SavedAdd your journal

Journals / Eurasian Research Journal / 2026 / Volume: 8 Issue: 3

RENAMING THE PAST: TOPONYMIC CHANGE AND NATION-BUILDING IN RURAL KAZAKHSTAN

Alikhan Shakenov(L.N. Gumilyov Eurasian National University)0009-0009-7575-6412
Pages
—
Publication Date
2026-07-29
DOI
—
🏛️Bibliographic metadata and full text access for this article are provided via DergiPark.
DergiPark Record ↗
✨

AI Summary & Key Takeaways

AI Insight
⚡ TL;DR(Too Long; Didn't Read)

The findings reveal a transition from the Soviet ideological canon to a nationally oriented system of symbols: names associated with Soviet figures are most frequently replaced, while new toponyms reflect the Kazakh historical and cultural narrative.

📌 3 Key Takeaways

🎯
Objective & Hypothesis:The article examines the formation of local collective memory through street renaming in rural Kazakhstan since independence.
📊
Key Findings & Data:The empirical basis consists of official decisions made by local executive (akimat) and representative (maslikhat) bodies.
💡
Conclusion & Impact:The findings reveal a transition from the Soviet ideological canon to a nationally oriented system of symbols: names associated with Soviet figures are most frequently replaced, while new toponyms reflect the Kazakh historical and cultural narrative.
🔬Design:Research Article
📍Scope:Comprehensive Sample
⚙️Variables:Nation-building · Collective memory · Local communities

Abstract

The article examines the formation of local collective memory through street renaming in rural Kazakhstan since independence. The empirical basis consists of official decisions made by local executive (akimat) and representative (maslikhat) bodies. The aim of the study is to identify the features of the emerging toponymic landscape and its influence on local communities in the context of nation-building. The methodology is based on quantitative and comparative analysis of temporal dynamics, regional distribution, and the structure of old and new place names. The findings reveal a transition from the Soviet ideological canon to a nationally oriented system of symbols: names associated with Soviet figures are most frequently replaced, while new toponyms reflect the Kazakh historical and cultural narrative. The study concludes that street renaming in Kazakhstan constitutes a managed process of symbolic reconfiguration in which rural areas play a key role in consolidating a new national identity.

🔖

Cite This Article

Shakenov, A. (2026). RENAMING THE PAST: TOPONYMIC CHANGE AND NATION-BUILDING IN RURAL KAZAKHSTAN. Eurasian Research Journal, Volume: 8 Issue: 3. https://ajindex.com/articles/1483089

📄 Full Text PDF Viewer

📄

PDF görüntüleyici hazırlanıyor...

References (50)

