Street names in Bucharest, 1990–1997: exploring the modern historical geographies of post-socialist change

Journal of Historical Geography 30 (2004) 154–172 www.elsevier.com/locate/jhg

Street names in Bucharest, 1990 –1997: exploring the modern historical geographies of post-socialist change Duncan Light Department of Geography, School of Sciences and Social Sciences, Liverpool Hope University College, Hope Park, Liverpool L16 9JD, UK

Abstract The renaming of streets is a significant, if often overlooked, aspect of post-socialist change in Central and Eastern Europe and the Former Soviet Union. Such renamings are one manifestation of the ‘reconfiguring’ of both space and history which is a central component of post-socialist transformations. Street name changes are part of the process of creating new public iconographic landscapes which accord with the values of post-socialist regimes and the study of such changes can offer significant insights into ways in which post-socialist states are redefining national identities and national pasts. This paper focuses on the renaming of streets in Bucharest, Romania over the 1990 –1997 period as one component of the ‘modern historical geographies’ of post-socialist change. A central theme in street name changes has been the evocation of the pre-socialist period, which has been increasingly constructed in terms of Romania’s ‘Golden Age’. q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Introduction Toponomy has long been of interest to historical geographers, but in recent years place names have also received the attention of political and cultural geographers.1 As Nash argues place names ‘at once both material and metaphorical, substantive and symbolic… are all about questions of power, culture, location and identity’.2 Less attention, however, has been paid to street names: indeed, at first glance, street names may seem a trivial topic of investigation. While street names serve the purpose of orientation within the built environment they also have a wider significance. Those names which commemorate key events or personalities from a country’s history are a manifestation of political order, and can be significant expressions of national identity with a powerful symbolic importance.3 They represent a particular view of the national past which is directly mapped onto urban geography. Tel.: 151-291-3043; fax: 151-291-3172. E-mail address: [email protected] (D. Light). 0305-7488/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/S0305-7488(02)00102-0

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However, street names are not eternal. A change in political order is frequently accompanied by the redefining of the national past: through the renaming of streets, new narratives of national history and identity are inscribed onto the urban landscape. One of the most striking recent examples has been in the context of post-socialist change in Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) and the former Soviet Union. In a highly original analysis, Katherine Verdery argues that the ‘reconfiguration’ of space and time (at both ‘popular’ and ‘official’ levels) is one of the key components of post-socialist transformations.4 Street names, representing the intersection of geography and national history, are ideal sites through which to explore such ‘modern historical geographies’ of post-socialist change.5 In this paper I consider the officially sponsored renaming of streets in Romania’s capital, Bucharest, after 1989 in the context of wider social and political transformations, particularly post-socialist identity-building.

Street names, national identity and post-socialist change Political order and the urban landscape are closely interlinked. In particular, political power is frequently manifest and institutionalised through the mobilisation of a variety of symbols in the urban landscape. Many political orders seek to mark or signify urban space in particular rhetorical ways, in order to saturate it with particular values.6 Since history is integral to legitimating political identities, one of the most widespread ways of signifying urban space takes the form of commemoration or memorialisation of the ‘national’ past. This takes a variety of forms but is most often expressed through the raising of statues, memorials and other public monuments.7 Such official public landscapes serve to project hegemonic narratives of national history and identity onto physical territory8 so that particular urban spaces come to encapsulate national memory and act as reference points for the building of popular allegiances.9 Moreover, by concretising a particular interpretation of the national past, statues and other monuments are one of the means through which national identities are renewed and reproduced. In recent years geographers have devoted increasing attention to issues of memory and commemoration10 and much of their work has asserted that geography, far from being an incidental backdrop, is itself a significant constitutive element of the process of commemoration.11 Naming streets is another way in which political orders attempt to inscribe public space with particular meanings. In this context, the work of Azaryahu is particularly important in elucidating the political significance of street names.12 The primary purpose of these names is for spatial orientation within the built environment. As such, many names are primarily for identification (for example, ‘High Street’) and have little or no political resonance. However, for several centuries it has been common practice to name streets after people, events or places which have particular significance within a national history. Such commemorative street names are another way of institutionalising a particular narrative of national history through introducing it into the everyday consciousness of the urban populace. However, such street names are manifestations of a particular, authorised narrative of history which is canonised or reified in the urban landscape: as such they serve to legitimate hegemonic structures of power and authority through the symbolic control of public space.13 Street names are one way of ‘concretising’ the dominant ideology,14 serving to maintain an ‘unending visual contract’ between rulers and ruled (as Pipiddi has argued in a related context).15 Commemorative street names, then, illustrate how power is manifest in the most seemingly banal of settings.16 However street names— like other public memorialisations of a nation—are subject to multiple readings and interpretations.8

