Rethinking the toponymic politics in Belarus in the 20–21 centuries: toward the post-colonial perspective

Sergei Basik

doi:10.26881/jpgs.2020.3.02

Abstract

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.

Highlights

In the last two decades, perhaps, since the groundbreaking essay by D.C. Moore (2001), the post-colonial theory, as a relatively new methodological approach, has been cautiously applied toward the analysis of the post-socialist world
Since the first years of Soviet power, despite the policy of korenizatsiia (“nativization”) in the 1920s, new place names were entered into the toponymic system, and Belarusian national vocabulary was partially deleted from the toponymic landscape following thenaming practices
Because the Soviet period can be considered as an imperial project, similar to the Western imperial colonial projects, the Belarusian toponymic system serves as a symbolic reminder about the ideological and imperial superiority of the “Elder brother” who implemented the strict “top-down” hegemonic toponymic practices

Summary

Introduction

In the last two decades, perhaps, since the groundbreaking essay by D.C. Moore (2001), the post-colonial theory, as a relatively new methodological approach, has been cautiously applied toward the analysis of the post-socialist world. Moore (2001), the post-colonial theory, as a relatively new methodological approach, has been cautiously applied toward the analysis of the post-socialist world. Due to the unique historical past and the distinctive geopolitical location on the borderland (or a crossroad) between the West and the East in the middle of the European continent, the post-Soviet country of Belarus serves as “a distinctive case study for the intersection of memory and (post)coloniality” The post-colonial methodological approach on Belarus has been used in a wide range of recent studies produced both by the scholars working in Belarus and Western academic institutions (Babkoú, 1999; Abušenko, 2004; Akudovič, 2007; Bobkov, 2008; Oushakine, 2013, 2017; Bekus, 2017a)

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