The toponymical palimpsest: renaming as a symbolic (re)construction of space and place

Abstract

Theoretical approaches to renaming as present within critical toponymy and cultural geography are described in the article. The critical approach presumes neglecting the traditional etymological studies and considers toponymy as a reflection and a projection of certain social processes. A geographical approach to the social meanings of renamed places is suggested to develop this paradigm by means of explaining the multiplicity of a place. The place itself as a notion, a center of human meanings and a starting point of the unite world view is used as a domain for the suggested approach. The critical geographical paradigm is combined with the representational approaches typical for new cultural and humanistic geography in order to create a stereoscopical vision of a place through the multiplicity of its meanings, images, lived social practices and semiotic signs. Developing the notion of geoconceptualization of a place within its renaming a palimpsestic approach in toponymic studies is stated. Geoconcept are regarded not only as linked to certain place images and meanings, but also as a part of the process of the endless process of the new world views’ formation. The toponymical palimpsest reveals the multiplicity of renamed place as semiotic resignification thus turning a geoconcept into an intertext.