Thread by @YMonastyrskyi

Luhansk and its various names. My hometown's name has changed at least 5 times in its 227-year history. The city began as a foundry on the banks of the Luhan' River. But the plant was not built on an empty lot; it was built near the Cossack settlement of Kamianyi Brid.

https://twitter.com/YMonastyrskyi/status/1522914068331388929

Until 1882, the name "Luhansk" did not exist. Previously, the settlement was known as Luhansk Plant, and it was located near Kmianyi Brid and other old settlements, the majority of which were founded as early as the 17th century.

Luhansk not only got its name in 1882, but it also became the administrative center of the Slavyanoserbsky Uyezd (another story about how Serbs appeared in the region). The next few decades would see unrestrained industrialization of the entire macroregion, including Luhansk.

It's worth noting that even during the Soviet era, the name "Luhansk," which is more inherent in russian, was frequently changed on maps to the Ukrainian version of the name "Luhanske." Here's a map with this name from 1929, for example.

In 1935, a period of "high Stalinism" was in full swing, as evidenced by the renaming of a slew of settlements after Stalin's comrades-in-arms. Kliment Voroshilov happened to be related to Luhansk and the region, so the city was named after him - Voroshilovgrad.

Voroshilov was one of the first five Marshals of the Soviet Union, a title he received ostensibly for his services during the 1917-21 Civil War and for being a Minister of Defence, but in reality for his devotion to Stalin. His contemporaries noticed no unusual abilities.

In modern historiography, Voroshilov is known as one of the officials who ordered the Holodomor of 1932-33 (genocide of Ukrainians) and the Great Terror of 1937-38, but also as a talentless military officer who bungled the Leningrad defense effort.

Following Stalin's death, Voroshilov became the nominal head of the USSR. In 1957, he was a member of a faction that failed in its effort to oust Khrushchev as party head. Following this failure, Voroshilovgrad became Luhansk again, and Voroshilov was made an "honorary pensioner"

Voroshilov died in 1969, in the midst of the Brezhnev era, which saw the restoration of Stalin as a symbol of the Soviet Union. As a result, long-suffering Luhansk was renamed once againg after a revolutionary with maybe the lowest KPI in Bolshevism's history in 1970.

When Voroshilovhrad was renamed into Luhansk in 1990 again, historical justice was served. In a referendum held in 1991, more than 83 % of Luhansk and Luhansk oblast voted FOR Ukrainian independence.

Today, by giving back Luhansk the name of a failed revolutionary and murderer, russia, which for 30 years can't make sense of its past, imposes its historical schizophrenia on all of its neighbors, mixing russian imperial and Soviet symbols and rituals
This is #russianColonialism