Dear Readers:
After Soledar, the next domino predicted to fall to the Russians, according to popular wisdom, is the city of Bakhmut, in the Donetsk Oblast. To set the stage and make us all sound smarter at our cocktail parties (because you KNOW your guests will ask about this), here is a historical piece by reporter Darya Volkova. Darya’s main source is Russian historian Vladimir Kornilov. He was called in to opine on a minor debate raging in the pro-Russian blogosphere: WHEN (not IF) the Russians take Bakhmut and incorporate it into the Russian Federation, should they return its Soviet name of Artyomovsk? Are there any legal, or other ramifications?
Kornilov: Comrade Artyom [the call-sign of a Bolshevik named Fyodor Sergeev] was not just an activist in the international Communist movement. He was actually the founder of the Donetsk-Krivorog Republic. Whose legal heir, according to the founding documents, is the Donetsk Peoples Republic itself.
Therefore it would be strange if this city, named in honor of the founder of the Republic, did not return its former historical name. Besides which, according to the laws of the DPR, the city was, and remains, Artyomovsk. It was renamed by the Ukrainian government which currently occupies this territory, but we are going to liberate it.
From the point of view of the official ideology of the Ukrainian state, it is completely understandable why they chose to rename Artyomovsk. After all, they are busy trying to uproot everything associated with the Donetsk Republic. But from our point of view, it would not be logical to switch the name which is embedded in official use and also in the memory of the residents; a name that also has such a direct connection to a historical figure closely associated to this territory.
Kornilov finishes with a primer on Russian pronunciation (Russian being a language with strong syllabic stress) and notes that many people pronounce the name Bakhmut with the stress on the wrong syllable. I have heard people say it both ways, BAKH-mut [after which you want to reply: “Bless you!”] or bakh-MUT. Kornilov says that the latter is the correct way.
And speaking of Bakhmut, Darya interviews journalist Andrei Medvedev, who offers some additional historical tidbits. Medvedev takes the opposite side of the issue:
The city was founded in 1571 by Tsar Ivan the Awesome, and was called Bakhmut. “For this reason, it is all quite simple. Do we wish to sweep away all our past history from before the 1917 Revolution? In which case, by all means, Artyomovsk. But if we consider that Russian history started earlier than 1917, then it has to be Bakhmut.”
To break the tie: Military expert Boris Rozhin reminds us that Donetsk Peoples Republic (DPR) law says Artyomovsk; whereas Ukrainian law says Bakhmut. By a law that was adopted during the Presidency of Petr Poroshenko, whom some consider to be an illegitimate ruler by his very nature. “Therefore, as soon as the city is liberated, it will be renamed to Artyomovsk, according to a decree (ukaz) issued by the Head of the DPR on 11 May, 2014. This occurred at the time the referendum was being conducted, by which the DPR seceded from the Ukraine.”
Current DPR head Denis Pushilin offers a compromise solution: “Let the people themselves decide what name their native city should bear. But before we learn the opinion of the public, we first will need to create at least elementary conditions for their survival.”
Pushilin seems to be saying that there will be another vote taken, possibly, as to the name of the city, once the residents move back in. But that it is not necessarily the most important order of business.
The article concludes by noting that the name Artyom has the additional advantage of being associated with the brand of champagne produced in the local factory. This champagne factory is the largest in Europe and it is expected, when the war is over, to resume producing its signature bubbly. Something you can maybe pop at your cocktail party in the hopefully not-too-distant future.
Awful Avalanche 
I do not like all these city renamings whichs sometimes make historical research difficult to follow, eg Luhansk being Voroshilovgrad between 1935 and 1958 and then 1970 to 1990…
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… and Donetzk which was Stalino for a number of years, which had nothing to do with Staline the Georgian…
Here in France we had place de l’Etoile (because there is a star drawn on the pavement visible from the top of Arc de Triomphe) which is now named “Charles de Gaulle – Etoile”.