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As such, they may become the focus of struggle and resistance over the significance of the past which they commemorate.17 Moreover, street names are not immutable. Since political order is manifest in the uses of both landscape and history4 a change in this order will somehow be expressed in the urban landscape. As such, Azaryahu3 identifies changes to street names as being one of the ‘rituals of revolution’,18 which accompany—and attempt to institutionalise—political or revolutionary change. Renaming streets is a relatively straightforward and rapid process and an immediate public declaration that a change of regime has taken place.3 In addition, changing the names of streets (particularly in capital cities, or those locations most closely associated with political change) can have a powerful propagandist effect. Azaryahu argues: in a revolutionary context the renaming of streets, in addition to the more spectacular pulling-down of monuments, is an act of political propaganda with immense proclamative value and public resonance. Through renamings, the new regime proclaims the beginning of a new era while demonstrating both its resoluteness and its self-confidence… renaming streets is both a celebration of triumph and a mechanism for settling scores with the vanquished regime.19 Renaming streets involves simultaneous processes of de-commemoration and a new commemoration.20 The new name may reflect a radically different narrative of national history, and may be a component of a broader process of redefining senses of national identity. Thus, replacing one set of street names with another set entails inscribing discourses and counter-discourses of power and identity onto topography.21 Again, the acceptance of the new names may not be universal and newly renamed streets may become the focus of dissent and contestation. The issue of changing street names has particular pertinence in those formerly socialist countries of CEE which, since the collapse of state socialism, have been in ‘transition’ to new political and economic forms of organisation. Verdery argues that there has been a tendency to conceive post-socialist transformations in overly-narrow terms, involving purely ‘technical’ processes (such as the establishment of democratic politics and a functioning market economy).22 However, she argues that such transformations have far broader significance: ‘post-socialist change…is a problem of reorganization on a cosmic scale, and it involves the redefinition of virtually everything…a reordering of people’s entire meaningful worlds’.23 In particular, Verdery argues that one of the key components of post-socialist change is the redefining—or reconfiguring—of both time and space.23 The reconfiguring of time in post-socialist CEE finds its most common expression in the revision and rewriting of national histories. As recent discussion of identity-building has recognised, the construction of national identities is based as much on forgetting the past as on commemorating it24 and throughout CEE and the former Soviet Union (FSU) post-socialist political identities have been constructed based on an explicit rejection of the socialist past.25 Thus socialist era history books disappeared from the shelves and museums closed their galleries which dealt with the socialist period. Accompanying the rejection of the socialist past is a return to the pre-socialist period for inspiration. One way to ‘overcome’ the socialist period is to turn the clock back to the situation before the Communist Party take over of power. By returning to the pre-World War Two situation, history is treated as ‘resuming’ its former course and of taking the direction it would have taken were it not for the ‘aberration’ of the socialist period. Verdery argues:

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This practice reveals an interesting conception of time, in which time is not fixed and irreversible. One can pick up the time line, snip out and discard the communist piece of it that one no longer wishes to acknowledge, paste the severed ends together, and hey presto! one has a new historical time line. One has not accepted and incorporated the recent past, one has simply excised it. Excising the communist period often occurs by treating it as an aberration; throughout the former socialist bloc one hears repeatedly that what everyone wants now is to repossess a ‘normal past’ and weave it into ‘normal’ presents and futures.26 Similarly, space is being reconfigured in the post-socialist period as the ‘official iconographic landscapes’27 of state socialism are being reconstructed. This takes many forms, the most conspicuous of which is the removal of the public statuary and monuments which commemorated socialist heroes and achievements, while new monuments are erected in their places.28 Other examples include the attempts to create new meanings for monumental socialist-era structures,29 or the efforts to reconnect with the pre-socialist past through the reconstruction of iconic buildings that had previously been demolished by socialist regimes.30 However, the post-socialist reconfiguring of space involves more than simply the removal of the old symbols of collective memory and their replacement with new ones. As Argenbright’s stimulating analysis of Moscow shows31 public spaces—formerly regarded only as the domain of the state—are increasingly being used as the places to realise new personal identities and to redefine senses of self. So too is the post-socialist remaking of public spaces leading to the reformulating of local senses of identity.32 Moreover, the rise of private enterprise in post-socialist cities has generated new uses and understandings of the significance of urban space.31 Representing the intersection of national history and urban landscape, it is hardly surprising that street names came under close scrutiny after the collapse of socialism. Indeed throughout CEE and the FSU, changing the names of streets (and indeed other public spaces such as parks, squares and markets) was among the earliest responses to the collapse of socialist regimes.33 Such renamings were a small but highly symbolic statement with a high propagandist impact that history had changed course. Manifest through street renamings, a new history, which celebrated new heroes and events, was demonstrably ‘in place’.34 The revising of street names offered a rapid way for post-socialist administrations to affirm and legitimate the presence of a new political order with a new agenda, aspirations and orientation. In addition, street names also have a demonstrative effect for foreign visitors. Although street name changes may cause tourists some difficulties in negotiating the city (especially if maps do not present the new street names), the very fact that socialist-era names have been replaced, along with the presence of the new names also serves to emphasise to the visitor that the country is no longer socialist. For example, Bucharest’s Piat¸a Revolut¸iei (Revolution Square)—the central location of the collapse of Ceaus¸escu’s regime in 1989—loudly declaims to the visitor that Romania has ‘changed’. Geographers have examined place/street names in a variety of contexts including colonialism,35 post-colonialism36 and state formation.37 However, although recent work on the changing public landscapes of post-socialist cities38 has alluded to street name changes, there has been little detailed examination of how the process of renaming streets has unfolded in particular cities. One relevant study has examined street name changes in East Berlin in the context of German reunification.3 Two differing approaches to street renamings were identified: one favouring a radical and complete reconfiguration of the street names inherited from the former German Democratic Republic, the other favouring a more minimalist approach. The minimalist approach prevailed and fewer than 80 of Berlin’s streets were renamed.

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In the remainder of this paper I focus on the ways in which street names have changed in Romania’s capital, Bucharest. Various processes of de-commemoration and re-commemoration are considered in the context of Romania’s efforts to redefine itself in the aftermath of state socialism. However, to establish the background to this process some consideration of the inheritance of the socialist period (1947– 1989) is also necessary.

