The Purge of Bismarck and Saladin: The Renaming of Streets in East Berlin and Haifa, a Comparative Study in Culture-Planning

Abstract

In the jungle of modern cities, street names are more than a means of facilitating spatial orientation. Often they are loaded with additional symbolic value and represent a theory of the world which is contingent on the ruling social and moral order. In such a capacity a city's street names (henceforth to be called a city-text) comprise reigning national values, geographical names (of other cities, regions, rivers, mountains, etc.), and last, but certainly not least, a representation of the national past as defined by the heroes and events commemorated in the street signs. In some cases, another symbolic dimension is added through the choice of language used in these signs. Language is a marker of group identity and is therefore loaded with symbolic value, especially in cases where two languages are identified with two national communities which are in a given state of conflict. A city-text is a cultural construct which renders a particular social and moral order meaningful by representing the underlying theory of the world that endorses and authorizes it; it is also an official text authorized by the ruling order. The selection of street names is at times determined by popular sentiment, yet these texts are always formulated by appointed agents. Writing or rewriting a city-text is an example of the interaction between sociopolitical and semiotic processes in culture.