  1. Amini Ngabonziza, J. de D., & Rosendal, T. (2025). Power dynamics of post-genocide street renaming in urban Rwanda: The territorial demarcation between the past and the present. *Cogent Arts & Humanities, 12*(1), 2587874. https://doi.org/10.1080/23311983.2025.2587874
  2. Assmann, A., & Shortt, L. (Eds.). (2011). *Memory and political change*. Palgrave Macmillan. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230354241
  3. Azaryahu, M. (1990). Renaming the past: Changes in “city text” in Germany and Austria, 1945–1947. *History and Memory, 2*(2), 32–53.
  4. Azaryahu, M. (1996). The power of commemorative street names. *Environment and Planning D: Society and Space, 14*(3), 311–330. https://doi.org/10.1068/d140311
  5. Azaryahu, M. (1997). German reunification and the politics of street names: The case of East Berlin. *Political Geography, 16*(6), 479–493. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0962-6298(96)00053-4
  6. Azaryahu, M. (2011). The critical turn and beyond: The case of commemorative street naming. *ACME, 10*(1), 28–33.
  7. Bekus, N. (2021). Symbolic capital of the memory of communism: The quest for international recognition in Kazakhstan. *Theory and Society, 50*(4), 627–655. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11186-020-09425-x
  8. Bekus, N., & Medeuova, K. (2017). Re-interpreting national ideology in the contemporary urban space of Astana. *Urbanities, 7*(2), 10–21.
  9. Ben-Rafael, E., Shohamy, E., Amara, M. H., & Trumper-Hecht, N. (2006). Linguistic landscape as symbolic construction of the public space: The case of Israel. *International Journal of Multilingualism, 3*(1), 7–30. https://doi.org/10.1080/14790710608668383
  10. Boogaart II, T. (2001). The power of place: From semiotics to ethnogeography. *Middle States Geographer, 34*, 38–47.
  11. Caiazzo, L. (2020). India versus Bharat: (Re)naming and identity. In L. Caiazzo & I. M. Nick (Eds.), *Shifting toponymies: (Re)naming places, (re)shaping identities* (pp. 25–42). Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
  12. Chandrashekar, K. (2024). National identification: A psychoanalytic understanding of the role of renaming of streets and cities in India. *Psychoanalysis, Culture & Society, 29*, 588–603. https://doi.org/10.1057/s41282-023-00393-6
  13. Cretan, R., & Matthews, P. W. (2016). Popular responses to city-text changes: Street naming and the politics of practicality in a post-socialist martyr city. *Area, 48*(1), 92–102. https://doi.org/10.1111/area.12241
  14. Dalgıç, E. N., & Okta, B. Y. (2023). Changing the identity of a place by changing street names: The process of renaming the streets of Üsküdar between 1927 and 1934. *A/Z ITU Journal of the Faculty of Architecture, 20*(1), 181–197. https://doi.org/10.58278/0.2023.1
  15. Dave, B. (2007). *Kazakhstan: Ethnicity, language and power*. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203014899
  16. Diener, A. C., & Hagen, J. (2013). From socialist to post-socialist cities: Narrating the nation through urban space. *Nationalities Papers, 41*(4), 487–514. https://doi.org/10.1080/00905992.2013.768217
  17. Fierman, W. (2005). Kazakh language and prospects for its role in Kazakh “groupness.” *Ab Imperio, 2005*(2), 393–423. https://doi.org/10.1353/imp.2005.0065
  18. Gaidai, O., Sklokina, I., & Kasianov, G. (Eds.). (2018). *Polityka i pam’iat: Dnipro–Zaporizhzhia–Odesa–Kharkiv. Vid 1990-kh do sohodni* [Politics and memory: Dnipro–Zaporizhzhia–Odesa–Kharkiv from the 1990s to the present]. FOP Shumylovych.
  19. Gnatiuk, O., Pisotska, K., Polhun, V., & Zapototska, V. (2023). Public inertia towards the new toponymic landscapes in Vinnytsia, Ukraine. *Journal of the Bulgarian Geographical Society, 49*, 53–68. https://doi.org/10.3897/jbgs.e113331
  20. Gürleyen, T. (2018). Memory layers, porosity and montage as representative interfaces of anamnesis and forgetting. *A/Z ITU Journal of Faculty of Architecture, 15*(2), 125–135. https://doi.org/10.5505/itujfa.2018.75002
  21. Halbwachs, M. (1992). *On collective memory*. University of Chicago Press.
  22. Hofmeister, U. (2025). Orenburg’s toponymy: Staging the Russian Empire in the steppe. *Urban History*, 1–18. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0963926825100564
  23. Insebayeva, S. (2015). Imagining the nation in Kazakhstan: The role of naming practices. *Central Asian Survey, 34*(1), 110–124.
  24. Kashfi, E. (2023). The politics of street names: Reconstructing Iran’s collective identity. *Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 23*(2), 122–143. https://doi.org/10.1111/sena.12393
  25. Kaşikçi, M. V. (2019). The Soviet and the post-Soviet: Street names and national discourse in Almaty. *Europe-Asia Studies, 71*(8), 1345–1366. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2019.1641586
  26. Kudaibergenova, D. T. (2016). The use and abuse of postcolonial discourses in post-independent Kazakhstan. *Europe-Asia Studies, 68*(5), 917–935. https://doi.org/10.1080/09668136.2016.1194967
  27. Kudaibergenova, D. T. (2025). *What does it mean to be Kazakhstani? Power, identity, and nation-building*. Hurst & Company.