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I had an atlas published in 1918 before the end of WWI. It had all the prewar boundaries and place names. It was remarkably handy for finding cities renamed after the collapse of the Warsaw Pact.
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I agree! People should just stick to one name. Otherwise, they keep having to remake the maps, and it gets very confusing.
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how is this the first time i’ve heard of “Tsar Ivan the AWESOME”?
anyhoo…neat history. i’d say just leave it up to a vote and don’t allow write ins so to avoid wiseacres voting for “zelensky sucks” or whatever. of course after that they’ll have an more fierce enemy; the people who say “ackshually! it’s only ‘champagne’ if it comes from the champagne region”. start digging those trenches deep, fellas.
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How about “Boaty McCatFace” that sounds like a good name for a champagne town.
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Bouncing off an earlier comment of yours, I’d suggest “Uranus”.
Then if Biden ever visits (fat chance!), he can later say, “I just came from Uranus.” 🙂
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But, just like Bakh-MUT, the stress must be placed on the correct syllable! I noticed recently some American people started pronouncing the planet’s name as UR-anus, maybe because everybody giggles when they say it the right way!
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Ivan Grozny actually translates into Ivan the Formidable or at only a slight stretch Ivan the Awe Inspiring. Ivan the Awesome is a far better translation than Ivan the Terrible.
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Thank you kindly, Dear Terrorist.
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Ivan Grozny is also translated Ivan il Terribile in Italian, “terribile” having the same meaning as terrible in English. Yet a little side note is that in the slang of the city of Rome “teribbile”, typically pronounced with two b and one r as the local phonetics require, has long meant “cool”, “impressive” or even “awesome” (maybe impressive being the closest translation).
I don’t know if the word is still used, since many years have passed and I am not anymore the guy who attended university in Rome, but once upon a time “teribbile” as awesome was nation-wide known and understood
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That’s awesome! I mean, that terribile!
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Not to out-Russian a Russian blogger tee-hee but…isn’t Nikita Khrushchev from this part of RUSSIA ? I’ll be really disappointed if the image doesn’t show, Khrushchev did much to restore civil society to the USSR. And Khrushchev is proof that allowing the lower class individual to rise in society is in that society’s interest.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=http%3A%2F%2Filarge.lisimg.com%2Fimage%2F9843129%2F1024full-nikita-khrushchev.jpg&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=a8398e0289be77a818ff8d57fbbec0d2079da88ab734cf413bfb562b716f6c6d&ipo=images
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Egads, the link works! Butt-ugly face, but I have to admit, I have a soft spot for old Nikita. He rehabilitated a lot of people who were unfairly shot by you-know-who. (Including one of my ancestors.) I also think the Soviet Union started to become a really cool place to live under K’s management. People breathed easier, and life became good.
This opinion gets me in trouble with the True-Believing Stalinists, they believe that K is the guy who should be blamed for the capitalist counter-revolution. I personally believe that view is silly, capitalism didn’t come until later, under Yeltsin.
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TBS’ers be TBS’ers
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Well, I very much doubt that anyone will pay any attention to Arnould the historian’s plea that people should just give a name for a city and never change it, ever. I know it’s damnably annoying when mere plebs insist on a name change and disrupt a lifetime of tireless academic study, but there you are — outvoted.
I think I’m going to call the city BABA for now — Bakhmut/Artyomovsk/Bakhmut/Artyomovsk. When the place gets rebuilt and citizens return they can call it want they want as Pushilin sensibly suggests. And I’ll take due note.
As for champagne and the pair’s thoughts on believers regarding true champagne from Champagne as the only real champagne, I note that the busy French have even bullied the US into agreeing with their Gallic take on trademark things as of 2007. Something probably “invented” thousands of years ago like yeast leavened wheat bread or bubbly, was but an accident. Likely some Phonecian sailor off to buy tin from the mines of Cornwall got fed up with his ship’s wine going off, and added a small clay jar of honey to the urn of bad wine for flavour — the remnant yeast got excited and voila! aerated wine. Or as he exclaimed to his shipmates as the wine gurgled and bubbled — Champagne!
