Transformations of place, memory and identity through urban place names in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia 401Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.DOI: 10.15201/hungeobull.71.4.6 Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 2022 (4) 401–417. Introduction The objective of this article is to look at poli- tics, processes and practices of the renam- ing of public spaces, particularly streets and squares in the city of Banská Bystrica in Slovakia in the post-socialist period. In the scholarly literature the most often used term is „street renaming“, although it covers also renaming of other public spaces of the city including squares and neighbourhoods or even institutions. In the paper I use the over- arching term „street renaming“. Based on critical research on practices of street naming and renaming developed and summarised mainly (but not only) by Rose-Redwood, R., Alderman, D. and Azaryahu, M., it focuses on relationships between heritage, memory, identity, location and power (Rose-Redwood, R. et al. 2018a, b). Post-socialist transforma- tion started numerous processes of diversi- fication of Slovak society, accompanied also by diversification of memories, identities and symbols. The study deals with challenges of the street-renaming, related to remember- ing and forgetting in the post-1989 period. As Rose-Redwood, R. et al. (2018a, 2) em- phasise, the renaming of public spaces plays an important role in the remaking of urban commemorative landscapes. Indeed, vari- ous political regimes have been using street renaming as a strategy to show authority, ideological hegemony and symbolic power. Street names primarily serve the purpose of orientation within the city, but they also have a broader significance. The names which commemorate key events or person- alities from local, regional or national history or heritage are a manifestation of political order. They can also become expressions of local or national identity with a powerful symbolic importance (Azaryahu, M. 1997; Transformations of place, memory and identity through urban place names in Banská Bystrica, Slovakia Alexandra B I T U ŠÍK O V Á1 Abstract The paper looks at the renaming of streets as a significant aspect of post-socialist change using an example of the city of Banská Bystrica, Slovakia. It discusses politics, processes and practices of (de-re)commemoration in street names, which reflect transformations of memory (remembering and forgetting), identity, heritage, power and resilience related to public space in a post-socialist city. Changing street names creates new connections between the past and the present and reflects political power struggles for control over contested space between various groups that tend to privatise their own history, heritage, memory, identity, places and symbols. The case of Banská Bystrica demonstrates strategies of the street renaming based on the decommunisation of names (done by restoration of the names from older periods or by introducing non-commemorative names), and on commemoration of names based primarily on local (or regional/national) heritage, events and personalities that might become areas of contested heritage. Keywords: street renaming, urban space, memory, identity, heritage, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia Received February 2022, accepted October 2022. 1 Faculty of Arts, Charles University, nám. Jana Palacha 2, 116 38 Prague 1, Czech Republic. E-mails: alexandra.bitusikova@ff.cuni.cz; or alexandra.bitusikova@gmail.com mailto:alexandra.bitusikova@ff.cuni.cz Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.402 Light, D. 2004). Street renaming is usually connected with a political regime change or other historic milestones. It has an im- pact on further symbolic transformation of urban space and on the (re)construction of urban memory. Along with monuments, street names (particularly commemorative names, based on local or national history and heritage) ’celebrate that which the governing authorities deem worthy of public remem- brance’ (Rose-Redwood, R. et al. 2018b, 8). Research objectives and methods This article discusses politics, processes and practices of (de-re)commemoration in the city of Banská Bystrica in Slovakia on the example of the street renaming, which reflects trans- formations of memory (remembering and for- getting), identity, location, heritage, symbols, power and resilience related to public space in a post-socialist city. It focuses on the period of the first decade of the post-socialist urban transformation after the political change in 1989, however, it also builds on previous periods as they are crucial for understand- ing historic discontinuities and disruptions in Central Europe. It also briefly reflects on street-naming in the city in the 21st century. The main research questions are: What have been the concepts used in the strategy of the street renaming in the early 1990s? Which concepts have been prevailing? How did the process of the renaming take place within the municipality and the City Council? What was the role of the street-re- naming advisory body in the process? How did the power relations impact the street- renaming? How did the public participate in the process? Are there any consequences of the selected concept(s) in the street naming in the 21st century? The paper is based on the results of qualita- tive ethnographic research carried out main- ly in the period of 1990–1995 (participant observation and engaged research, 25 semi- formal/informal interviews with local in- habitants, experts – historians, geographers, architects, linguists and ethnologists, and the city representatives), and the textual analy- sis of regional newspapers, scientific journals and archives documents. Meeting minutes from the advisory body (The Street-Naming Committee) and from the City Council in the 1990s (archived at the Registry Office of the Banská Bystrica Municipality), as well as regularly published articles of the Chair of the Street-Naming Committee in local and national newspapers (such as Priekopník, Ľudové noviny and Národná obroda) address- ing the public in order to encourage their participation