The Historical and Cultural Aspect of the Naming of Streets in the Contemporary City of Brest

Abstract

The city of Brest, which is approaching its thousandth anniversary, throughout its history was part of several states: Kievan Ruś, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and in 1795 was incorporated into the Russian Empire. In the 20th century, the city was part of Poland (1919–1939), part of the Soviet Union (1939–1941) as a newly formed regional centre of the BSSR; it was under German occupation (1941–1944), part of the Soviet Union (1944–1991), and since 1991 has been part of the independent Republic of Belarus. This paper uses a cultural-historical approach to study the names of intra-city linear objects of present-day Brest. The research data were 51 street names coined in the 21th century, which were subjected to semantic analysis. The obtained results indicate that nominators continue to use the ‘nominal’ model popular in the 20th century. In particular, the names of recent hodonyms commemorate people who had glorified Brest and its region during the 1941–1944 military actions (Ju. Vinnik, V. Puganov, M. Kryštofovič), as well as such a significant for the city historical event as the battle of Grünwald in 1410. The modern streets have been named after the persons whose fates had been closely connected with the city as their place of residence or with other activity for the development of the post-war Brest (V. Machnovič, V. Hadzietski). There is also a group of street names commemorating surnames: of Belarusian writers (N. Zasim, V. Kalieśnik, I. Melež) and Russian writers (S. Esenin, A. Platonov, A. Griboedov) as well as the Polish historian and social activist (J.- U. Niemcewicz). The 19th century urban street names include various ecclesiastical names, motivated either by names of church buildings (Illinskaja St., Irininskaja St., Pakroŭskaja St.) or by proximity to a nearby confessional object (Hieorhieŭskaja St., Raždzestvenskaja St., Serafim Saoŭskaja St.). For the first time anthroponymic names commemorating Orthodox Christian saints appeared on the map of Brest (Boris, Vladimir, Tatiana). The second attempt to revive the Belarusian language (1991) led to recording official names both in Belarusian and in Russian. Since then, only one name in Belarusian, Staražytnaja Street (Belarusian: Starazhytny – Russian: Ancient) has replenished the list. This name precisely reflects the character of the city, which has witnessed several centuries of complicated history.