The Influence of Toponymy on the Identity of City Residents (Based on Materials from Irkutsk)

Abstract

The article considers the urban toponymy of Irkutsk. Features of formation and development, features of influence on the identity of inhabitants and prospects of transformation are analyzed. Also, legislative contradictions are shown. In the present work, the phenomenon of the influence of toponymic heritage on the city and townspeople is considered, as well as the attitude of the society to the toponymy issues. By now, many organizations have been formed in Russia (including in Irkutsk), public associations whose activities are aimed at changing the urban image and the urban environment by correcting certain elements of urban toponymy. These associations have scales of directed activity from local (correction of toponymy in concrete settlements), to national (liquidation of concrete toponyms on the scale of the country). All this leads to the phenomenon, which is quite often encountered in post-Soviet Russia - renaming of streets, squares and squares, settlements, etc. One of the most frequent claims of proponents of street renaming is the discrepancy between the cultural and historical content of the city and its toponymic textual image. The work shows that the names of urban toponyms in Irkutsk, neither culturally, nor even historically, correspond to its real historical shape. There is a violation of the «myth of urban culture» (the unity of the name and space of the city), which ultimately affects the perception of the city by its inhabitants, as well as by the guests of the city - by tourists making a material contribution to the development of the city. In this regard, there is a need for toponymic restoration in Irkutsk. At the moment in the vast majority of Irkutsk toponyms there is no response of textual images in the cultural and historical context of the city. However, as shown by the analysis of the historical center of the city, among the «Soviet» names there are still harmonious symbolic images that carry positive information about the history of Irkutsk, confirming its historical status.

Keywords

• identity
• ideology
• toponymy
• self-perception
• streets
• urban space