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Memory studies and research in linguistic landscape (LL) have documented street (re)naming in Eastern Europe as a result of multiple waves of ideological reorientations. Most of this research rarely transgresses disciplinary and geopolitical boundaries. To date, systematic comparative research is scarce and cross-fertilisation between Western and Eastern European countries is almost non-existent. The MILL project aims to remedy this situation by investigating ideologically-driven changes in the urban landscape of two countries throughout the past century. The project will focus on three pairs of cities in Poland and Eastern Germany:
(1) two large regional centres, Leipzig and Poznań;
(2) two towns of local importance Annaberg-Buchholz and Zbąszyń;
(3) Frankfurt (Oder) / Słubice, which since WWII have been divided by the Oder river.
The choice of the cities contrasts the processes underpinning street-naming along three dimensions (1) nation/state (across country), (2) size (within country) and (3) time: 1916-2016. The MILL project capitalizes on the research strength of an interdisciplinary team, which includes LL research, social geography, collective memory and urban ethnology. The unifying element of the project is the empirically-driven quantitative and qualitative modelling of the ideological processes that continue to shape Eastern European linguistic landscapes. The triangulation of research methods gives us important insights about the role of public discourse in influencing transformation of the commemorative cityscape. Integrating linguistic landscape research and collective memory studies we propose the concept of the commemorative cityscape, understood as a constantly negotiated and re-negotiated spatial expression of the collective memory of the city inhabitants that is influenced by the socio-political and ideological factors at the national level. More specifically, the results of the MILL project promise to open new horizons in LL studies by examining the complex processes underlying ideologically-driven changes in commemorative street naming.