Stalin-Era City Names Making a Comeback in Self-Proclaimed States

Paul Goble

            Staunton, April 28 – Officials in three self-proclaimed statelets formed as a result of Russian military action, South Ossetia, the Donetsk Peoples Republic, and the Luhansk Peoples Republic, have decided to do what many in Russia want, returning Stalin-era names to cities for several days a year on holidays associated with World War II.

            This “restoration of Soviet name is temporary and symbolic, for just three days a year, [but] nevertheless, it has already generated stormy arguments and angry protests,” Vzglyad journalists Andrey Rezchikov and Mikhail Moshkin say, with enthusiastic backers squared off against horrified opponents (vz.ru/society/2020/4/29/1036752.html).

            South Ossetian President Anatoly Bibilov not long ago decreed that his republic’s capital, Tsinkhval (Georgian,  Tsinkhvali) will be called by its Stalin-era name Stalinir three days a year, on the day of the city, Victory Day, and the anniversary of the beginning of the Great Fatherland War. That was the city’s name from 1934 until 1961.

            Georgian officials have denounced this move, declaring that “people are becoming victims of an absurd experiment when they are being forcibly returned to the Soviet past. But South Ossetian ones say that this is simply a symbolically important step to remind people of the events of the war years.

            South Ossetia is simply following the decisions in the LNR and DNR, the Moscow journalists say. In the first, as announced last week, Luhansk will take its earlier name Voroshilovgrad three days a year, to keep memories alive and to encourage young people to learn about the glorious past of their city.

            And in the second, Donetsk will be given its old name, Stalino, three days a year, Victory Day, the anniversary of the beginning of the war, and the day of the liberation of the Donbass from the Nazis. Officials there too believe this will lead young people to “turn to Google” to find out about the past of their city and region.

            The idea of restoring either temporarily or permanently Stalin-era names comes from Russia, but there has been less success in moving in that direction, Rezchikov and Moshkin say. There have been debates about returning the name Stalingrad to Volgograd since 2014 but they haven’t gone anywhere.

            What they have done is generate sharp opposition. Political commentator Nikolay Svanidze says that “if residents of these cities will be pleased to have their city called by the name of a mass murderer, let them.” But they and others need to know that this individual was responsible for more Soviet deaths than the Nazis.

              But others like the idea. Political writer Anatoly Vasserman says that he doesn’t see any reason why “many other cities of Russia renamed at various times and for various reasons could not follow this practice” of going back to Stalin-era names, at the very least for two or three days a year.