ABSTRACT
This chapter examines how history has been used as part of the spatial politics of memory of Nazi and Soviet regimes, inculcating their histories and traditions in the Krakow streetscape in Poland. It shows that emblematic of a critical geopolitics that examines the division and marking of space as a contest between us and them, and as crucial in the mitigation of threats to sovereignty and to the security of discourses of political domination. Key contribution in locating the politics of the urban streetscape is its spotlight on how history and geography are combined in the act of street naming, thereby legitimizing authority over urban space. The chapter explores the naming of streets in Krakow, using the 1934 map as a starting point as that year marked the start of national street name standardization and the creation of a Commission on Establishing the Names of Localities.
