(2017) Чорний, Олександр Васильович; Chornyi, Oleksandr
(en) Kirovograd is the city and regional center in Ukraine in 1939 – 2016, which bore the name of an odious leaders of the CPSU (b) S. M. Kirov (Kostrikov) (1886 – 1934). Kirov city was renamed by this title during the formation of the Kirovograd region in 1939, which was listed on maps USSR in 1934 – 1939. The city was called Zinovievsk in 1924 – 1934. Kirovograd city of Kirovograd region was renamed the city Kropivnitskiy on 14 July 2016. The historical name of this city is Yelisavetgrad. The research is an attempt to show complicated and controversial process of decommunization of Kirovohrad – one of the two regional centers in Ukraine, which necessarily had to change the name of the Law of Ukraine “On the condemnation of Communist and National Socialist (Nazi) totalitarian regimes in Ukraine and the prohibition of propaganda of their symbo lism”, which came into force on 21 May 2015. Since the problem of renaming of Kirovohrad at the time of the adoption of this law was not new to residents of the regional center, the author based on newspaper articles and personal memoirs recreates the story discussion about renaming the city, which continued in 1989 – 2016. The researcher identifies several periods in the discussion above, that was in the city between the supporters of the idea of the return the historical name and those townspeople who fought for the right to name Kirovograd by the new Ukrainian name. The author identifies negative tendencies that crystallized between opponents in the debate, which, in his opinion, in the current political conditions prevailing in Ukraine, harm to anyone who seeks to build a European, democratic and highly cultured country.