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I marvel at the ingenuity and resourcefulness of our ancestors. Inventing all these great things like beer, wine and champagne!
And don’t forget the Central American Indians who were expert practical chemists in their own way, they figured out how to make coffee and chocolate from things that are basically inedible until going through a very complicated and non-intuitive processing.
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I prefer to kill an animal first, before I start selling its fur as a coat. I’ll wait and see what happens next. We’re almost 1 year into this SMO, so, anything could happen.
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That sounds like good practical advice, Daniel.
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@ yalensis,
As far as I know [or can see] the Wagner group is a lot less restrained when it comes to urban warfare [compared to the RAF], but being not privy to anything military, that’s just an opinion.
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I think that’s probably true! Personally, once this war is over, I would like to see Russia get rid of privatized military organizations. Or at least blend them into the formal structures. Maybe they can be effective, but I personally just don’t think they are a good thing, in general.
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@ yalensis,
I’d prefer countries without armies, but when there’s some sort of need to having them around, let it be under the umbrella of the state, so one institution is responsible for what they’re doing.
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I agree! People have to know where the buck stops.
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I remember putting the stress on the wrong syllable in pisatel’ and turning Writer into Urunator.
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Haha, that’s a classic!
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For those who can’t get enough of this type of cultural history, Stanislav at Nemo’s Realms also did a very nice treatment of this late last year:
“Bahmut or Artyomovsk? A historical look at the name of the city”
https://stanislavs.org/bahmut-or-artyomovsk-a-historical-look-at-the-name-of-the-city/
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Is there an alternative Russian spelling to the pre-1917 name?
After all the Maidan regime has a mania for Ukraineifcation and cultural appropriation, so restoring everything to old pre-Soviet Russian names. Would be the best way to troll them.
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Yes.
I reckon the “hard sign” would have been attached to Bakhmut in the pre-1917 Cyrillic alphabet, as the name ends in a “hard” consonant.
Бахмутъ
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To be exact, there still is a “hard sign” in the present Cyrillic alphabet, though seldom used now. What I should have said is not “pre-1917 alphabet” but “pre-1917 orthography”.
I do believe that in the East Slav peasant dialect called мова, instead of a “hard sign”, the Lard Eaters us an apostrophe.
For example, подъезд [entrance] in Russian, is під’їзд in мова, which sounds somewhat rude to me: like пиздец.
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Typo:
use an apostrophe
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That already looks like an apostrophe to me! Anyhow, nice to see you, Exile, and that’s a good point about the hard sign in the orthography.
To the larger point, though, Ukrainians are not just trying to get rid of Soviet-Russian names, but ALL Russian names. In which case, even “Bakhmut” should be fair game for them, because it reminds them that the city was founded by a Muscovite Tsar. Whom they consider (all Muscovites) to be schismatics and racially inferior Mongols.
Hence, the Ukrainian name for this city should be Banderaville. Pro-Russians can live with either Bakhmut or Artyomovsk, depending on just how Bolshie they are.
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I’ll join you in being be so presumptuous as to rip off some Shakespearean “What’s in a naminess?” A new facet to focus the culture wars on, that’s what!
In the future, after the dust settles on the current slaughter, one way for people in eastern Europe to signal “which side are you on, boys?” is whether they say “Bakhmut” or “Atryomovsk.” No need to announce “Slava Bandera” or “Viva Putin.” You can show the person at the cash register, or selling tickets at the train station, or whatever, your affiliation just by the town name you choose. A knowing smile from the other side, or a silent snarl, will let you see which side THEY’RE on. A little discount off the bill, or maybe a screaming argument, might follow. But you’ve shown your colours without being overt.