Historical background: street names in socialist Bucharest Cities occupied a place of unique importance in socialist regimes39 and the symbolic control of urban space was part of the hegemonic process of building socialism. Consequently, following the proclamation of the Romanian People’s Republic in 1947, the new regime rapidly set about marking its presence in the urban landscape of Bucharest. The naming and renaming of streets was one way in which the regime sought to institutionalise the ideology and dogma of socialism and to demonstrate its new allegiances. The process of renaming streets needs to be considered in the context of the socialist regime’s attempt to rewrite Romanian history.40 In order to legitimate its leading role, the Romanian Workers’ Party sought to discredit the former regimes by presenting them as exploitative and oppressive, while presenting the People’s Republic as the culmination of the country’s historical development. At a time when Romania was almost completely subordinated to the Soviet Union,41 Romanian historians sought to stress historical and cultural ties with Russia, and to downplay historical links with Western Europe.42 Several trends were apparent in the renaming of Bucharest’s streets. The first was the decommemoration of pre-socialist political orders. Consequently, the central boulevards named after Romania’s monarchs and pre-socialist politicians were swiftly given new names, which were often overtly ideological proclamations. For example Bulevardul Carol I (named after Romania’s first king) became Bulevardul Republicii (Boulevard of the Republic). In a clear illustration of the regime’s reinterpretation of history, other central boulevards named after pre-socialist political leaders were renamed after figures from the 1848 revolutions in Romania. Such figures—most notably Nicolae Ba˘lcescu—were presented by socialist historiography as exemplary revolutionaries.43 Accompanying the de-commemoration of former regimes, the socialist authorities also commemorated key dates in the formation of the People’s Republic. These included: 6 March (the date in 1945 of the formation of the first communist-dominated government); 30 December (the date of the proclamation of the Republic in 1947); and 11 June (after the nationalisation of industry in 1948). The regime also celebrated its own leaders and prominent boulevards were renamed after Dr Petru Groza and Gheorghe Gheorghiu-Dej. Many other socialist and communist activists (many of them virtually unknown outside the circles of the Romanian Worker’s Party) were commemorated in smaller and less central streets. Romania’s fidelity to the Soviet Union was also expressed through street name changes. Thus, a prominent square and boulevard in the north of Bucharest took the name of Bulevardul Generalissmul Stalin. Other streets took the names of Soviet generals or figures from Russian political and cultural life. Soviet influence was most evident in the administrative reform of Bucharest in 1950 in which the former sectors (sectoare) of the city were renamed Raioane (following the term used in Soviet urban planning). When, in the mid 1960s, the Romanian leadership sought to draw away from the Soviet Union and assert

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its national independence many of the streets which commemorated Soviet communists were renamed for a second time. A further round of attributing street names followed the rapid industrialisation of Bucharest from the 1960s onwards. Numerous new estates were built on the margins of the city and many streets were given names with particular ideological resonances. Some took abstract names which reflected the agenda of socialism, especially the importance of modernisation. These include, for example, Intrarea Reconstruct¸iei (Reconstruction Entrance). Other names reflected the importance attached to the working class, such as Strada Muncitorului (Street of the Worker), while others took their names from a wide range of skills or professions, such as Strada Turna˘torilor (Street of the Foundry Workers). Other names reflected the process of ‘building’ socialism—such as Bulevardul Constructorilor (Boulevard of the builders) or more prosaically, Aleea Macaralei (Alley of the overhead cranes)! Others reflected the ideals of the socialist lifestyle such as Strada Ordinei (The Street of Order). Thus, four decades of state socialism produced a highly distinctive toponymy in Bucharest. However, by the late 1980s the regime of Nicolae Ceaus¸escu had become one of the most oppressive in the socialist world, with Romanians suffering unprecedented poverty and hardship. Having long lost all legitimacy in the eyes of the population, the regime was reliant on repression and harassment to suppress dissent. In this context, the street names of Bucharest which celebrated socialist achievements were regarded by an alienated and disenfranchised urban population as further symbols of an oppressive and detested regime.

Renaming streets after 1989: the administrative process Ceaus¸escu’s totalitarian regime collapsed in the ‘Revolution’ of December 1989 and a group calling itself the National Salvation Front (NSF) led by Ion Iliescu took over the government of the country. Similarly, NSF committees took control of local councils including the Bucharest Prima˘rie (city hall).44 Recognising the overwhelming public mood for a break from socialism the NSF loudly committed itself to political and economic reform but it soon became clear that the Front was dominated by middleranking members of the Romanian Communist Party, intent on replacing Ceaus¸escu but reluctant to abandon socialism. In early 1990, the NSF’s primary concern was to consolidate its hold on power and prepare for forthcoming elections. Perhaps unsurprisingly, given its roots within the former regime, the NSF seems to have been slow to recognise the need to remake the official public landscape of socialism. There was no early attempt to rename boulevards in Bucharest which commemorated prominent communists (although in February the Prima˘rie invited suggestions from the public for new names45). Similarly, contrary to the widespread belief that the toppling of statues of Communist leaders was one of the first responses to the collapse of socialist regimes, a statue of Lenin in Bucharest survived unscathed until March 1990. At the end of February crowds began to protest in front of the statue demanding its removal. The provisional government belatedly took action and, on Iliescu’s suggestion, the statue was removed (with some difficulty) on 3 March.46 This event seems to have impressed on the NSF the importance of reconfiguring the symbolic landscape of the former regime. Shortly afterwards, it issued a decree-law (no. 100 of 14 March 1990)47 which addressed the naming and renaming of places. This devolved responsibility for the renaming of streets and other public places to the level of the county Primars (mayors) and to the Primar of Bucharest. The decree-law required each county hall to establish a commission of 7 –9 specialists from