in the process, were the main source of the data. My personal ethnographic diary as of a member of the Street-Naming Committee also contributed to the collection and analysis of research data. The nomina- tion to be a member of the committee by the Mayor in the early 1990s led to numerous interactions with various stakeholders, par- ticularly local citizens, municipality repre- sentatives and local interest groups. It also helped me to witness the dynamics of power relations in the new democratic state. In addition, a methodology of spatial ethography was partly used that allowed un- derstaning of people and place relationships (based mainly on participant observation, in- terviews and analysis of textual documents – Sen, A. and Silverman, L. 2014). Place, memory and post-socialist change: A theoretical framework Maurice Halbwachs was one of the first schol- ars who stressed that the past was reflected and preserved in the built environment – a repository of conscious and unconscious collective memories (Halbwachs, M. 1992). Since Halbwachs, memory and its relation to place and identity has been attracting the attention of numerous scholars from differ- ent disciplines. Changing street names cre- ates new links and connections between the past and the present and reflects political power struggles for control over contested space between various opposing groups that 403Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417. tend to ‘privatise’ their own history, heritage, memory, identity, places and symbols. Both individual and collective memories of the city and its public spaces have a significant influ- ence on the identification of urban inhabitants with their city and their sense of belonging. Memory has become a popular keyword and topic not only in scholarly literature, but also in the marketing and branding strategies of cities all over the world. It is a consequence of what some authors call a general ‘obsession with memory’, a ‘com- memorative fever’or a ‘remembrance epi- demic’ (Hewison, R. 1987; Macdonald, S. 2013). However, memory, especially collec- tive memory is an important bond and a tool for socialisation and communication. It is the individuals as members of various groups who create, share and put forward collective memory through their individual personal memories. Collective memory is always localised and socially constructed within a particular political-economic context and it requires the support of a group in time and space (Halbwachs, M. 1992). According to Boyer, it is mainly physical artefacts, urban spaces, streets, monuments and architectural forms in which our mem- ory is buried (Boyer, C.M. 1994). Nora who introduced the term lieux de mémoire (sites of memory) also stressed that memory is spa- tially constructed and it is attached to both tangible sites (streets, squares, buildings etc.) and intangible sites (rituals or celebrations) related to the past (Nora, P. 1989). The city is often defined as a physical space, made of squares, streets, parks, neighbourhoods, buildings, monuments, symbols and names of objects and spaces. However, the develop- ment of the city is not only in the hands of ar- chitects and urban planners, but especially of the people who use it: ‘People make places, more than places make people’ (Worpole, K. and Knox, K. 2007, 2). The memory of each city resident reflects memories of different physical spaces in different periods. Previous generations´ memories play an important role in the reinterpretation and redefinition of public spaces, reflected in their names. As Alderman notes, (particularly) com- memorative street naming and renaming is a vehicle for bringing the past to the present (Alderman, D.H. 2003, 163). Commemorative names of public spaces (streets and squares) in Central Europe do not have a long history and started to be in- troduced only at the end of the 18th century replacing descriptive names (mainly names inspired by the geographical place or direc- tion such as Main Square, Lower or Upper Street etc.). A new way of street naming at the end of the 18th century followed a commemo- rative motivation to name public spaces af- ter persons, events or ideas – usually those who were acceptable and supported by a leading political power (David, J. 2013, 2). Commemorative names reflect important moments of history, local and national her- itage (cultural and natural) or important personalities that played a role in local, na- tional or international contexts, however, they are often built on contested narratives and memories. According to Yeoh, street re- naming can be seen as ‘an uneven, negoti- ated process of constant mediations, in which people questioned, challenged, or came up with alternative readings of both the forms and meanings of street-names’ (Yeoh, B.S.A. 1996). Azaryahu stresses that commemo- rative street names are a common feature of modern political culture. Together with commemorative monuments and heritage museums, they ‘not only evince a particular version of history but are also participants in the ongoing cultural production of a shared past... Potentially contested and eventually challenged, commemorative street names concretize hegemonic structures of power and authority’ (Azaryahu, M. 1996, 312). Dramatic change of physical structures, forms or functions of public spaces can lead to discontinuity and loss of memory, or to what Simmel refers as selective amnesia, which means selective and conscious forget- ting in order to cope and survive the over- whelming memories of the past (Simmel, G. 1950). This has been a common case in most post-socialist societies. In this context, Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.404 van Vree uses the term ‘absent memory’, described as memories absent from public discourse at a specific moment in time and to emerge at another. He talks about ‘social forgetting’ (often based on shame, guilt or embarrassment) that can be understood as ‘a deliberate or non-deliberate exclusion or dilution of memories through framing, or, even, because of the very lack of proper frames’ (Van Vree, F. 2013, 7). In order to survive, people living in for- mer socialist countries of Central and