Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c4f8m Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-17T01:19:58.479Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Renaming and Reclaiming Urban Spaces in Ukraine: The Perspective of Internally Displaced People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 August 2021

Valeria Lazarenko Open the ORCID record for Valeria Lazarenko [Opens in a new window]
Valeria Lazarenko*
Affiliation:
Laboratory of Mass and Community Psychology, Institute for Social and Political Psychology, Kyiv, Ukraine
*
Corresponding author. Email: valerie.lazarenko@gmail.com
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

For more than six years, Ukrainian society has been constantly searching for ideas as to how to write a new “national biography.” In a society divided by armed conflict, the so-called decommunization process is considered to be an idea capable of uniting a nation. This process started back in 2015, with the passing of a specific law that required not only the deconstruction of Soviet-time monuments in public spaces, but also a huge decommunization of place names. The article will explore the main practices of place (re-)naming during the different stages of the decommunization (but not de-ideologization) of spaces, as well as describing the problems that may emerge in society as a result of a rapid transition from one narrative to another. Based on a case study of spatial identities of internally displaced people, I am going to answer the question of how people perceive renamed spaces, and how they reclaim and re-appropriate these spaces in the midst of an identity crisis.

Keywords

post-communistUkrainehistorical narrativememory politicsinterviews
Type
Article
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 50 , Issue 3 , May 2022 , pp. 430 - 449
Check for updates
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Association for the Study of Nationalities