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various disciplines, with the county deputy-Primar as president. The public, along with other interested bodies (such as the Romanian Academy) were invited to make recommendations to the commissions concerning street name changes. The commissions could able to propose changes on their own initiative. For a public with almost no experience of democratic politics, the opportunity to participate in decisions concerning the environment in which they lived marked a clear break with Ceaus¸escu’s regime and for many would have been evidence that they were living in a democratic Romania. However, for the NSF, the devolving of relatively unimportant decisions such as street names to the local level was a way of satisfying demands for democracy whilst enabling it to retain as much ‘real’ political and economic power in its own hands. Moreover, since the members of the Commission were appointed by the Primar, the NSF was in a position to ensure that the renaming of streets was in accordance with the values of the ruling elite.48 In Bucharest a commission for naming the city’s streets had been in existence since before the socialist period, but it was reconstituted in 1990 with the title Comisia pentru studierea, atribuirii s¸i schimbarii de denumiri de stra˘zi, piet¸e, s¸i de obiective de interes local (Commission for the study, attribution and change of the names of streets, markets and objects of local interest). The Bucharest public responded enthusiastically to the opportunity to participate in the renaming of the City’s streets and in the following years over 10 000 suggestions for street name changes were received.49 However, most of these proposals were rejected by the Commission: only 288 of Bucharest’s 4369 streets50 (6.6%) were renamed over the 1990– 1997 period.51 While evidently limited in scope, the renaming of streets in Bucharest has been more extensive than in other post-socialist capitals (for example there were fewer than 80 renamings in Berlin and 153 in Moscow, both larger cities52). The majority of renaming activity took place in the early post-socialist period, with over half of all renamings being approved in 1990 and 1991 (see Table 1). Renaming was scaled down in 1992 to avoid confusion over addresses in the forthcoming census.53 In the local elections of 1992 the opposition Democratic Convention of Romania (DCR) won control of the Bucharest Prima˘rie which may account for the increase in renamings in 1993, but thereafter the process tailed off and by 1997 the ideologically motivated renaming of streets was complete.54 The renaming of streets has continued after 1997 but on a much reduced scale and the main activity of the street names Commission has been assigning names to newly created streets. Each of the 288 street name changes between 1990 and 1997 represents a particular instance of de-commemoration and (re)commemoration. Not all changes were motivated by the desire to Table 1 Street name changes in Bucharest by year Year

Number of renamings approved by Bucharest Prima˘rie

1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 No data

122 33 18 44 18 32 7 6 8

(42.4%) (11.4%) (6.3%) (15.4%) (6.3%) (11.1%) (2.4%) (2.1%) (2.8%)

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de-commemorate socialism. Some renaming was undertaken to clarify the chaotic situation in central Bucharest where Ceaus¸escu’s massive redevelopment of the city55 had severed many streets and left them without names. Other streets were renamed simply because a particular name was wanted for another street elsewhere in the city. In other cases, seemingly inoffensive names with no ideological resonances were changed for reasons which are unclear. However, underpinning all street renaming was the desire that the official public landscape of Bucharest should demonstrate Romania’s post-socialist orientation and aspirations. There are several clear trends in evidence: the commemoration of the 1989 revolution; the restoration of former street names and the re-commemoration of the pre-socialist period.

Commemorating the 1989 revolution The 1989 revolution is the defining moment in recent Romanian history: indeed it enjoys the status of the ‘foundation myth’ of post-Ceaus¸escu Romania.56 The reputation of the revolution has been subsequently tarnished by allegations that it was more of a Coup d‘e´tat by a group of reform-minded communists than a true popular revolution.57 Nevertheless, in the early 1990s, the ideals of the revolution—for which more than 1000 people lost their lives—were widely regarded as the basis for making a new Romania. The NSF derived much of its legitimacy through its claim to be the standardbearer of the revolution and the voice of those who had protested on the streets.58 The Front was therefore eager to promote the myth of the ‘people’s’ revolution and early in 1990 it announced several populist measures to commemorate the events of December 1989.59 These included the first street renaming of the new order in which Piat¸a Gheorghiu-Dej in Bucharest (the location of the former Communist Party headquarters and the scene of much of the fighting in December 1989) was renamed ‘Piat¸a Revolut¸iei’ (Revolution Square). Over the following year a further 29 streets were renamed to commemorate the revolution. In March 1990, three major boulevards in the west of Bucharest were renamed after cities (Timis¸oara, Bras¸ov and Sibiu) where many had died in the fighting. All three had formerly been named after leading Romanian communists and renaming them was a clear way of marking a break with the past. A fourth boulevard was named after General Vasile Milea, regarded by many as a hero for refusing to follow Ceaus¸escu’s orders to open fire on demonstrators, an action which cost him his life. Later in 1990, 23 smaller streets were renamed after individuals who had died in the revolution, following requests by their relatives to the street names commission. The renamed streets are grouped together in four areas in outlying residential estates of the city. The victims of the revolution are buried at a cemetery in the south of the city, where the metro station has been renamed Eroii Revolut¸iei (Heroes of the Revolution). These renamings illustrate how, in a similar way to the commemoration of war dead, the remembrance of victims of the revolution has become a public, collective event as much as a private and personal affair.60 While the renaming of streets and squares in Bucharest to commemorate the events of December 1989 may have been an attempt by the NSF elite to canonise the ‘authorised’ narrative of the revolution in the Bucharest landscape, it was only partially successful. Official commemoration of the revolution has focused on Piat¸a Revolut¸iei (the site of a government-sponsored memorial) but the square has failed to become the focus of widespread popular allegiance. Instead, perhaps indicating the ambivalence felt by many Bucharesters towards the official account of the revolution, Piat¸a Revolut¸iei has been eclipsed by the nearby Piat¸a 22 decembrie 1989 (renamed in 1991). The scene of many deaths during the revolution

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and the centre of subsequent protests against the NSF, this square has emerged as a more informal space of popular remembrance of the revolution and its ideals.