Eastern Europe had to learn to adopt such strategies of social forgetting by living double identi- ties (public and private), suppressing publi- cally enforced memories of historical events and figures and creating countermemories and counternarratives. In the context of the topic of the paper, the best example of these strategies was using the pre-socialist urban street names in everyday common language instead of using “new” street names intro- duced by the new communist municipalities. According to Meusburger, ‘the fact that the overwhelming majority of the popula- tion in socialist countries had such divided identities and countermemories was one of the main reasons why Central and Eastern European communist systems, despite their military power and seemingly almighty se- cret services, collapsed within weeks after the development of mass public opposition in 1989’ (Meusburger, P. 2011, 58). A serious discontinuity of collective mem- ory usually happens in the periods of crucial historic changes or natural disasters that can in a short time dramatically change the phys- ical and social environment of the city. The post-socialist (post-1989) governing authori- ties faced a challenge to (re)build new urban identity upon the heritage of these historic discontinuities. They had to decide what the future vision and identity of the city should be based on. The construction of new iden- tities was first built on the rejection of the socialist past (Light, D. 2004). Glorious medieval history was seen as the least problematic and most attractive to be marketed by local authorities in the 1990s and the majority of activities that aimed at the revitalisation of urban identities as well as at new marketing of the city have been based on the return to medieval (so called ‘golden’) history and heritage. It was clear that the socialist period did not fit into the ‘nice’ historic image of the city. This observa- tion goes in line with the results of Young’s and Kaczmarek’s research in Polish cities. They observed the return to a medieval ‘Golden Age’ in many cities in Poland and across Central Eastern Europe. Cities with such history can more easily ‘leave out or obscure their socialist pasts, or only refer to a history of resistance to socialism’ (Young, C. and Kaczmarek, S. 2008, 56). Similar though not exactly the same development could be seen in the Romanian city of Oradea (in Hungarian: Nagyvárad) – the city with a significant proportion of Hungarian popu- lation – where after the collapse of commu- nism many streets received either new or interwar period names, mainly ethnically neutral (Erőss, Á. and Tátrai, P. 2010, 57). The post-socialist urban developments have demonstrated trends towards revitalisa- tion and strengthening of urban identities through the practices initiated mainly by local governments and increasingly also by local inhabitants and activists. The focus and the locus of research: Banská Bystrica Banská Bystrica is a medium-size city situ- ated in a mountainous area of Central Slo- vakia. With almost 80,000 inhabitants, it is the sixth largest city in the country and the administrative centre of Banská Bystrica Re- gion (Figure 1). First urban development strategies in post- 1989 Banská Bystrica were built mainly upon the return to history, cultural heritage and commemoration. They included the renam- ing of streets and squares, reconstruction of the historic city centre, organisation of ur- ban festivals and parades based on histori- cal events, (re)introduction of new symbols and the (de-re)erection of new monuments. 405Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417. All these activities created space for the (re) construction of new collective memory and local identity. Following de la Pradelle we can ask to what extent these activities re- ally addressed local inhabitants´ needs and made them feel proud and identified with their city (de la Pradelle, M. 1996), and/or to what extent they were just a tool for the manipulation of collective memory, celebrat- ing the ‘right’ heritage and the ‘right’ mo- ments of history and consciously forgetting less glorious chapters of the city´s history. As Williams stated: ‘Such is the desire for com- munality that only “correct” memories will be tolerated, usually resulting in real history being forgotten. Removed from any political context, the result of urban memory practices is often simply the celebration of attachment to place for its own sake’ (Williams, A. 2005). Williams continues that this kind of selec- tion of historical memories could lead to a false urban memory syndrome. He provoc- atively adds that we can see a demand for collective memory at a time when collective reality has disappeared. Each urban govern- ment tries to revitalise urban memories and identities through the engagement of the in- habitants in various activities, but in fact ‘we never really see a campaign of local residents spontaneously demanding that their urban memory be protected’ (Williams, A. 2005, 3). Banská Bystrica was founded in 1255 when it became the free royal city (called Nova villa Bystrice) by being granted royal municipal and mining privileges by the Hungarian king Béla IV. In 1263, the first magyarised version of the name Byzterchebana, later Beszterczebánya appeared, at the same time the German settlers (mainly those in mining business) used the name Neusohl (Jurkovič, E. 2005, 16). Rich silver and copper depos- its and extensive mining sustained the dy- namic development of the city in the Middle Ages. In the 14th and 15th centuries, the city was called ‘the Copper Banská Bystrica’ and flourished as a significant European mining centre with a strong German influence. The medieval city, like many other European cit- ies, developed its economic strength from trade and commerce, based on its multi- cultural characteristics. The Thurzo-Fugger Company, established in 1495 in Banská Bystrica, has been considered one of the first modern capitalist enterprises in the world, having a monopoly on the trade of copper in Europe and worldwide. The ‘Golden Age’ Fig. 1. Geographical position of Banská Bystrica inside Slovakia Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.406 