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Anderson, Benedict. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Arel, Dominique. 2018. “How Ukraine has become more Ukrainian.” Post-Soviet Affairs 34 (2–3): 186–189.10.1080/1060586X.2018.1445460CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Belavusau, Uladzislau, and Gliszczyńska-Grabias, Aleksandra, eds. 2017. Law and Memory. Towards Legal Governance of History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/9781316986172CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berenskoetter, Felix. 2014. “Parameters of a national biography.” European Journal of International Relations 20 (1): 262–288.10.1177/1354066112445290CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Boccagni, Paolo, and Baldassar, Loretta. 2015. “Emotions on the move: Mapping the emergent field of emotion and migration.” Emotion, Space and Society 16: 73–80.10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1977. Outline of a theory of practice. New York: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511812507CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bruchansky, Christophe. 2010. “The Appropriation of Space.” Paper presented at the IXth IIAA conference on Environmental Aesthetics, Helsinki, June 17–19.Google Scholar
Campos-Delgado, Amalia. 2018. “Counter-mapping migration: irregular migrants’ stories through cognitive mapping.” Mobilities 13 (4): 488–504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Certeau, Michel de. 2008. The practice of everyday life. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chervonenko, Vitaliy. 2014. “Padinnya Leniniv: naskilky hlyboka ‘deradianizatsiia’ Ukrainy.” [The Fall of Lenins: how deep is the de-sovietization of Ukraine.] BBC Ukraine, December 28.Google Scholar
Cresswell, Tim. 2005. Place. A short introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell Pub.Google Scholar
D’Anieri, Paul, and Kuzio, Taras. 2019. “Ukraine after five years of conflict.” Eurasian Geography and Economics 60 (1): 1–5.10.1080/15387216.2019.1635512CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Debord, Guy, and Wolman, Gil J.. 1956. “Methods of detournement.” Les Lèvres Nues 8.Google Scholar
Downs, Roger M., and Stea, David. 1977. Maps in minds: Reflections on cognitive mapping. New York: HarperCollins Publishers.Google Scholar
Gentile, Michael. 2020. “Diabolical Suggestions: Disinformation and the Curious Scale of Nationalism in Ukrainian Geopolitical Fault-line Cities.” Geopolitics. Published online ahead of print November 1, 2020. doi: 10.1080/14650045.2020.1830766 CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gieseking, Jack Jen. 2013. “Where We Go From Here.” Qualitative Inquiry 19 (9): 712–724.10.1177/1077800413500926CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gogishvili, David, and Harris-Brandts, Suzanne. 2019. “The social and spatial insularity of internally displaced persons: ‘neighbourhood effects’ in Georgia’s collective centres.” Caucasus Survey 7 (2): 134–156.10.1080/23761199.2019.1617652CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gould, Peter, and White, Rodney. 2012. Mental maps. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Halbwachs, Maurice, and Coser, Lewis A.. 2008. On collective memory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hontar, Denys. 2019. “Chomu pereimenuvannia ‘komunistychnykh’ vulyts u Kyievi zalyshylos na paperi.” [Why the renaming of the ‘communist’ streets in Kyiv remained on paper.] Depo, July 5. (Accessed February 10, 2021.)Google Scholar
Hrytsak, Yaroslav, and Susak, Victor. 2003. “Constructing a national city: The case of L’viv.” Composing urban history and the constitution of civic identities: 140–164.Google Scholar
Huyssen, Andreas. 2003. Present pasts: Urban palimpsests and the politics of memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press.10.1515/9781503620308CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Katchanovski, Ivan. 2016. “The Separatist War in Donbas: A Violent Break-up of Ukraine?” European Politics and Society 17 (4): 473–489.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitchin, Rob, and Dodge, Martin. 2007. “Rethinking maps.” Progress in Human Geography 31 (3): 331–344.10.1177/0309132507077082CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kitchin, Robert M. 1994. “Cognitive maps: What are they and why study them?” Journal of Environmental Psychology 14 (1):1–19.10.1016/S0272-4944(05)80194-XCrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kudelia, Serhiy, and van Zyl, Johanna. 2019. “In My Name: The Impact of Regional Identity on Civilian Attitudes in the Armed Conflict in Donbas.” Nationalities Papers 47 (5): 801–821.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuromiya, Hiroaki. 2015. Poniat′ Donbass. [To Understand Donbass]. Kiev: Dukh i litera.Google Scholar
Kuznetsova, Irina. 2017. “Three Years After Displacement: The Everyday Lives Of Ukraine’s IDPs.” Report retrieved from: https://idpukraine.files.wordpress.com/2017/11/three-years-after-displacement-theeveryday-lives-of-ukraines-idps.pdf (Accessed February 10, 2021.)Google Scholar
Kuznetsova, Irina, and Mikheieva, Oksana. 2020. “Forced Displacement from Ukraine’s War-Torn Territories: Intersectionality and Power Geometry.” Nationalities Papers 48 (4): 690–706.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuznetsova, Irina, Mikheieva, Oksana, Gulyieva, Gulara, Dragneva, Rilka, and Mykhnenko, Vlad. 2018. “The Social Consequences of Population Displacement in Ukraine: The Risks of Marginalization and Social Exclusion.” Zenodo. DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.1217837.Google Scholar
Lakomy, Miron. 2016. “The Game of Ukraine: Conflict in Donbass as an Outcome of the Multilayered Rivalry.” Politeja 13 (45): 279–315.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lang, Britta, and Sakdapolrak, Patrick. 2015. “Violent place-making: How Kenya’s post-election violence transforms a workers’ settlement at Lake Naivasha.” Political Geography 45: 67–78.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Law no. 2558: On Condemning the Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) Totalitarian Regimes and Prohibiting the Propagation of their Symbols. Source: https://zakon.rada.gov.ua/laws/show/317-19. (Accessed February 10, 2021.)Google Scholar