It works that way all over. In the U.S., you’re probably sensitised to subtle signs of where people are on the political spectrum, Yalensis. It’s a good way for the rich bastards and bitches at the top to keep us proles squabbling horizontally. While they stay invisible up above, using us mooks to sweat more riches out to them. (Srsly, if you wanted to throat-slit the richest person in your town when the social order starts to break down, do you even know what they look like? Aside from a publicity-seeking few like Musk and Bezos, the true Money Powers walk greyly among us, unknown to those not of their class.)
The town name game is at play Downundahere too. It’s becoming fashionable among the Politically Correct types to say “Naarn” as an addition to “Melbourne.” That was the handle for this area in one of the languages of the First Peoples who were here when the White Peoples invaded. One of the “local government areas” (they don’t have separate towns here any more; they’ve been blended into larger suburbs so you don’t have a different city council every two kilometers) had been called “Moreland” for decades. Named after some pasty-pale British twat, like so much of everything here. Helloooooo! — how many things did you have to call “Victoria?!?” But this same Moreland also had a plantation in Jamaica that had slaves. So his name became anathema in the past two years. The P.C. local council changed it to something — I can’t be arsed to Oogle what, although I should remember that, because I used to work at a community mental health office there and spent a lot of time driving around the streets of Moreland paying home visits to crazyppl. Somebody’s gotta drop by to see that they’re taking their meds and not screaming at their neighbours or bashing holes in the walls of the public housing to get at the transmitters hidden inside that are putting those nasty voices into their heads…
Behind the building where I live, there’s a green space named “Batman Park.” John Batman (pronounced “BAT-mun” as opposed to the cartoon super-hero “bat-MAN”) was a swindler who scammed some tribal elder into selling him the property rights to this area during the 1820s, when it was a swampy river delta. Melbourne was almost named “Batmania,” I kid you not. The elder who did that deal probably thought “What a sucker this guy is! He gave me some blankets and axes and booze, and I ‘sold‘ him something that nobody could own.” It would be like if an outer space alien gave you a really nifty matter transmogrifier for the rights to all the atmosphere that passes over your back yard, all the way up to the ionosphere. You’d be thinking “Oh man — I have this thing that can turn lead into gold, and that scaly crab thing gets a claim that can’t even exist!” I am awaiting the day — shouldn’t be long now — when there will be debates over what to re-name this spot so it doesn’t honour a 19th Century oppressor.
I reckon that dynamic will come to the (for-now) United States, once the Culture War battles over KKKonfederate statues have lost their zizz. (If Black Lives Matter had one-tenth the balls that the Black Panthers did, Stone Mountain Georgia would have been dynamited like the Georgia Guidestones were, but BLM is ‘controlled opposition.’ That’s why those grifters are still alive, unlike the FBI-assassinated Panthers in Chicago.)
What city names do you think will be first on the chopping block when TPTB want to get the ants stirred up? I’d nominate San Francisco because that old Spanish friar was nasty to the natives he was forcibly converting to Catholicism, but there are so many other choices. George Washington owned slaves, after all, and everybody hates Washington, D.C. The last bit includes “Columbia” and Christopher Columbus was a murderous maniac (true fact!) Eventually they’ll come after the very word “America” because Amerigo Vespucci never set foot in the New World, the dodGamn sorta-white not-colonist! By the time that happens, the States will be well on their way to being NOT United, so it won’t be much of a loss.
Were Russians big dickheads about town names when Leningrad and Stalingrad reverted to their priors, or did they just say “things change” and get on with life?
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Bukko, you are more prophetic than you realize. I just saw something in the news the other day, that some people are unhappy with the country name America, because of Amerigo Vespucci. Well, they can rename everything in this blasted country. Or not. I personally don’t care.
P.S. – you maybe don’t realize, those scaly crab people are real, and so is their matter transmogrifier! I know because the transmitter hidden in my wall told me so. Anyhow, the reason they only need a small slice of our atmosphere is because they can use that tiny section to destroy all the rest of it – duh!
“These humans, they live in a fish bowl, without even realizing it…”
🙂
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