The Soviet Union
\nwas the winning side against Nazi Germany in World War Two. Immediately after
\n1945, the Soviet Union occupied half of Europe and imposed its own political
\neconomic and social model. An inherent part of such a model was the cult of the
\nsupreme commander, Iosif Vissarionovici Djuga\u015fvili or Stalin. <\/p>\n
\n
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According to the
\ncommunist propaganda, the love for Stalin had to be boundless: from commoners
\nto grandiose projects or even cities, the name of Stalin was everywhere.
\nCommunist leaderships in Albania, Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia, the then
\nGerman Democratic Republic, Poland, Romania and Hungary named some of their
\nmajor cities after Stalin, the great leader according to the Soviet
\npropaganda. With such an honor were received other communist leaders as well. <\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
In 1953, in the
\nformer German Democratic Republic, the city of Chemnitz became Karl Marx Stadt.
\nIn former Yugoslavia, where there was no Stalin City, Montenegro’s capital
\nPodgorica, became Titograd, from 1946 to 1992, after the name of communist
\nleader Iosip Broz Tito. In Romania, the town of Onesti became Gheorghe
\nGheorghiu-Dej, while the town of Stei became Dr Petru Groza. We recall Gheorghe
\nGheorghiu-Dej and Petru Groza were two prominent Romanian communist leaders. <\/p>\n
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Nicolae Pepene
\nis the director of Brasov County History Museum. In 2017, the year when the
\ncentennial of the Bolshevik Revolution was marked, he initiated the Stalin
\nCities, a project for which he received financing from the European Union. We
\nasked him why Brasov became Stalin City. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Nicolae Pepene: There is a formal explanation we find in the publications of that
\ntime namely that the rail workers decided to honour their friendship with the
\ngreat leader, his concern for the Romanian people, for the workers, by changing
\nthe name of the city. Why rail workers? Somehow it was the connection with the
\ngreat national leader Gheorghiu-Dej, who used to be a rail worker. Everything
\nwas part of the propaganda machine of the time. The name was changed around
\nAugust 23rd 1950, a symbolical date for the communist regime.
\nUnfortunately, there were no unofficial records about the event. We can imagine
\nit was a gesture of servitude towards the local authorities as the ties with
\nthe Soviet Union were quite strong. A monument of the Soviet soldier was built
\nin the city’s central park in 1949 and there was also a house of the
\nRomanian-Soviet friendship in Brasov, central Romania. Writers from the Soviet
\nUnion used to come to Romania, and there were exchanges of workers and teachers
\nas well. The city of Brasov was the spearhead of the propaganda machine because
\nit had a strong community of workers. Although affected by the allied
\nbombardments, most of the factories in Brasov remained operational and upon
\ntheir coming to power, the communists pumped massive investment into the region.
\nSome local historians believe there was also a move to humiliate the
\nTransylvanian Saxons living in the region, as the city used to have a
\nsignificant Saxon minority back then.<\/p>\n
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<\/p>\n
The propaganda
\nagents were so hell-bent on making the city’s new name known to everyone that
\nthey ordered a large number of fir-trees on Tampa mountain cut down, so that
\nthe name could become visible from any angle. The map of Stalin cities was
\nstretching from the Soviet Union to Central Europe and no country from behind
\nthe Iron Curtain could escape the trend. Here is Nicolae Pepene again at the
\nmicrophone.<\/p>\n
\n
\n
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\n
<\/p>\n
Nicolae Pepene: Of course things started off in the Soviet Union, because they created
\nthe pattern. Volgograd became Stalingrad. The city of Donetsk became Stalino
\nand after the Soviet occupation of Central and Eastern Europe, they exported
\nthis propaganda pattern. The Bulgarian city of Varna became a Stalin city
\nin 1949, at a time when Varna was Bulgaria’s second largest city. Next came
\nPoland, which renamed Katowice in 1953, shortly after the dictator’s death.
\nHowever, the Poles came back to the city’s real name three years later. Another
\ncity which was named after Stalin’s name was Stalinvaros, a workers’ city built
\nfrom scratch in Hungary, which is now called Dunajvaros and is presently
\nHungary’s most important metallurgic center. The Albanians didn’t choose a big
\ncity, but a small one previously called Kutzova, south of capital Tirana. The
\nDemocratic Republic of Germany also had a Stalin city, formerly known as Eisenhuttenstadt,
\nwhich was also a steel city. Interestingly, Czechoslovakia didn’t have an
\nentire city named after the Soviet dictator, but only major districts in
\nvarious cities. A major district in Prague was named after Stalin and so was a
\ndistrict in Ostrava.<\/p>\n
\n
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<\/p>\n
Stalin cities
\nreturned to their first names according to the political situation in their
\ncountries. Katowice and Varna got back their original names in 1956 and Brasov
\nin 1960. They were followed by Eisenhuttenstadt and Dunaujvaros in 1961 and so
\ndid Volgograd and Donetsk. Kutzova, in Albania, was the last to scrap its
\nSoviet name back in 1991. <\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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