Lazarenko, Valeria. 2018. “Conflict in Ukraine: multiplicity of narratives about the war and displacement.” European Politics and Society 5 (1): 1–17.Google Scholar
Lazarenko, Valeria. 2020. “Mapping identities: Narratives of displacement in Ukraine.” Emotion, Space and Society 35. Published online ahead of print May 1, 2020. doi: 10.1016/j.emospa.2020.100674.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Leach, Neil. 2005. “Belonging: Towards a Theory of Identification with Place.” In Habitus: A Sense of Place, edited by Rooksby, Emma and Hillier, Jean, 297–314. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Lewicka, Maria. 2008. “Place attachment, place identity, and place memory: Restoring the forgotten city past.” Journal of Environmental Psychology 28 (3): 209–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lewicka, Maria. 2013. “Place inherited or place discovered? Agency and communion in people-place bonding.” Estudios de Psicología 34 (3): 261–274.10.1174/021093913808295154CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Light, Duncan, and Young, Craig. 2014. “Habit, Memory, and the Persistence of Socialist-Era Street Names in Postsocialist Bucharest, Romania.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104 (3): 668–685.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lynch, Kevin. 1960. The image of the city. Cambridge: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Marples, David R. 2015. “Open Letter from Scholars and Experts on Ukraine Re. the So-Called ‘Anti-Communist Law’.” Krytyka. April 9. (Accessed February 10, 2021.)Google Scholar
Milgram, Stanley, and Jodelet, Denise. 1976. “Psychological Maps of Paris.” In Environmental psychology: people and their physical settings, edited by Proshansky, Harold, Ittelson, William, and Rivlin, Leanne, 104–124. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Mitchnik, Igor. 2019. “Making Donbas, Breaking Donbas: The Impact of Conflict Experience on Identity Shifts in the East of Ukraine.” Ethnopolitics 18 (4): 423–443.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Oleinik, Anton. 2019. “On the Role of Historical Myths in Nation-State Building: The Case of Ukraine.” Nationalities Papers 47 (6): 1100–1116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Palonen, Emilia. 2008. “The city-text in post-communist Budapest: street names, memorials, and the politics of commemoration.” GeoJournal 73 (3): 219–230.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Paskaleva, Krassimira, and Cooper, Ian. 2017. “Forming post-socialist urban identities through small-scale heritage-based regeneration: a role for intangibles?” Journal of Urban Design 22 (5): 670–688.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pikulicka-Wilczewska, Agnieszka, and Uehling, Greta Lynn, eds. 2017. Migration and the Ukraine crisis. A two-country perspective. Bristol, England: E-International Relations Publishing.Google Scholar
Pocock, Douglas Charles David. 1976. “Some Characteristics of Mental Maps: An Empirical Study.” Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers 1 (4): 493–512.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Portnov, Andrii. 2015. “How to bid goodbye to Lenin in Ukraine.” OpenDemocracy, May 26. (Accessed February 10, 2021.)Google Scholar
Portnov, Andrii. 2016. “Bandera mythologies and their traps for Ukraine.” OpenDemocracy, June 22. (Accessed February 10, 2021.)Google Scholar
Powell, Kimberly. 2010. “Making Sense of Place: Mapping as a Multisensory Research Method.” Qualitative Inquiry 16 (7): 539–555.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pyvovarov, Serhii. 2018. “5 rokiv tomu v Kyievi na Besarabtsi znesly pamiatnyk Leninu. Os’ iak ioho vstanovyly, povalyly ta peretvoryly na art-obiekt.” [5 Years Ago Lenin Monument in Kyiv’s Besarabka was Demolished. Here is how it was constructed, knocked down and transformed into an art object.]. Babel, December 8.Google Scholar
Relph, Edward. 1980. Place and Placelessness. London: Pion.Google Scholar
Salukvadze, Joseph, Sichinava, David, and Gogishvili, David. 2014. “Socio-economic and spatial factors of alienation and segregation of internally displaced persons in the cities of Georgia.” Studia Regionalia 38: 45–60.Google Scholar
Sasse, Gwendolyn, and Lackner, Alice. 2018. “War and identity: the case of the Donbas in Ukraine.” Post-Soviet Affairs 34 (2–3): 139–157.10.1080/1060586X.2018.1452209CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Siddi, Marco. 2017. “The Ukraine crisis and European memory politics of the Second World War.” European Politics and Society 18 (4): 465–479.10.1080/23745118.2016.1261435CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Soroka, George, and Krawatzek, Félix. 2019. “Nationalism, Democracy, and Memory Laws.” Journal of Democracy 30 (2): 157–171.10.1353/jod.2019.0032CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Stiperski, Zoran, Lorber, Lučka, Heršak, Emil, Ptaček, Pavel, Górka, Zygmunt, Kołoś, Arkadiusz, Lončar, Jelena, et al. 2011. “Identity through Urban Nomenclature: Eight Central European Cities.” Geografisk Tidsskrift-Danish Journal of Geography 111 (2): 181–194.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teufel, Nicolai. 2014. “The spatial production of a border-crossing civil society in Görlitz and Zgorzelec. A German point of view.” Bulletin of Geography. Socio-economic Series 25: 215–231.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Törnquist-Plewa, Barbara, and Yurchuk, Yuliya. 2019. “Memory politics in contemporary Ukraine: Reflections from the postcolonial perspective.” Memory Studies 12 (6): 699–720.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tuan, Yi-fu. 1977. Space and Place. The perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Vermeersch, Peter. 2013. “Nationalism and political competition in Central Europe: the case of Poland.” Nationalities Papers 41 (1): 128–145.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Viatrovych, Volodymyr. 2015. “Decommunization and Academic Discussion.” Krytyka, April 15. (Accessed February 10, 2021.)Google Scholar
Wilson, Andrew. 2016. “The Donbas in 2014: Explaining Civil Conflict Perhaps, but not Civil War.” Europe-Asia Studies 68 (4): 631–652.10.1080/09668136.2016.1176994CrossRefGoogle Scholar