Re/naming as colonization and imperial practice. The case of Transcarpathia of the second half of the 19th – middle of the 20th century

Abstrakt

The paper explores the benefit of tracing the historical renaming policies, as it gives important clues to what successive regimes considered crucial to remember and what needed to be forgotten. Historical narratives were perennially redrafted on signs and maps throughout history, and Transcarpathia was claimed and reclaimed, moved from one empire to the next, without a single river being diverted or a shovel of dirt being moved. The paper explores how the identity of people and places are often held hostage by naming practices. This process continues today in using “the” to relegate the sovereign state territory to the status of something less than its belligerent neighbour.