German Place Names – Cultural Heritage or Marketing?

V právě vydané monografii Names and Naming – Multicultural Aspects (Palgrave Macmillan, 2021) najdete také kapitolu „Between Cultural Heritage and Marketing: German Place Names in Post-Communist Czechia“ (s. 315-329) ostravských autorů Jaroslava Davida a Terezy Klemensové.

Abstract: The text focuses on German forms of place names in the Czech Republic, especially their revitalisation, restoration and preservation after 1989. Unlike during the interwar period, there is no German minority in the Czech Lands today. Thus, we argue that the current usage of German names illustrates that: (1) the German names lost their national character and are used for their cultural, historical and marketing values; (2) they have shifted from the sphere of toponymy to chrematonymy (names of hotels, regional products); (3) they are used in everyday communication in localities with that former German population; (4) in poetry and fiction, German place names have assumed yet another function via their own thematisation.