of the mining city of Banská Bystrica lasted until the 17th century (Jurkovič, E. 2005). During its rich mining history, the city – similarly to many other cities in the multi-eth- nic Kingdom of Hungary – was characterised by multiethnicity and multiculturality, based on cultures of a number of ethnic and religious groups living in the city (the Germans, the Slovaks, the Hungarians, the Jews, the Roman Catholics, the Protestants, the Greek Catholics etc.). All these ethnic and religious groups left traces in the historical tapestry and memory of the city, however, they have not always been reflected in local toponymy/ urbanonymy. After the decline of mining activities, Banská Bystrica became a centre of crafts, commerce and services. The city witnessed its most tur- bulent history in the 20th century. Similar to other cities in Central Europe (formerly part of the Kingdom of Hungary and from 1867 the Austro-Hungarian Empire), the city´s popula- tion experienced seven major political regimes and states in the 20th century itself, which had a significant impact on people´s memories and identities, on their remembering and forget- ting (Bitusikova, A. 2018). Banská Bystrica has been constructing its new post-socialist image particularly on two selected chapters of its history – on the me- dieval mining history (‘the Copper Bystrica’) when the city was one of the biggest world producers and exporters of copper, and on the modern history of the Slovak National Uprising, the biggest anti-Nazi movement in Central Europe during the Second World War in which the city played a crucial role as the centre of the uprising (‘the Insurgent Bystrica’). Representatives of 30 countries joined the uprising based mainly on parti- sian operations in the mountains. Although the uprising was defeated by the Germans, it has remained a symbol of moral victory of the Slovaks who at the time were living in the collaborationist Nazi „puppet state“ (Syrný, M. et al. 2014). The municipality has been introducing the topic of these two his- torical periods in most cultural events and festivities organised in the city (City Days; The Radvaň Fair; Cultural Summer; and the Slovak National Uprising commemoration). This approach has been reflected also in the renaming of public places. Politics, processes and practices of street renaming in Banská Bystrica The street renaming was one of the very first activities of the new municipality after the po- litical change in Slovakia (then part of Czecho- slovakia) in the late November 1989. The origi- nal historic street naming or toponymy used to serve primarily the purpose of geographical orientation reflected in names such as Central Square, Lower Street, Upper Street, Capitol Church Street etc. These names were used for several centuries since the foundation of the city (1255) until the end of the 19th century. The development in the late 19th century demon- strated the change towards the importance of commemoration naming based on key person- alities and events of the city´s or country’s his- tory and heritage. According to Azaryahu, it was a measure of historic revision during pe- riods of political change (Azaryahu, M. 2011, 29). In the post-1948 socialist period, a new wave of street renaming started when majority of streets and squares in Czechoslovakia were renamed using commerative names of the Soviet Union personalities: political figures, Red Army heroes, artists, writers, poets (e.g. Stalin’s or Lenin’s streets) as well as Russian geographical names, such as Moscow street, Russian street etc. A number of scholars have written about toponymical cleansing and place renaming in post-socialist contexts (e.g. Azaryahu, M. 1996, 1997; Czapliczka, J. et al. 2003; Light, D. 2004; Gill, G. 2005; Kaltenberg- Kwiatkowska, E. 2008; Palonen, E. 2008; Bucher, S. et al. 2013; Light, D. and Young, C. 2015a, b, 2018; Basik, S. and Rahautsou, D. 2019), however, most of the studies fo- cused on country capitals (e.g. Budapest, Bucharest, Moscow, Warsaw, East Berlin, Minsk or Bratislava). Research of medium or small size cities in the region of Central and Eastern Europe has been rather rare 407Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417. though it has been slowly increasing (e.g. Erőss, Á. and Tátrai, P. 2010; Stiperski, Z. et al. 2011; Cretan, R. and Matthews, P.W. 2016; Mácha, P. et al. 2018; Palmberger, M. 2018; Chloupek, B.R. 2019; Rusu, M. 2020). Azaryahu was one of the first scholars who proposed that it was important to broaden the study area to include smaller, provincial cities, too (Azaryahu, M. 2011). The study of the city of Banská Bystrica aims to fill the gap in such research orienta- tion and on the basis of ethnographic meth- ods to demonstrate specific local approaches to street renaming in a peripheral medium- size Slovak city. In the city of Banská Bystrica, the most sig- nificant processes of street renaming since its foundation in the 13th century were con- nected with the following periods: 1. The end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries (strengthening of Hungarian power and control over minorities in the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy); 2. Post-1918 (the collapse of the Austro- Hungarian Monarchy and the establishment of the Czechoslovak Republic); 3. Post-1948 (the communist coup and the foundation of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic); 4. Post-1989 (the collapse of communism and the establishment of the democratic Czecho-Slovak Republic and in 1993 the for- mation of the Slovak Republic after the dis- solution of Czechoslovakia). It is important to stress that the latest his- torical chapter – the foundation of the two separate states – the Slovak Republic and the Czech Republic in January 1993 did not lead to any significant changes in place-naming/ renaming in Slovakia. This might demon- strate that the ‘velvet’ split of the two coun- tries with a common history did not have a traumatic impact on collective identity and memory that would lead to symbolic chang- es of place names – which was not the case in previous historical periods. When looking at street renaming from a chronological perspective, it