(Re)Commemorating the pre-socialist period After 1989 Romania’s socialist past virtually disappeared from popular and official discourses within the country. Given the privation and repression of Ceaus¸escu’s regime most Romanians were eager to forget the recent past. Despite its roots in the socialist past, the NSF recognised that there was nothing to be gained from defending socialism64 and they too sought to bury the past and blend into the present.62 In rejecting their country’s recent history many in Romania looked to the pre-socialist period for inspiration. Such an evocation of the pre-socialist period is not unique to Romania but instead is found widely throughout the post-socialist world.63 In Bucharest it is expressed through street name changes in two ways: first, in the direct restoration of the street names which existed before the Communist Party takeover in 1947; and second, in the renaming of streets to commemorate events or personalities from the early twentieth century. Restoring pre-socialist street names The practice of restitution has been a significant component of post-socialist reform in Romania as elsewhere in CEE. For example, legislation passed since 1990 has provided for the (partial) restoration of both property and agricultural land to the original owners and their descendents. In both cases, what has been regarded as ‘justice’ has been the recreation (as far as is possible) of the situation which had existed before the formation of the socialist state. The same attitude is apparent with regard to street renaming: a set of guidelines for renaming streets published by Bucharest Prima˘rie in 199364 explicitly stated that streets should return to their ‘traditional’ (pre-World War Two) names. However, this restoration has been partial: 171 of the streets renamed between 1990 and 1997 were in existence before the socialist period and of these, 67 (39.2%) have returned to their pre-War names.65 The largest category (29) of restored street names is those with religious significance (commemorating saints, bishops or churches). Many of these were changed relatively late in the socialist period and were among the first streets to be renamed in 1990. Adherence to the Church (more specifically in Bucharest, the Orthodox Church) is for many in Romania a central element of ‘Romanianness’.66 During the socialist period the professedly atheist regime tolerated but did not encourage the church: after 1989, adherence to the Orthodox Church has grown rapidly.67 The restoration of street names with religious resonances was a rapid way of asserting, not only that Romanians had recovered a core element of identity which had been distorted under socialism, but also that Romania had rejoined ‘Christian’ Europe. A further 14 restored street names re-commemorate major Liberal and Conservative politicians and state-builders from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Foremost among these figures is the Liberal politician Ion C Bra˘tianu (1821– 1891) whose name was returned to a major boulevard in the city centre (see Fig. 1). Many of those re-commemorated were excised from the historical narrative by socialist-era historical revisionism and the return of these street names is a part of the wider process of ‘correcting’ the rewriting of history by the socialists. Moreover, the re-commemoration of such figures

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Fig. 1. Street renamings in central Bucharest after 1989.

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also has the advantage of affirming Romania’s post-socialist democratic aspirations by celebrating its pre-socialist democratic politicians. Similarly, the names of two of Romania’s four kings (Carol I and Ferdinand) and their queens were restored to prominent boulevards in the centre of Bucharest. However, these renamings were more strongly contested and the pre-War names were not restored until 1995. The delay must be considered in the context of the hostility of the NSF and its successor parties towards the monarchy. While the contributions of Carol I (reigned 1866– 1914) and Ferdinand (1914–1927) to the formation of the modern Romanian state were difficult to overlook, the NSF was, true to its roots, profoundly republican. In the early 1990s, one focus of opposition to the NSF centred on the figure of Romania’s last king, Mihai, who was forced to abdicate in 1947. The former king became a powerful symbol of anticommunist resistance in the early 1990s68 and, fearing a challenge to its legitimacy and authority, the NSF repeatedly blocked Mihai’s attempts to visit Romania after 1990. In these circumstances the restoration of Carol I’s name to the ultra-central Bulevardul Republicii was unacceptable to the NSF. It was not until monarchist sentiment in Romania had subsided and the opposition DCR had control of Bucharest city hall that Romania’s monarchs were fully re-commemorated (see Fig. 1). However, the restoration of pre-socialist street names has been selective: 81 streets did not return to their pre-war names. The reasons for non-restoration are diverse. In 21 cases the former street names were simply labels combining the name of the district and a letter (e.g. Grant Railway Quarter, Street G). In other cases, the former name commemorated a person or event now largely forgotten and not considered of sufficient importance to re-commemorate (for example, Gheorghe Buzdogan, a member of the Regency Council between 1927 and 1930). In other cases, the original name had been allocated to another street elsewhere in the city and its restoration would mean two streets with the same name. However, in some cases, the restoration of the pre-socialist name commemorates an individual whom there is little desire to remember. The foremost example in Bucharest is Romania’s third monarch. Carol II (reigned 1930 – 1940) is now regarded as a corrupt and profoundly anti-democratic figure (having dissolved parliament in 1938 he presided over a royal dictatorship until 1940 when he was forced to abdicate). Since 1990 Carol II has been firmly excluded from the rehabilitation of the monarchy: the former Bulevardul Carol II (renamed Bulevardul Dr Petru Groza during the socialist period) was given the inoffensive name Bulevardul Eroii Sanitari (Boulevard of the Medical Heroes) commemorating events in the First World War. Evoking Greater Romania A central theme in the re-commemoration of the pre-socialist period has been a focus on the years 1918– 1938. For Romanians the attractions of this period are many. First, this was the era of Romaˆnia Mare (Greater Romania) when the country was at its greatest territorial extent (following peace settlements after the First World War and before territorial losses in 1940) when almost all Romanians were united in a single state.69 Romania was at its most economically developed and at its most integrated into the European economy. This was also a period of (relatively) democratic rule until the royal dictatorship of Carol II in 1938, while the Romanian Communist Party was tiny and insignificant in its influence.62 Moreover, the inter-war period was characterised by a remarkable flowering of cultural, artistic and scientific activity. It is hardly surprising, then, that the interwar years became a model and reference point after 1989: indeed Boia70 argues that ‘Greater Romania’ has increasingly been constructed as the ‘golden age’ of Romania’s history. The myth of the interwar period was actively

