The political lives of rural hodonyms in Ukraine: A cross-regional perspective

Rural toponyms have a long history of research with an emphasis on their historical and cultural significance. However, insufficient attention has been paid specifically to the ideologically driven naming and renaming of rural places. This gap becomes even more noticeable concerning the post-socialist and, especially, post-Soviet spaces, representing one of the modern hotspots in the critical study of place names. In the paper, based on the information on the naming and renaming of rural streets in the three Ukrainian administrative regions, we analyse the recent reconfiguration of the contemporary system of Ukrainian rural hodonyms from a political standpoint. It has been demonstrated that rural street names in Ukraine are involved in the political life of the country almost as much as their urban counterparts, and their post-Soviet reconfiguration in cross-regional perspective generally resembles the processes and patterns relevant to the urban street names. The role of rural hodonyms as political instruments and symbolic markers should not be underestimated, at least, for certain geographical and socio-cultural contexts. At the same time, the active involvement of rural street names in the political life of the country raises concerns about their preservation as a part of local heritage and markers of local identity.