  28. Kurmanov, B., & Abishev, G. (2026). From margins to mainstream: National-patriots and Kazakhisation in the making of post-Nazarbayev Kazakhstan. *Asian Affairs, 57*(2), 299–330. https://doi.org/10.1080/03068374.2025.2605288
  29. Laruelle, M. (2016). Which future for national-patriots? The landscape of Kazakh nationalism. In M. Laruelle (Ed.), *Kazakhstan in the making: Legitimacy, symbols, and social changes* (pp. 155–180). Lexington Books.
  30. Light, D. (2004). Street names in Bucharest, 1990–1997: Exploring the modern historical geographies of post-socialist change. *Journal of Historical Geography, 30*(1), 154–172. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0305-7488(02)00102-0
  31. Light, D., & Young, C. (2014). Habit, memory, and the persistence of socialist-era street names in postsocialist Bucharest, Romania. *Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104*(3), 668–685. https://doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2014.892377
  32. Lindsay, N., & Yoon, H.-K. (2021). Toponyms on the ice: The symbolic and iconographical role of Antarctic research base names. *Polar Record, 57*, e22. https://doi.org/10.1017/S003224742100022X
  33. Medeuova, K., & Medeuov, Z. (2022). Radical memorialization in Kazakhstan: Spaces, places, and capitals. In S. Basik (Ed.), *Encountering toponymic geopolitics: Place names as a political instrument in the post-Soviet states* (pp. 137–152). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003293057-8
  34. Nora, P. (1989). Between memory and history: Les lieux de mémoire. *Representations, 26*, 7–24. https://doi.org/10.2307/2928520
  35. Ochman, E. (2025). Public responses to the renaming of commemorative street names in post-communist Poland: Daily lives, experiences of change and sense of place. *Contemporary European History, 34*(2), 447–465. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0960777324000328
  36. Oto-Peralías, D. (2018). What do street names tell us? The “city-text” as sociocultural data. *Journal of Economic Geography, 18*(1), 187–211. https://doi.org/10.1093/jeg/lbx030
  37. Pitina, S. A. (2018). Features of toponymic renaming in Russia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine in the context of language policy. *Sign: The Problematic Field of Media Education, 4*(30), 74–82.
  38. Ringas, D., Christopoulou, E., & Stefanidakis, M. (2011). Urban memory in space and time. In G. Styliaras, D. Koukopoulos, & F. Lazarinis (Eds.), *Handbook of research on technologies and cultural heritage: Applications and environments* (pp. 325–340). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-60960-044-0.ch016
  39. Rose-Redwood, R., Alderman, D., & Azaryahu, M. (2010). Geographies of toponymic inscription: New directions in critical place-name studies. *Progress in Human Geography, 34*(4), 453–470. https://doi.org/10.1177/0309132509351042
  40. Rose-Redwood, R., Alderman, D., & Azaryahu, M. (Eds.). (2018). *The political life of urban streetscapes: Naming, politics, and place*. Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315554464
  41. Ruipérez Núñez, A., & Dinas, E. (2023). Mean streets: Power, ideology, and the politics of memory. *Political Geography, 103*, 102840. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.polgeo.2023.102840
  42. Rusu, M. S. (2021). Sequencing toponymic change: A quantitative longitudinal analysis of street renaming in Sibiu, Romania. *PLOS ONE, 16*(5), e0251558. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0251558
  43. Rusu, M. S. (2024). Modeling toponymic change: A multilevel analysis of street renaming in postsocialist Romania. *Annals of the American Association of Geographers, 114*(3), 591–609. https://doi.org/10.1080/24694452.2023.2292805
  44. Shields, R. (2023). “Rename the streets”: The challenges of decolonizing toponymy in Toronto, Canada. *Ukrainian Historical Review, 2*, 139–153. https://doi.org/10.47632/2786-717X-2023-2-139-153
  45. Tsyrempilov, N., Bigozhin, U., & Zhumabayev, B. (2022). A nation’s holy land: Kazakhstan’s large-scale national project to map its sacred geography. *Nationalities Papers, 50*(4), 704–721. https://doi.org/10.1017/nps.2021.22
  46. Vlahova-Angelova, M. (2023). Contemporary urban toponymy of the city of Sofia as a battlefield between pro-Russian and anti-Russian ideologies. *ICONN 6*, 395–409. https://doi.org/10.30816/iconn6/2023/31
  47. Yeoh, B. S. A. (1992). Street names in colonial Singapore. *Geographical Review, 82*(3), 313–322. https://doi.org/10.2307/215354
  48. Yeoh, B. S. A. (1996). Street-naming and nation-building: Toponymic inscriptions of nationhood in Singapore. *Area, 28*(3), 298–307.
  49. Zhiyenbayev, M., Sabitov, Z., & Aitbayev, D. (2025). Depoliticizing national identity formation in Kazakhstan: Street re-/naming in Astana as a pragmatic reinterpretation of the Soviet past. *International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society*. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-025-09541-5
  50. Zymovets, H. (2025). Creating a new Ukrainian identity: Renaming campaign in the capital city of Kyiv during the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war. *Journal of the International Council of Onomastic Sciences, 60*, 157–178. https://doi.org/10.34158/onoma.60/2025/9