Changing Legacies. Urban toponymy in the Balkan capitals in the 90-ies of twentieth century between change and continuity
Keywords:
symbolic politics, street names, Southeast Europe, decommunizationAbstract
Analyzing street name changes in comparative perspective in Southeast Europe in the context ofdeep political changes after 1989, the article underlines the significance of this underexplored aspect of symbolic politics. In addition, the article explores the Sofia case through less known archival material. The article shows a break with the pre-1989 model as part of processes of de-communization in the cases of Bucharest and Sofia, with the Romanian capital being characterized with more radical and rapid change. The article shows that in spite of popular perceptions for massive street names change in Sofia directly after 1989 in fact the process of large-scale renaming took place later during the second post-communist administration. In the case of Belgrade, the urban landscape was redesigned later and just a part of the urban symbolic landscape underwent some reassessment.
References:
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