.
  • Rose-Redwood R., Alderman D., Azaryahu M., 2017, The urban streetscape as political cosmos, [in] R. Rose-Redwood, D. Alderman, M. Azaryahu (eds.), The political life of urban streetscapes: naming, politics, and place, Routledge, Abingdon - New York, 1-24.
  • Rudling P., 2014, The Rise and Fall of Belarusian Nationalism, 1906-1931, University of Pittsburgh Press, Pittsburgh.
  • Rusu M.S., 2020, Political patterning of urban namescapes and post-socialist toponymic change: A quantitative analysis of three Romanian cities, Cities. doi: 10.1016/j.cities.2020.102773.
  • Saparov A., 2017, Contested spaces: the use of place-names and symbolic landscape in the politics of identity and legitimacy in Azerbaijan, Central Asian Survey, 36(4), 534-554. doi: 10.1080/02634937.2017.1350139.
  • Shelekpayev N., 2017, Is Name Destiny? On Some Cases of Post-Soviet Street-Naming in Almaty and Astana, [in:] J. Ira, J. Janáč (eds.), Materializing Identities in Socialist and Post-Socialist Cities, Charles University in Prague, Karolinum Press, Prague, 99-115.
  • Stiperski Z., Lorber L., Heršak E., Ptaček P., Górka Z., Kołoś A., Lončar J., Faričić J., Miličević M., Vujaković A., Hršuka A., 2011, Identity through urban nomenclature: eight Central European cities, Geografisk Tidsskrift - Danish Journal of Geography, 111(2), 181-194. doi: 10.1080/00167223.2011.10669532.
  • The Roman alphabet transliteration of Belarusian geographical names, 2012, Tenth United Nations Conference on the Standardization of Geographical Names New York, the 31st of July - the 9th of August 2012. https://unstats.un.org/unsd/geoinfo/UNGEGN/docs/10th-uncsgn-docs/crp/E_CONF.101_CRP2_The Roman alphabet transliteration.pdf (accessed 10 June 2020).
  • Tucker B., Rose-Redwood R., 2015, De-colonizing the map? Toponymic politics and the rescaling of the Salish Sea, The Canadian Geographer/Le Géographe Canadien, 59(2), 194-206. DOI: 10.1111/cag.12140.
  • V Nacional'nom Kadastrovom Agenstve sostavili rejting samych populârnyh nazvanij ulic (Eng. The National Cadastral Agency ranked the most popular street names in Belarus), 2019, https://www.belta.by/society/view/v-natsionalnom-kadastrovom-agentstve-sostavili-rejting-samyhpopuljarnyh-v-belarusi-nazvanij-ulits-353880-2019/ (accessed 10 June 2020).
  • Vuolteenaho J., Berg L.D., 2009, Towards critical toponymies, [in] L. Berg, J. Vuolteenaho (eds.), Critical toponymies: the contested politics of place naming, Ashgate, Farnham - Burlington, 1-18.
  • Wanjiru-Mwita M., Giraut F., 2020, Toponymy, Pioneership, and the Politics of Ethnic Hierarchies in the Spatial Organization of British Colonial Nairobi, Urban Science, 4, 6. https://www.mdpi.com/2413-8851/4/1/6 (accessed 10 June 2020).
  • Yeoh B., 1996, Street names and nation-building: toponymic inscriptions of nationhood, Area, 28(3), 298-307.
  • Yeoh B.S.A., 1992, Street names in colonial Singapore, The Geographical Review, 82, 313-322.
  • Žučkevič V.A., 1974, Kratkij toponimičeskij slovar' Belorussii (Eng. A short toponymic dictionary of Byelorussia), BGU, Minsk.
Typ dokumentu
Bibliografia
Identyfikatory
Identyfikator YADDA
bwmeta1.element.ekon-element-000171604445

Zgłoszenie zostało wysłane

Zgłoszenie zostało wysłane

Musisz być zalogowany aby pisać komentarze.
JavaScript jest wyłączony w Twojej przeglądarce internetowej. Włącz go, a następnie odśwież stronę, aby móc w pełni z niej korzystać.