The impact of Ukraine’s decommunization law on street names in Hungarian-populated settlements in Transcarpathia

Abstract

At the turn of 2013–2014, Ukraine began to break completely with its Soviet legacy – also known as decommunization – as part of the “Revolution of Dignity”. This led to the passing of Law No. 317 on 9 April 2015, which condemned communist and National Socialist totalitarian regimes and prohibited the use of their symbols. This study examines the changes to street names that occurred during the period of conflict in eastern Ukraine following the November 2013 protests, i.e. from early 2014 to 2022. The study was conducted in settlements where the Hungarian ethnic minority comprised more than 10% of the population according to the most recent official census, conducted in 2001. Between 2014 and 2022, 88 streets in 40 of the surveyed settlements were renamed. Of these, the renaming of 79 streets in 38 settlements was directly attributable to the decommunization law. The study discusses the stock of the renamed streets, the ideological implications of the chosen replacement names, and the changes that occurred during the implementation of the law.