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(but selectively) promoted by the NSF, both in order to divert attention from the socialist past, and to strengthen its legitimacy by identifying itself with the golden age of Greater Romania.71 However this evocation of the interwar period needs to be situated within the identity politics of postsocialist Romania. For over three centuries there have been two, frequently colliding, discourses of national identity in Romania.72 One—the ‘Western’ orientation—stresses that Romania is part of the European mainstream; the other—the ‘nativist’ orientation—stresses indigenous Romanian values and is more hostile to external (particularly Western European) influences. During the last two decades of the socialist period Ceaus¸escu had championed the latter position. His overtly nationalist ideology had stressed national values and the uniqueness of the Romanian people and territory,73 combined with an active hostility to non-Romanian minorities in the country, particularly the ethnic Hungarian population of Transylvania. Since national ideology was so deeply embedded within political life it is unsurprising that it did not disappear with the overthrow of Ceaus¸escu. Instead, in the first half of the 1990s President Iliescu actively played the nationalist card to win popular support and divert attention from the austerity which arose from stalled economic reform.71 This was accompanied by the rise of extreme right-wing parties (most notably the Greater Romania Party) whose rhetoric similarly championed indigenous values whilst attacking Romania’s non-Romanian minorities. In the context of this emphasis on national values, Greater Romania was frequently evoked as a ‘heroic’ period of the country’s history. In Bucharest, over 100 streets were renamed to commemorate various aspects of Greater Romania. One group of renamings directly commemorates the ‘Great Union’ of 1918 when Greater Romania was formed through the transfer of Transylvania, Bucovina, Bassarabia and the Banat to the Romanian state. The most prominent renaming was that of Bucharest’s largest central boulevard (formerly the ‘Victory of Socialism Boulevard) as Bulevardul Unirii (Boulevard of the Union). Other new names commemorated politicians who had played a key role in bringing about the Union, including Ion Inculet¸ (1884– 1940) and Vasile Goldis¸ (1862– 1934). Other streets were given names which evoked the territory of Greater Romania, particularly those areas which had been ‘lost’ to the Soviet Union in 1940. These included streets named after the regions of Bassarabia (now the Republic of Moldova) and Bucovina, the city of Chis¸ina˘u (the current capital of the Republic of Moldova) and the towns (now in Ukraine) of Cerna˘ut¸i, Hert¸a, and Hotin. Again, the situation displays considerable continuity with the socialist period since, in Ceaus¸escu’s Romania, an emphasis on the unity of the Romanian population and territory had pervaded historical discourse to an extraordinary degree.74 A further 94 streets were renamed to commemorate figures from culture, science and politics from the early twentieth century and the period of Greater Romania in particular. These include painters (e.g. Theodor Pallady, 1871– 1956), musicians (e.g. George Enescu, 1881 – 1955), writers (e.g. Mateiu Caragiale, 1885– 1936), architects (e.g. Petre Antonescu, 1873 – 1965), actors (e.g. George Vraca, 1884– 1964), theatre directors (e.g. Sica˘ Alexandrescu, 1896 – 1973), philosophers (e.g. Constantin Stere, 1865 – 1936) and scientists (e.g. Nicolae Coculescu, 1866– 1952). In one part of the city there is a small cluster of streets named after Romanian geographers reflecting the influence of the geographer on the street names commission! In many cases, the names of leading figures from socialist historiography were replaced by a figure from artistic or cultural life in an attempt to ‘neutralise’ a former name of high ideological significance: for example the engineer Henri Coanda˘ (1886– 1972) replaced that of the socialist activist I.C. Frimu. However, the evocation of Greater Romania has been selective and mediated. While the achievements of the interwar years were loudly celebrated in the early 1990s, the rise of the extreme Right and the virulent anti-Semitism which characterised this period were largely passed over in silence. In particular,

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a number of the figures commemorated by street names had close links during the 1930s with the ultranationalist and anti-Semitic ‘Legionary Movement’. These include the poet Octavian Goga (1881– 1938), the novelist and historian Mircea Eliade (1907–1986) and the philosopher Constantin Noica (1907– 1987). In the context of the chauvinism of the early 1990s such individuals were commemorated for their contribution to Romanian cultural life and their support for national values, even though their political stance was the antithesis of the democratic and pluralist politics to which post-socialist Romania was ostensibly committed. As such the streets which carry their names are subject to multiple and contested interpretations. In the mid 1990s, after the opposition DCR had gained control of the Bucharest Prima˘rie, street renamings were used to express and inculcate alternative discourses of national identity. A number of commemorations were requested by the National Peasant Party-Christian Democratic (NPP-CD), a party originally formed in the interwar period and reformed in 1990. Its platform was based on a strongly proWestern stance, combined with a fundamental opposition to socialism. In seeking the commemoration of its pre-socialist democratic politicians (many of whom had been persecuted by the socialist regime) it sought both to highlight its democratic credentials and affirm its opposition to the former socialists who held power until 1996. Major boulevards were renamed after the NPP-CD politicians Ion Mihalache (1882– 1963), Corneliu Coposu (1916– 1995) and the party’s leader in the interwar period, Iuliu Maniu (1873– 1953). Maniu today enjoys an exalted reputation both as an honourable, uncorrupt and staunchly pro-Western figure and as a symbol of resistance to Communist Party rule. To commemorate Maniu the longest boulevard in the city—previously named in two parts as Armata Poporului (the People’s Army) and Pa˘cii (Peace)—was renamed Bulevardul Iuliu Maniu. The symbolism of renaming the principal artery leading westwards out of the city after one of Romania’s most pro-Western politicians is unmistakable. However, the re-imagining of Greater Romania is also significant for who is excluded. The majority of street renamings celebrate the achievements of men: only 10 streets were renamed after women from the interwar period. Moreover, almost all the figures commemorated by new street names are ethnic Romanians (of the 214 people commemorated by street name changes after 1989, only 11 originated from outside the territory of contemporary Romania). The country’s non-Romanian and non-Orthodox minorities are largely uncommemorated. One street was renamed after a Transylvanian German—the scientist Herman Oberth (1894–1989)—and two were renamed after Jewish Romanians—the writer Mihai Sebastian (1907–1945) and the leader of the Jewish community in Romania, Wilhelm Filderman (1882–1963). However, no streets were renamed after members of Romania’s Hungarian or Roma minorities. While to some extent this may reflect the ethnic composition of southern Romania (which is predominantly Romanian), of more importance is Bucharest’s role as the country’s capital. The symbolic landscapes of capital cities are always accorded a particular significance in expressing hegemonic narratives of identity and ideology. In the context of the chauvinism and emphasis on national values which dominated the early 1990s, street renamings in Bucharest have attempted to inscribe a distinctly Romanian and Orthodox narrative of history and identity onto the landscape of the capital.

