Toponymic approach to the geographical research of cultural heritage: The cases of three Moldavian places

Abstract

Place names playing a significant role in the life of human communities throughout history have been formed in historical-geographical landscapes under the influence of various natural and cultural factors in specific linguistic and ethnic environments. Over the centuries of landscape and human evolution as well as by changes in human perception of space, contradictions and even conflicts between and on toponyms arose. This makes toponymic research permanently topical. The combined use of geographical, linguistic and historical methods increases the efficiency of toponymic research and makes the conclusions more meaningful and profound. It also encourages interdisciplinary integration and knowledge consolidation from different areas of science for the sake of getting closer to the truth. This article presents a toponymic approach to geographical research of the cultural heritage by means of a historical-cartographic analysis of places in the northwestern Black Sea region. The three cases represent different types of places: Kishinev [Chişinău], Bender and Rashkov [Raşcov].