Many streets, squares, parks and alleys in our city are named after Russian politicians, writers and artists who had no links to the Transcarpathian region or Uzhhorod. They are atavisms of that former policy to create a common all-Russian, all-Soviet cultural space. Lev Tolstoy never visited Transcarpathia or wrote about Uzhhorod, yet one of the city’s central streets bears his name.
This is but one example. Just imagine, in March 2022, Uzhhorod (Ukraine’s westernmost regional centre, located practically on the European Union border), a city that was never part of the Russian Empire, has streets named after: P. Bagration, A. Bestuzhev-Ryumin, A. Borodin, A. Chekhov, the crew of the SS Chelyuskin, N. Chernyshevsky, the Decembrists, M. Dobrolyubov, D. Donskoy, F. Dostoyevsky, Y. Gagarin, M. Glinka, A. Griboyedov, I. Krylov, M. Lermontov, M. Lomonosov, A. Maresyev, D. Mendeleev, I. Michurin, A. Mozhaysky, M. Mussorgsky, Admiral Nakhimov, N. Nekrasov, N. Ogarov, I. Pavlov, A. Pushkin, A. Radishchev, S. Razin, K. Ryleyev, M. Saltykov-Shchedrin, I. Sechenov, I. Shishkin, A. Stoletov, V. Surikov, P. Tchaikovsky, K. Timiryazev, L. Tolstoy, K. Tsiolkovsky, I. Turgenev, and V. Vereshchagin…
Most Uzhhoroders, particularly the intelligentsia, approved of our initiative, though some remarked sacramentally that it’s ‘not time’. Yet we propose to rename those streets in a civilised manner, in honour of the Transcarpathian and Ukrainian heroes who gave their lives on the front lines, eminent Ukrainian cultural and historical names who were banned under the Soviets, and famous Transcarpathian cultural figures. Let’s be fair, although they’re unlikely to name a street after a forgotten Transcarpathian writer in Cherkasy or Berdiansk, let alone Poznań or Paris, we certainly can and should honour them ourselves. Instead, our streets are named after Saltykov-Shchedrin, Ryleyev, and Lev Tolstoy… But when will we see a street in honour of our outstanding writer Ivan Chendei?!
Even with the Russians bombing them, some people still believe it’s ‘not time’ for Ukrainian culture, and we shouldn’t provoke the Russians, or they will use the renaming of streets or removal of Pushkin statues from city centres as part of their propaganda. For the Russians, meanwhile, it’s the perfect time, because scarcely had they entered temporarily occupied Ukrainian cities, when they started tearing down street signs, inspecting libraries, and destroying Ukrainian history textbooks!