Chapter Москва на рубеже истории. О “топонимической встряске” и не только

Abstract

Moscow at the turn of history. About the “toponymic upheaval” and not only. The article digs into the urban (and political) geography of Moscow and how this is perceived in Italy in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. In particular, the investigation will focus on a number of volumes related to the late Soviet era that were published in Italy between the late 1980s and the mid-1990s. The authors are mainly newspaper and TV correspondents: Vittorio Zucconi (1944-2019, Il Corriere della sera, Si fa presto a dire Russia); Demetrio Volcic (1931-2021, RAI, Mosca. I giorni della fine); Enrico Franceschini (1956, La Repubblica) who is both a journalist (La fine dell'impero. Ultimo viaggio in URSS) and a novelist (La donna della Piazza Rossa). However, the texts index also includes a politician, Giulio Andreotti (L’URSS vista da vicino. Dalla guerra fredda a Gorbaciov), and a comic character, Mickey Mouse, who, in an October 1988 issue number, shows how in the years of perestroika people looked at the nascent (dying) country with both fear and curiosity. All the authors, regardless of their profession and orientation, have the feeling that they are also witnessing history through urban geography; it is no coincidence that all the texts analyzed, to varying extents, “photograph” buildings, streets, monuments... that is to say , “places,” which may be “old,” i.e. inherited from previous travelers or the result of historical, political or literary reminiscences, or “new” places, where a new path of history is being written.