Toponymy in Belarus: Where Lenin is Still Alive

Even after 15 years after the breakdown of communism and the Soviet Union, the cities of many post-Soviet countries are covered with Bolshevik namings and monuments. During the last weeks this topic came again to the regional newslines, as the Estonian authorities passed laws that set criminal liability for public usage of Soviet symbols and provide possibility for municipalities to dismantle Soviet monuments. A law draft "on liquidation of Soviet symbols and namings" was also presented to the parliament of Ukraine.

In the USSR many streets and even cities were renamed after Bolshevik leaders or important events in the Soviet propagandist cult. The central street in every single town of the whole Soviet Union was named Lenin Street, the central square usually was named Lenin Square, a monument to Lenin, Kalinin, Dzerzhinsky was a must. St. Petersburg, Russia's former imperial capital, was renamed to Leningrad, the Soviet-occupied Prussian capital of Königsberg was renamed to Kaliningrad, Tsaritsyn became Stalingrad (was renamed to Volgograd after de-Stalinisation of the USSR in late 1950-ies). There were even plans of renaming Moscow to Stalinodar.

Renaming of streets in Belarus (named Great Lithuania at that time) began after the partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, when Belarus became part of Russia. Russian authorities started a policy of mass russification of Great Lithuania, and renaming of streets (especially those having names with clear Roman Catholic origin). Even the names of Belarus - Great Lithuania and White Ruthenia - were forbidden for usage after the national uprising of 1862.

The communists, who came to power in Belarus in 1919, soon annexed the country to the USSR. The town of Kojdanava was renamed after the Belarusian Bolshevik Feliks Dziaržynski (Dzerzhinski), who grew up in a mansion close to Kojdanava. During the Soviet occupation of Belarus hardly a single street in the centre of Minsk kept its original name. Hundreds and hundreds years old streets and parks became Vulica Lenina (Lenin street), vulica K. Marksa (K. Marx street), vul. F. Engielsa (F. Engels street), Kastryčnickaja Płošča (October Square), praspiekt Lenina (Lenin avenue), Park Čaluskincaŭ (Park of the Chelyuskiniates), Park Horkaha (Gorky Park), and so on. City districts (rajony) were named similarily: Praletarski ("Proletarian"), Frunzienski (after the Georgian bolshevik Mikhail Frunze), Pieršamajski (after the May 1st celebration), Kastryčnicki (after the October Revolution). The same situation is in almost all cities and towns of Belarus.

Today the issue of overcoming this Soviet "heritage" is in Belarus more actual than in other post-Soviet countries. After regaining independence in 1991 only few streets in Minsk, unlike in Moscow, Kyiv, the Baltic capitals, got their old pre-Soviet names back. The rise of the neo-Sovietic regime of Alaksandr Łukašenka in 1994-1996 put an end to the process of de-sovietisation and de-russification.

Modern official state ideology in Belarus (sometimes referred to as Lukashism) in fact isn't communistic, but it bases on different kinds of totalitarian nostalgia (pro-Soviet and pro-Russian) that are very strong in the conservative Belarusian society. Łukašenka luckily never based his policy on Marxism and Leninism, although many communist parties abroad support him. Lenin's monuments and namings are not tributes to this man's work and life any more - they are just symbols, just an empty form without any content, attributes of the landscape people are too weak to set themselves free from.

But still, a country can not be truly free as long as there are monuments to Stalin and Dziaržynski on the central squares, as long as streets are named after torturers and murderers - just as there couldn't be a democratic Germany with streets named after Hitler and the Gestapo.

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a country can not be truly free as long as streets are named after torturers and murderers

Streets and squares must get back their old names or, if there are no such, must be named after those who have deserved it. Dozens and dozens of Belarusian writers, kings, military leaders rarely have a single memorial shield - while Bolsheviks and Russian generals who stifled national uprisings in Belarus have streets, squares and universities named after them.

Massive renaming of urban toponymy must be undertaken as soon as democracy will be restored in Belarus. It is a point of our national prestige, of our renascence back after the dark two hundred years of wars, occupation and dictature. At the end of the day, it is a point of Belarus' future.

A monument to Joseph Stalin erected in 2006

The monument to Vladimir Lenin at the central square in Minsk, Belarus capital.