ABSTRACT
On the example of six metropolitan centers, including Groznyy, Vladikavkaz, Makhachkala, Magas, Nal’chik, and Cherkessk, the chapter focuses on the policy of identity and memory in relation to their toponymic space. The author believes that the post-Soviet toponymy of the North Caucasus represents the symbolic way of arrangement and entrenchment in the urban space of social practices and beliefs of local elites and other social groups in regard to constructing identity and memory. Drawing on the concept of space of places, Bourdieu’s theory of social space, and relevant ideas of the geography of identity, the article presents the main results of symbolic changes. The symbolic revolution in the toponymic space goes in parallel with de-Sovietization, decommunization, de-atheization, and ideological decolonization, as well as revising the structure of urbanonyms in favor of local, anthroponymic, ethnocultural, and regional toponyms. In addition to active strategies in the toponymic policy, the chapter reveals the conservation strategies and attempts to neo-Sovietize the body of urbanonyms.
