toponymy

The article presents an analysis of the toponymy of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania in historical retrospect and the relationship with local memory politics. The practice of changing geographical names was carried out and continues to be carried out in line with the Baltic historical policy and such fundamental components as ethnocentrism, the fight against the consequences of “Soviet occupation” and decommunization. At the same time, toponymy was transformed most uniformly and consistently in Estonia and Latvia, due to similar historical development.

The present article is a part of a larger comparative study on the history of everyday life of the new urban area in the USSR during the Khrushchev thaw. The toponimy is the source for the reconstruction of a local variant of the reflection in the urban area of the course of the communism building. We used the methods of the new local history, new social history and theory of urban cultural space.