Modern Conflicts Regarding the Renaming of Soviet Toponyms in Russian Cities: Spatial Features, Actors, and Meanings

Abstract

The processes of desovietization of toponymy In Russian cities intensified again in the 2020s. This is accompanied by a surge in protest activity and political competition. The study analyzed media coverage of several dozen such conflicts over the past five to seven years and revealed their spatial features. It also showed a significant change in the motivation of their participants compared to previous periods of post-Soviet history. Although ideology remained the primary motivation of those who initiated the Soviet urban name change, its importance began to decline. Historical and cultural motivation, as well as marketing and other pragmatic factors began to significantly compete with it. Pragmatic motives clearly pushed ideology into the background in the arguments of the opponents of the renaming. Following 2022, both de-Sovietization supporters and opponents began to use arguments related to the Special military operation. The traditional cast of actors in toponymic conflicts began to blur and become more complex. The identified spatial patterns describe how the intensity of conflicts depends on factors such as center-periphery, spatial competitiveness, location transfer, the spatial diversification of motives, the locality of symbols, memoriality, and the function of the place. It has been shown that it is the effect of these overlapping patterns that complicates both the structure of motivations of the parties to conflicts of desovetization of urban toponymy In Russia and the geographical differences in their outcomes. The latter have become less dependent on regional combinations of the ideological orientations of the population and the political orientations of the ruling elite. This was facilitated by the increased importance of non-political motivations and the diversification of local combinations of the described spatial patterns.