‍Someone will say: yes, another renaming, is there no problem more urgently? Of course, the restoration of historical place names in Crimea can be postponed. But it would mean a delayed restoration of historical justice, a failure to respect the rights of indigenous peoples and a delay in the fight against the Russian imperial succession.

Over the centuries, the Russian occupiers changed the names of the peninsula's settlements to erase the authentic culture and create their own historical strata. Moreover, it began not ten years ago, not seventy or even a hundred. The renaming of Crimean cities and villages was carried out by the Russians in three stages. And the first of them started immediately after the first annexation of Crimea, in 1783. It was then that Akmesjit turned into Simferopol, Akʼyar - Sevastopol, and Kezlev - into Evpatoria.

The October coup of 1917 led, among other things, to the victory of toponymic Bolshevism. Surprisingly, Crimea was then a little more fortunate than others. Is it not that

Yalta briefly became Krasnoarmeysk, and Stalinstadt, Stalinweg and Lenindorf appeared in the north of the peninsula.

The deportation of 1944 aimed not only to destroy the Crimean Tatars physically, but to eradicate even the memory of them. At that time, the Soviet authorities renamed more than 1000 settlements. Ak-Mosque became the Black Sea, Karasubazar - Belogorsk, hundreds of Crimean Tatar villages received the names of communist leaders or names that would be quite organic in the Russian hinterland, but in the Crimea they looked sad and funny at the same time, like Karaovska or Bebek Ryozovka.

Why should Ukraine return Crimea its historical names without waiting for de-occupation? There are at least three important reasons.

First, the restoration of historical place names is part of the process of restoring to the Crimean Tatars the rights of the indigenous people to their language, identity and land. This is supported by both international documents and Ukrainian legislation. In particular, Article 13 of the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples states: “Indigenous peoples have the right to revive, use, develop and transmit to future generations their history, languages, traditions of oral creativity, philosophy, writing and literature, and to give their own names and names to communities, to places and persons and to preserve them.”

And Article 4 of the Law of Ukraine “On Indigenous Peoples” explains exactly how this should happen: “In order to restore the historical toponymy of the indigenous peoples of Ukraine, the Cabinet of Ministers of Ukraine, after consulting with representative bodies, submits in the prescribed manner for consideration by the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine draft resolutions on renaming of the settlements.”

Secondly, the return of historical place names will signal Ukraine's desire for change and reform. This will show that the state is ready to rethink its past and seek historical justice.

And thirdly, all these “Guards”, “Army” and “Soldiers” consolidate the power of the invading state - not only on maps, but also in our heads. It's time to put them in order.

‍The importance of toponymy is also discussed heretoand hereto

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