Renaming is a universal tool of empires that enables them to easily destroy the history and identity of an enslaved people. Both the Russian Empire, the USSR in the past and Russia today do not hesitate to use it.<\/p>\n
There are three waves of destruction of Crimean toponyms, but the most massive was certainly the wave of renaming in 1944 – early 60s.<\/p>\n
It was then that the Soviet Union renamed 1,444 settlements in Crimea, and there was also an attempt to rename geographical names. This wave of renaming was the most massive and destructive for the toponymy of Crimea. It all began with the illegal deportation of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people, and after the crime was committed, the Soviet authorities tried to destroy everything associated with the Crimean Tatars.<\/p>\n
In addition to the names of settlements, the names of railroad stations, road junctions, streets, historical and cultural sites were changed.<\/p>\n
Even today, the Russian occupiers are doing their utmost to erase the connection between the indigenous peoples of Crimea and the peninsula, to rewrite the entire real history and to enshrine the statement that “Crimea has always been Russian.”<\/p>\n
It is important to talk about the restoration of toponyms in Crimea and to raise this topic at the international level, because all civilized countries should understand the importance of this step.<\/p>\n
Yes, renaming toponyms in Crimea was and remains an important part of Russian colonial policy. It can be stated that this was done by all empires, but there is still a significant difference. For example, after the colonization of America, Great Britain also introduced its own place names, but new names were given to newly created settlements, as in the case of the city of Boston in Massachusetts. Russia, on the other hand, deliberately tried to destroy the connection of the indigenous Crimean Tatar people with Crimea by changing the names of settlements from Crimean Tatar to Russian or pseudo-Greek.<\/p>\n
#decolonization _of Crimea\u2019s_toponymy<\/p>\n
The #LIBERATECRIMEA campaign was presented by the Crimean Tatar Resource Center as part of the Engage Program, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) and implemented by Pact in Ukraine. The content of the campaign is the sole responsibility of Pact and its partners and does not necessarily reflect the views of USAID or the US Government.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Renaming is a universal tool of empires that enables them to easily destroy the history and identity of an enslaved people. Both the Russian Empire, the USSR in the past and Russia today do not hesitate to use it. There are three waves of destruction of Crimean toponyms, but the most massive was certainly the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246490,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-246500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n