Politike simbola na gradskim ulicama: obrasci preimenovanja javnih prostora u postjugoslovenskim zemljama
THE POLITICS OF SYMBOLS IN CITY STREETS: PATTERNS OF RENAMING THE PUBLIC SPACE IN POST􀇧YUGOSLAV COUNTRIES

Summary/Abstract: Street renaming as a symbolic practice of identity politics has been studied in Croatian and other ethnologies/anthropologies in this part of Europe since the 1990s, facilitated by the so-called spatial turn in the social sciences and humanities. Academic interest in these politics of (public) space emerged with the mass renaming of streets, squares, neighbourhoods, even entire towns, which began in the 1990s, when these practices were determined by the overall transformation of the political and economic (the "transition" from socialism to capitalism) and national paradigm (the breakup of Yugoslavia and the establishment of new independent states). Being one of the many modes of novel identity and memory politics, "street spatialization" of ideology was intensively pursued (as in the earlier historical periods), with certain similarities, but also differences when compared to the other former socialist countries in Europe. Having in mind the contents and the scale of these recent interventions in the symbolic public space, one can distinguish three prevailing patterns of street renaming in the post-Yugoslav states (which were characteristic of certain countries and periods, with inevitable exceptions): partial correction of memory of socialism and modification of national narratives, comprehensive erasing of spatial marks on the recent past and substantial remaking of national imagery, and a complete break from the spatial symbolism of the previous epoch primarily serving the newest ethno-political goals. These patterns were implemented in various periods in the last 25 years, and while they might seem very contemporary and characteristic of the Yugoslav successor-states, they usually represent spatial-political practices already implemented in the earlier periods and in other European countries.

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