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Prague commemorative urban toponyms between 1945 and 1989 and how they shaped the identity of the socialist city
Ptáčníková, Martina ; Harvalík, Milan (advisor) ; David, Jaroslav (referee) ; Krško, Jaromír (referee)
This Ph.D. thesis investigates Prague urban toponyms used between the end of the Second World War and 1989. While the number of texts concerned with names of public spaces within cities/towns has been rising continuously since the 1980s, no detailed analyses have been presented that focus on urban toponymy as it was used during the Communist Party reign in Czechoslovakia. This Ph.D. thesis examines commemorative names with an objective to trace the development of urbanonymy of this period, perceiving commemorative names as the most suitable instrument that can be used to describe how Prague toponymy, a politicized space reflecting historical milestones as well as claims staked by the elites then in power, formed. The theoretical part of the Ph.D. thesis seeks to both define commemorative names and offer classification thereof based on a variety of classification criteria including, without limitation, lexico- semantic and structural criteria. Additionally, the theoretical part touches upon urban space and its memory as well as on how urban landscape myths are created by officially sanctioned urban toponyms. It also addresses how urban spaces are perceived and how people orient themselves within these spaces. The second part of the thesis applies the theoretical framework to actual urban toponymy....
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