Geography and street renaming The renaming of streets in post-socialist Bucharest has not taken place equally throughout the city: instead, greatest attention was paid to the central part of the city. As Table 2 shows, 63.6% of street

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Table 2 Street renamings by distance from the city centre Distance in kilometres from city centrea

Number of streets renamed

0 – 0.99 1 – 1.99 2 – 2.99 3 – 3.99 4 – 4.99 5 – 5.99 6 – 6.99 7 – 7.99 8 – 8.99 9 – 9.99

39 54 42 48 36 34 13 10 6 6

a

(13.5%) (18.8%) (14.6%) (16.7%) (12.5%) (11.8%) (4.5%) (3.5%) (2.1% (2.1%)

Defined here as Piat¸a 21 decembrie 1989.

renamings have been concentrated within 4 km (2.5 miles) of the city centre (see also Fig. 1) where all the streets and boulevards which commemorated the events and personalities of socialism were renamed. The particular attention given to renaming streets in the city centre results, in part, from the greater concentration of street renamings by the socialist authorities in this area. However, renaming streets is an expensive process, particularly in the context of post-socialist economic austerity. Faced with limited resources, the Bucharest Prima˘rie focused its efforts on those parts of the city where the demonstrative effect of changing street names was highest. The centre is the one part of the city most likely to be visited by the majority of Bucharesters and is also the zone most likely to be encountered by foreign visitors and tourists. Thus, the break with the socialist past and the presence of a new regime with a new agenda could be affirmed most emphatically in the heart of the city. However, in more peripheral parts of the city some street names which are strongly resonant of the socialist era have survived unchanged. These include Strada Proletarului (Street of the Proletarian), Bulevardul Energeticienilor (Boulevard of the Energy Workers), Strada Ha˘rniciei (Street of Zeal), Strada Product¸iei (The Street of Production); and Drumul Cooperat¸ivei(the road of the Cooperative (farm)). One street continues to commemorate 16 February, the date in 1933 of a railway workers strike which enjoyed an exalted position in communist historiography. Similarly several socialist and communist figures remain commemorated by street names including Constantin Dobrogeanu-Gherea, the ‘founding father’ of Romanian socialism;75 and Lucret¸iu Pa˘tra˘scanu, a key figure involved in the Communist Party takeover of power in the late 1940s. This geography of de-commemorating socialism—which accords greater attention to reconfiguring the symbolic landscape of the city centre while giving less priority to more peripheral areas is not unique to Bucharest. For example, in Berlin, while a few sections of the former Berlin Wall have been preserved, all but one are located at some distance from the city centre.76 Similarly, in Budapest most socialist-era statues were removed from the centre of the city and relocated in an open-air museum on the edge of the city, but some of those statues in less central locations have remained in their original locations.77 Thus, the situation in Bucharest mirrors that of other post-socialist capitals where the reconfiguring of the iconographic landscapes of state socialism has been partial and predominantly concentrated in the core of the city.

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Conclusion Urban landscapes are, in many ways, expressions of the values and ideology of a particular political order: a change in this order is accompanied by a remaking of urban space. In this paper, I have examined the renaming of streets after 1989 as one component of the post-socialist reconfiguring of the public iconographic landscape of Bucharest. Whilst more extensive than in other post-socialist capitals the process has, nonetheless, been limited in its scope. Although the public will to participate in the process of renaming was high, popular involvement in the process was regulated by a Commission which was, especially in the early 1990s, in the position to ensure that the renaming of streets accorded with attempts by the ruling elite to redefine national identity on its own terms. In its entirety the whole process has been underpinned by the reconfiguring of the national past and in particular the imperative to erase the socialist period from collective memory. Hence, the decommemoration of socialism has been accompanied by both the celebration of the event which brought about its end—the 1989 Revolution—and a search for new exemplars from Romania’s pre-socialist past. In the context of the emphasis on national values during the early 1990s, the interwar period—Greater Romania—has increasingly been celebrated as the golden age of the country’s history. Many street name changes after 1989 have attempted—albeit selectively—to evoke Greater Romania: these include both the direct restoration of the toponymy of this period, and the attribution of names which commemorate the events, personalities and even the territory of Greater Romania. Such street name changes have been but one component of attempts to affirm and institutionalise a new official narrative of national history: more broadly, they represent another example of the importance of urban space to the construction (and reconstruction) of collective memories.

Acknowledgements A number of people have helped me with the preparation of this paper although the opinions expressed here are my own. In particular I would like to thank Sorin Bordus¸anu for sharing with me his extensive knowledge of Bucharest’s changing street names. Thanks are also due to Daniela Dumbra˘veanu and Bogdan Suditu of the University of Bucharest for their help in obtaining information and various employees in Bucharest’s Prima˘rie for their assistance. Thanks also to Clare Wallett for producing the map. Finally, I would also like to thank Teresa McGrath, Antonia Phinnemore, Mike Heffernan and four anonymous referees for their helpful comments on an earlier draft of this paper.

Notes 1. S.B. Cohen, N. Kliot, Place-names, in Israel’s ideological struggle over the administered territories, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 82 (1992) 653– 680; L.D. Berg, R.A. Kearns, Naming as norming: ‘race’, gender, and the identity politics of naming places in Aotearoa/New Zealand, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14 (1996) 99 – 122; G.A. Myers, Naming and placing the other: power and the urban landscape in Zanzibar, Tijdschrift voor Economische en Sociale Geografie 87 (1996) 237– 246; C.J. Withers, Authorizing landscape: ‘authority’, naming and the Ordnance Survey’s mapping of the Scottish highlands in the nineteenth century, Journal of Historical Geography 26 (2000) 532– 554; M. Azaryahu, A. Golan, (Re)naming the landscape: the formation of the Hebrew map of Israel 1949– 1960, Journal of Historical Geography 27 (2001) 178–195.

