“A Town with Two Names”: A Historical Oikonym in Modern Context (The Case of the Town of Pokrovsk/Engels)

Abstract

The article uses the example of the town of Engels (Saratov Region) to explore the case of duplicate naming in the local usage, i.e. the use of the historical oikonym Pokrovsk (until 1931) and its derivatives along with the official name of the town or instead of it. The author showcases that in the local speech, the historical name of the town has become a living alternative used in almost every sphere except business and documentation. At the same time, there are some testimonies to the gradual demarcation of the language contexts associated with the old town name and its derivatives. Until the mid-1990s, the name Pokrovsk and the adjective pokrovskii were regarded nearly as equivalents to the corresponding official names. Currently, their use is confined to Russian Orthodox circles (due to the religious origins of the name Pokrovsk derived from Pokrov ‘the Intercession of the Theotokos’ — an Orthodox holiday). Apart from that, the derivatives with pokrovsk- component can occur in proper names, mainly of commercial (names of business entities and products) and cultural (names of holidays) types. Other usage cases refer to mass media or urban naming. Meanwhile, the demonym pokrovchane, which in the Soviet period was only limited to historical contexts, reclaimed its positions in the 1990s. Currently, it is widely used in the local press and everyday speech, being more popular than the formal variant engelsity (and even less frequent engelsites, engelstsy, engel(s)chane). The reason why pokrovchane proved more usable lies in both the inconsistency and variability of the Engels-based demonyms in the mid-20th and early 21st centuries. The author also addresses the case of “hybrid” naming with both old and new oikonyms combined: Pokrovsk-Engels (Engels-Pokrovsk) and their derivatives. The mentioned onyms are mainly used in local contexts (city’s holiday celebrations, cultural events, local history, etc.). The article was prepared under the RANEPA state assignment research program.