is obvious that two periods in the Slovak history when com- memorative names were mostly preferred were the periods from the end of the 19th cen- tury to 1918 and the period from 1948 to 1989 (the communist period). It seems that political authorities during the democratic periods of the first Czechoslovak Republic (1918–1938) and the post-1989 Czechoslovakia (and the Slovak Republic after 1993) preferred us- ing non-commemorative place names in the processses of renaming, which I understand (based on my direct engagement in the Street- Naming Committee) as an approach or at- tempt towards a certain stability and resil- ience in the street-naming in the future. The renaming of streets and squares in Banská Bystrica has been (throughout the history) most significant in the central his- toric district of the city, which has been the National Urban Heritage Site since 1955. This is in line with what Gnatiuk and Glybovets emphasise that commemorative names have been generally more common in central parts of a city than in the city´s peripheries, which means that different locations in the city show different symbolic significance and ‘naming and renaming of urban space often implies categorization of streets according to the perceived ˝importance” of a person, geographic name, idea or event’ (Gnatiuk, O. and Glybovets, V. 2020). The Banská Bystrica historic city centre: from the Kingdom of Hungary to the end of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic (1255–1989) In the city of Banská Bystrica, the historic central square has always been considered the heart of the city and the source of pride for local people, and one of the most beauti- ful urban squares in Slovakia. The name of the square changed several times throughout history, reflecting political powers as well as the dominant language of the time. For more than 600 years, from the 13th to the 19th cen- tury, the square held the German name Ring (the Square, known in the local Slovak dia- lect as Rínok). This name was changed in the 1860s to a Hungarian version Fő tér (in Slovak Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.408 Hlavné námestie – Central Square) and in 1886 to a commemorative Hungarian name Béla Király tér (in Slovak Námestie kráľa Bela IV. – King Béla IV Square). After the foundation of the Czechoslovak Republic in 1918, the square gained for the first time an official Slovak name Hlavné námestie (The Central Square), based on a lo- cal narrative using the simple name Námestie (The Square) when referring to the central square despite of its former commemorative names. At the end of the 1920s, with the de- velopment of the democratic Czechoslovak Republic led by the President Tomáš Garique Masaryk (who was half-Czech and half- Slovak by origin), the square was renamed Masarykovo námestie (The Masaryk Square). After the establishment of the Slovak Republic (also known as the Slovak State) in 1939 which was a client state of Nazi Germany, the square was given a new name in the process of recommemoration: Námestie Andreja Hlinku (The Andrej Hlinka Square), named after the leader of the autononomist Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party from the 1920s to 1930s. The end of the WW2 with the Red Army and the Romanian Army as liberators of Banská Bystrica on March 25, 1945, clearly marked the further symbolic developments of the central square (Bitušíková, A. 1998). Only a few days after the liberation, a black obelisk made of marble imported from the Soviet Union and dedicated to the WW2 lib- erators of the city, (however, dedicated only to the Soviet Red Army, and ‘forgetting’ the Romanian Army liberators) was forced on by the Soviet representatives and eventually built in the lower part of the central square (Bitušíková, A. 2018). The renaming of the main square was a further challenge (Photo 1). The central square was first renamed in the period 1945–1948 as Námestie Národného povstania (The National Uprising Square), and after 1949 (up to the present) Námestie Slovenského Národneho povstania (The Slovak National Uprising Square). Only twice in his- tory the square had a general, non-commem- orative name (Ring from the establishment of the city in the 13th century to the 19th cen- tury, and Hlavné námestie – Central Square from 1919 to 1923). Despite all official names, in everyday local communication only one name has always been used up till the pre- sent: ‘Námestie’ (The Square), which has been seen as the heart and the symbol of the city by local population. This language is part of understanding of local toponymy and local memory. The common name ‘Námestie’ (The Square) clearly defines the place on the ba- sis of an easy identification and orientation without any confusion caused by changes of commemorative names. The same practice of renaming public spaces referred to the adjacent streets that also changed their names several times. For instance, originally Untere Gasse or Dolná ul- ica (The Lower Street) changed to Spitalgasse, Kossuth Lajos utcza, Malinovského ulica (Malinovsky Street) until it returned to the old non-commemorative name Dolná ulica (The Lower Street) again after 1989 (Photo 2). The ideologically-motivated names of streets and squares bearing usually names of Soviet political or cultural figures or events that were introduced during the socialist pe- riod were rarely accepted and used by local population and were only presented in offi- cial documents and maps. That was the case of all streets in the central city area. Already mentioned Malinovského ulica named after the Soviet marshal Malinovsky was known by lo- cal inhabitants only as Dolná ulica (The Lower Street); Ulica Februárového víťazstva (The Victorious February Street) as Národná ulica (The National Street); Polevého ulica (Polevoj´s Street named after the Soviet writer ) as Kapitulská (The Church Street); Jilemnického ulica (Jilemnický Street) as Kuzmányho ulica (Kuzmány Street); or Námestie 1. mája (The May Day Square) as Strieborné (The Silver Square) (Rohárik, J. 1995). Many local in- habitants were even not aware of the official (communist) names of the streets in the city centre and used pre-communist names as the main way of communication, geographical orientation, and sometimes also as a sort of resistance against the regime. 409Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417. Photo 1. Slovak National Uprising Square (formerly Ring, Fő tér, Béla Király tér, Hlavné námestie, Námestie, Masarykovo námestie, Námestie Andreja Hlinku, Námestie Národného povstania) in Banská Bystrica. Photo by Bitušíková, A. 2021. Photo 2. Entrance to Dolná ulica (Lower Street). Photo by Bitušíková, A. 2017. Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.410 Post-1989 period: the processes and practices of street renaming in a new democratic Banská Bystrica The process of the street renaming in Banská Bystrica was one of the earliest responses to the collapse of communism, as also Light observed in other cities (Light, D. 2004). The renaming of public spaces in post-socialist cit- ies commonly involved processes of de-com- memoration and/or new re-commemoration (Azaryahu, M. 1997, 482; Bitušíková, A. 2018, 156) and became important in forming a new identity of many cities. In Banská Bystrica, on the 19 January 1990, the Street-Naming Committee (Názvoslovná komisia) was established as an advisory board commissioned by the Mayor and the District Office to provide expertise in the field of nam- ing/renaming of streets and squares. Its estab- lishment was based on the Act No. 369/1990 that explicitally prescribed the way of func- tioning of Street-Naming Committees as ad- visory bodies within local municipalities and the Act No. 517/1990. The first Street-Naming Committee in Banská Bystrica consisted of nine members - historians, urban planners, architects, linguists, ethnologists and lawyers. The members were independent experts nom- inated by the Mayor that did not represent any political parties or interest groups. I was nominated as one of the members. The Street-Naming Committee had regular meetings several times a year from 1990 to 1995 (most frequently in the first two years of the 1990s) and its task was to propose and dis- cuss new names for streets and squares based on the expert proposals, discussion and public participation. The first step towards starting the proces of the renamimng was to define key concepts of the new renaming, based on the following principles: – The Act 93/1970 about names of places and their streets (still in practice at the time); – To build on historical idenitity of old origi- nal street names (often geographically- based); – To propose new street names based on lo- cal/regional personalities or historic events; – To build on historical and cultural tradi- tions of the city and the region. 2 Following these principles, the initial crite- rion of the street renaming was the ‘decom- munisation’ of street names and their replace- ment with ideologically neutral names (where possible) in order to achieve a certain level of sustainability and resilience. Sustainability and resilience in this context can be under- stood as a capacity of the city and its residents to resist and avoid name changes in the future and to build on the names that are stable and undisputable, which meant either using non- commemorative names or names reflecting local natural, historical and cultural heritage that was not connected to contested history and memory. The very first wave of the street renaming was done by a direct restoration of the names from the pre-socialist and older periods, based on geographical orientation. The second im- portant criterion was taking into account the historical identity of public spaces and local topography, and commemorating heritage of the city, the region and the country. The members of the committee agreed to bring old, locally used names back to the city centre and in particular cases to introduce new commemorative names. At the same time they proposed to use preferably non-commemo- rative names with a long(er)-term validity in the neighbourhoods further outside the city centre,3 which is in line with the observations of Gnatiuk, O. and Glybovets, V. (2020). Despite the approach of the committee, which did not expect any political intervention in their expert recommendations, the renam- ing of streets and squares in the central area turned into a power struggle for control over space and names between various ‘old’ and 2 Minutes from the Street-Naming Committee, 12 Janua- ry 1990. Archives of the Banská Bystrica Municipality. 3 Streets and squares in several neighbourhoods were given new names based on geographical identification (often following old topography names), industrial-he- ritage based names (following older economies of the neighbourhood such as mining or trading), names based on significant objects (such as the Court) or nature (garden, forest, trees, flowers etc.). 411Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417. ‘new’ groups. As Azaryahu has stated, ‘the se- lection of street names is a political procedure determined by ideological needs and political power relations’ (Azaryahu, M. 1997, 481). All new proposals made either by the com- mittee experts or individual citizens were pub- lished in local newspapers and open for pub- lic participation and debate, which was a very new idea in the early 1990s. Following this objective, the chair of the committee regularly published new street name proposals in the main local newspaper (Priekopník) with the aim to motivate the general public in taking part in a new process of participative street-naming (e.g. Odaloš, P. 1990a, b, c, d, e, 1991a, b, c, d). Soon after the November 1989, two groups emerged as the most active opponents to any change regarding street renaming: 1. the former communist city representatives, and 2. the Anti-Fascist Fighters Union (Zväz protifašistických bojovníkov) members. The for- mer communist officials protested against new names, especially those replacing the names of cities, events or figures of the for- mer Soviet Union or the names of the com- munist leaders (particularly Lenin). The other group – the former partisans who fought in the anti-fascist Slovak National Uprising dur- ing the WW2 – wanted to protect mainly ‘rev- olutionary’ names related to the Red Army as the liberator. These