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50. This figure was derived from Pagini Aurii, Paginii Aur Bucures¸ti (Bucures¸ti 1999). Not all of these 4369 streets were in existence in 1990. 51. A note on methodology: In preparing this paper a database of street name changes was compiled for which the main source was a document, produced by Bucharest Prima˘rie, listing street namings and renamings over the 1990– 1997 period. This gave information on 279 instances of renaming (with both current and former names) along with the dates on which the renamings had been approved. However, it was apparent that this list was not comprehensive and sources within the Prima˘rie acknowledged this. Further examples of street name changes were identified from lists (again giving current and former names) published in newspapers in 1996 (Romaˆnia Libera˘, 7 September 1996, 5; 9 September 1996, 5; 13 September 1996, 5; 16 September 1996, 5; 19 September 1996, 5; 21 September 1996, 5; 24 September 1996, 5). These changes were verified using the Bucharest Prima˘rie’s on-line website (www.cgmb.pmb.ro/webgis/) and one of the most reliable of current maps (S. Bordus¸anu Bucures¸ti—ghidul stra˘zilor, Bucures¸ti 2001). Some of these were also checked through fieldwork before being added to the database. Additional information on the former (pre-1989 street names was obtained from a Bucharest street guide from 1982 (Anon, Bucuresti: Ghid Stra˘zilor, Bucures¸ti 1982). 52. M. Azaryahu, German reunification and the politics of street names: the case of East Berlin, Political Geography 16 (1997) 482; R. Argenbright, Remaking Moscow: new places, new selves, The Geographical Review 89 (1999) 1 – 22. 53. This information was provided by an employee of Bucharest Prima˘rie. 54. Several sources both inside and outside of Bucharest’s Prima˘rie have suggested that by 1997 the renaming of streets for ideological reasons was complete. For this reason I focus only on the 1990– 1997 period in this paper. 55. M.B.U. Cavalcanti, Urban reconstruction and autocratic regimes: Ceausescu’s Bucharest in its historical context, Planning Perspectives 12 (1997) 71 – 109. 56. L. Boia, Istorie s¸i mit ˆın cons¸tiint¸a romaˆneasca˘, second ed., Bucures¸ti, 2000, 128. 57. P. Siani-Davies, Revolution or Coup d’e´tat? A theoretical view of the events of December 1989, Communist and PostCommunist Studies 29 (1996) 453– 465. 58. P. Siani-Davies, The Revolution after the revolution, in: D. Light, D. Phinnemore (Eds), Post-Communist Romania: Coming to Terms with Transition, Basingstoke, 2001, 15 – 34. 59. Romaˆnia Libera˘ 10 Jan 1990, 10. 60. N. Johnson, The spectacle of memory: Ireland’s remembrance of the Great War, Journal of Historical Geography 25 (1999) 36 – 56. 61. K. Verdery, What was Socialism and What Comes Next?, Princeton, 1996. 62. D. Deletant, Romania Under Communist Rule, Bucures¸ti, 1999. 63. K. Verdery, Political Lives. J. Bell, Redefining national identity in Uzbekistan: symbolic tensions in Tashkent’s official ´ rvay, Hungary after 1989: inscribing a new past on public landscape, Ecumene 6 (1999) 201; K.E. Foote, A. To´th, A. A place, Geographical Review 90 (2000) 301– 334; D. Sidorov, National monumentalization and the politics of scale: the resurrections of the Cathedral of Christ the Savior in Moscow, Annals of the Association of American Geographers 90 (2000) 548– 572. 64. Dispozit¸ie no 381, September 1993 issued by the Primar of Bucharest. 65. The pre-World War Two street names were obtained from a 1934 street guide to Bucharest (Anon, Bucuresti: Ghid Oficial, Bucures¸ti 1934) and a 1938 map (U. Saˆmboteanu and M.D. Moldoveanu, 1938, reproduced in L. Stoica, N. IonescuGhinea, D.D. Ionescu, C. Luminea, P. Iliescu and M. Georgescu, Atlas-Ghid, Istoria s¸i arhitectura laˆcas¸urilor de cult din Bucures¸ti din cele mai vechi timpuri paˆna˘ astaˆzi, Volumul 1, Bucures¸ti 1999). 1938 represents the last year of parliamentary democracy in pre-World War Two Romania but some streets were renamed during the subsequent royal and military dictatorships. 66. L. Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe, London, 2001. 67. L. Boia, Istorie s¸i mit ˆın cons¸tiint¸a romaˆneasca˘, second ed., Bucures¸ti, 2000, 17. 68. L. Boia, Istorie s¸i mit ˆın cons¸tiint¸a romaˆneasca˘, second ed., Bucures¸ti, 2000, 339. 69. T. Gallagher, Romania after Ceaus¸escu, Edinburgh, 1995. 70. L. Boia, Istorie s¸i mit ˆın cons¸tiint¸a romaˆneasca˘, second ed., Bucures¸ti, 2000, 355. 71. T. Gallagher, Romania after Ceaus¸escu, Edinburgh, 1995, 108. 72. D. Deletant, Rewriting the past: trends in contemporary Romanian historiography, Ethnic and Racial Studies 14 (1991) 64 – 86; K. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaus¸escu’s Romania, Berkeley, 1991; L. Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe, London, 2001.

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73. K. Verdery, National Ideology under Socialism: Identity and Cultural Politics in Ceaus¸escu’s Romania, Berkeley, 1991; L. Boia, Romania: Borderland of Europe, London, 2001. 74. L. Boia, Istorie s¸i mit ˆın cons¸tiint¸a romaˆneasca˘, second ed., Bucures¸ti, 2000, 355. 75. M. Shafir, Romania: Politics, Economics and Society, London, 1985, 5. 76. D. Light, Gazing on communism: heritage tourism and post-communist identities in Germany, Hungary and Romania, Tourism Geographies 2 (2000) 157– 176. ´ rvay, Hungary after 1989: inscribing a new past on place, Geographical Review 90 (2000) 77. K.E. Foote, A. To´th, A. A 325– 326; D. Light, Gazing on communism: heritage tourism and post-communist identities in Germany, Hungary and Romania, Tourism Geographies 2 (2000) 157– 176.