two groups managed to stop the renaming of the main square (the Slovak National Uprising Square). The pro- posal of the expert committee to change the square name to the commonly used Námestie (The Square) was motivated by the fact that the name was used by the local population in the local toponymy and local language for several centuries. The expert committee proposed to transfer the name of the Slovak National Uprising Square to another public space in the city, near the Slovak National Uprising Museum, however, after numeor- ous dicussions between the committee and two opposing groups, the expert committee gave up and agreed to keep the square name from the socialist period. The final argument was based on the fact that the Slovak National Uprising was internationally a highly respect- ed anti-Nazi movement of the WW2, and for these reasons its name was an acceptable and respected name for the central square name. Another contested site in the renaming con- flict was a site square in the castle area next to the central square named after the Soviet Red Army (Námestie Červenej Armády) – the army that liberated the city on 26 March 1945 togeth- er with the Romanian Army. After long dis- ussions within the Street-Naming Committee and following public discussions, the square was given a new name: Námestie Baníckeho pov- stania (The Miners’ Uprising Square), which referred to an important milestone in the me- dieval history of the city (1525–1526). Soon after the new street signs were installed on all corners of the square, the City Council sud- denly rejected the expert committee’s decision and the next day new signs were installed, car- rying the name Námestie Štefana Moyzesa (The Štefan Moyzes Square) (Photo 3), named after the Roman-Catholic bishop and the first chair of Matica slovenská (the cultural institution of the Slovaks in the 19th century). The Street- Naming Committee published a protest in the local newspaper and sent a letter to the Mayor. The City Council responded that the change was done as a response to citizens’ protests who lived on the square. In fact, there were no residential buildings on the square, it was only the Roman-Catholic Bishop’s Office that inter- vened in this case and managed to enforce the change of the square name (Odaloš, P. 1990d; Rada MsNV v Banskej Bystrici 1990). The examples of above mentioned practices demonstrate that the processes of renaming streets and squares in Banská Bystrica were marked by a power struggle between various groups presenting or occupying different power positions that tried to put a stamp of their collective memory, identity and heritage on public spaces and by doing so to gain a symbolic ownership of them. Michael Rothenberg desribes this as a competitive nature of contemporary public memory when different groups fight for rep- resentation in the public sphere and fear that their histories will be blocked out by the his- tories of other groups (Rothenberg, M. 2009). Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.412 The processes and practices of the street renaming were most turbulent in the first months and years of the 1990s. They showed lack of experiences in managing participa- tory methods of engaging citizens in local policies and practicies, however, they were the first attempts of involving local inhabit- ants into local governance. Power groups from the socialist period, but also new emerging groups (such as the church or other interest groups) were using their influence through the City Council as well as through print media in order to gain a symbolic control over public space. The pro- cess of the renaming was more or less final- ised within five years after 1989. In Banská Bystrica, by the end of January 1990, the first thirteen streets were renamed in the city cen- tre; by the end of September 1991, another nineteen streets were renamed in the sub- urbs, and by the end of 1995 – the last large wave of renaming happened – another eight streets were given new names (Forgács, J. 2020). This means that fourty public spaces were given new name out of hundred and fifty public places at the time (Table 1). In the years of the late 1990s, the target of public interest and criticism moved to the in- troduction of the names of newly developed neighbourhoods, buildings and complexes that rarely respect local topography and to- ponymy and carry mainly foreign names (such as Europa Shopping Center, Belveder, Antea, Proxima, and so on). This was closely related to the commodification of urban toponymy re- sulting from privatisation and commercialisa- tion of public places and place naming rights (Light, D. and Young, C. 2015a, b). According to the information from the municipality4, there have been 290 streets and squares in Banská Bystrica in 2022. The names in recently built neighbourhoods are primarily of non- commemorative nature, based on geography or geology related to mining history. 4 Interviews in March 2022. Photo 3. The Štefan Moyzes Square. Photo by Bitušíková, A. 2019. 413Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417. Ta bl e 1. E xa m pl es o f c ha ng es o f s tr ee t a nd s qu ar e na m es in c en tr al c it y ar ea A ro un d 1 58 9 (fi rs t c it y m ap ) 18 96 –1 91 9 19 19 –1 94 0s 19 50 s– 19 90 19 90 – R in g IV . B él a K ir ál y té r H la vn é ná m es ti e; M as ar yk ov o ná m es ti e, N ám es ti e A . H lin ku , N ám es ti e N ár od né ho p ov st an ia N ám es ti e Sl ov en sk éh o ná ro d né ho p ov st an ia (n o na m e) M át yá s té r H or né n ám es ti e, N ám es ti e Č er ve ne j a rm ád y N ám es ti e Č er ve ne j a rm ád y N ám es ti e B an íc ke ho p ov st an ia , N ám es ti e Št ef an a M oy se sa U nt er e G as se , Sp it al ga ss e K os su th L aj os u tc za D ol ná u lic a, M al in ov sk éh o ul ic a M al in ov sk éh o ul ic a D ol ná O be re G as se B et hl en G áb or u tc za H or ná u lic a, B en eš ov a ul ic a U lic a V . Š ir ok éh o, H or ná H or ná (n o na m e) Sz en t I st vá n té r D ol né n ám es ti e, H uš tá k, N ám es ti e S. H . V aj an sk éh o N ám es ti e S. H . V aj an sk éh o B ad en ga ss e K ár ol yi P ét er u tc za L az ov ná , U lic a M . R áz us a U lic a M . G or ké ho , L az ov ná L az ov ná O be re S ilb er ga ss e H ei nc zm an n A nd rá s ut cz a H or ná S tr ie bo rn á U lic a K . K al už ay a, H or ná S tr ie bo rn á H or ná S tr ie bo rn á U nt er e Si lb er ga ss e A ls ó ez üs t u tc za D ol ná S tr ie bo rn á St ri eb or ná , D ol ná S tr ie bo rn á D ol ná S tr ie bo rn á (n o na m e) E zü st K ap u té r St ri eb or né n ám es ti e, N ám es ti e 1. m áj a N ám es ti e 1. m áj a St ri eb or né n ám es ti e (n o na m e) K ör fa l u tc za K at ov ná K at ov ná (n o na m e) K er es zt u tc za K rí žn a U lic a J. W ol kr a, K rí žn a K rí žn a (n o na m e) D eá k Fe re nc z ut cz a Sú d ob ná , U lic a A . H it le ra , St al in ov a ul ic a St al in ov a, O br an co v m ie su Sk ut ec ké ho u lic a G ra ue r G as se W es se lé ny i F er en cz u tc za K ap it ul sk á, U lic a Š. M oy se sa U lic a B or is a P ol ev éh o, U lic a Š. M oy se sa K ap it ul sk á So ur ce : R oh ár ik , J . 1 99 5. Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417.414 Conclusions The renaming of streets during periods of social upheaval and transformation is hardly a new phenomenon. It has happened many times in history and is always related to power, iden- tity and momory. We might witness changes of public spaces and their names all over the world, yet, in post-socialist countries and their cities they showed specific features. According to Verdery, it is mainly the large extent, the sheer number (of torn down symbols) and magni- tude of the changes that led to radical reorgani- sation of socialist state systems and spatial and temporal orders in many countries, and – such as in the case of Czechoslovakia – even gave way to new nation-states (Verdery, K. 2000, 6). The struggle for new identity and memory in the city of Banská Bystrica did not differ significantly from similar struggles in other Central and Eastern European cities. It is mainly narratives and oral histories that dif- ferentiate one city from another, stories that produce and reproduce the past and bring it to the present. People have a tendency to re- turn to history, to celebrate what is not there any more, to idealise the past (or selected parts of the past), to remember ‘old’ places and events with nostalgia. Each of us builds and preserves our own, individual memories based on experiences that have been lived and accepted by a group in certain time and space. These memories are changeable. One of the characteristic features of memory is that it is selective, it may delete unpleasant moments, even rewrite history and lead to what Williams calls a false urban memory syndrome (Williams, A. 2005, 3). This pro- cess can be assisted and even enforced by various interest groups that fight for ‘their’ history, memory, places and symbols, e.g. by former communists or the church in case of Banská Bystrica. Experience from the former, but also ex- isting totalitarian regimes of Central and Eastern Europe (e.g. Russia or Belarus) clearly shows that collective memory and identity often become a tool of manipulation and power games. Facts and figures are re- written, changed, deleted or silenced in or- der to strengthen or change collective iden- tity of certain power groups or to mobilise people against an enemy or opposition. As Šubrt and Maslowski noted, explorations of memory always have important political con- notations and implications as numerous pas- sionate discussions about history and identity across Central and Eastern Europe demon- strate (Šubrt, J. and Maslowski, N. 2014, 281). Official institutions, particularly munici- pality representatives, try to re-produce col- lective memory and strenghten the feeling of local identity by reconstructing and re- or de- commemorating public spaces, introducing new names (but also erecting new memori- als, or organising activities and events), how- ever, they often succumb to the pressures of various groups when it comes to symbolic control over public space. In this article I ex- amined mainly processes and practices of the renaming of streets and squares in the early post-socialist period by presenting empirical material from the medium-size Slovak city of Banská Bystrica. I tried to demonstrate the process of street renaming and power strug- gles related to it that used heritage, memory and identity as a tool for gaining symbolic ownership over certain parts of history, and I also wanted to emphasise a growing involve- ment of the public in these processes. The renaming of streets in Banská Bystrica showed two main strategies. First, it was the decommunisation of names which was done either by the restoration of street names from the pre-socialist periods that were always used by the local population (particularly in the historic city centre) or by the introduc- tion of idelologically neutral new names (es- pecially in the neighbourhoods), based on geography or natural characteristics of the locality or the region (such as Green Street, Sunny Street, Chestnut Street, Tatra Street etc.). Second, the renaming of some streets or naming of newly developed squares or streets followed commemoration of per- sonalities, events or cultural, historical and natural heritage of the city, the region and the country. Unlike in some other post-socialist 415Bitušíková, A. Hungarian Geographical Bulletin 71 (2022) (4) 401–417. cities (e.g. Budapest or Bucharest) that used the opportunity to introduce a large num- ber of commemorative names from the pre- socialist periods (mainly from the so called ‘Golden Eras’ (e.g. Light, D. 2004; Palonen, E. 2008), in Banská Bystrica the ratio of com- memorative names remained rather low. The prevaling approach supported by the Street- Naming Committee was the restoration of pre-socialist commonly used names in central city areas and the introduction of non-com- memorative names in the neighbourhoods. This might be a difference between country capitals that tend to use more commemora- tive names in central areas of the city, and smaller or medium size cities that follow dif- ferent naming strategies, emphasising more local and regional personalities or events, or – more often – non-commemorative names. 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