Stalin renames Tallinn

minhow

Considering how Stalin liked to rename cities to names like him, with examples of Stalingrad (Volgograd), Stalino (Donetsk) and Stalinabad (Dushambe), it is pretty weird that he didn't renamed the estonian capital Talinn(Talin in estonian) to something more similar to his name, due to similarity.

What if Stalin had renamed Tallinn to Stallinn (Stalin), by putting a S on the start of it. What would be the effect of it? Why it wasn't happened OTL?
 

Alexniko

minhow said:
Considering how Stalin liked to rename cities to names like him, with examples of Stalingrad (Volgograd), Stalino (Donetsk) and Stalinabad (Dushambe), it is pretty weird that he didn't renamed the estonian capital Talinn(Talin in estonian) to something more similar to his name, due to similarity.

What if Stalin had renamed Tallinn to Stallinn (Stalin), by putting a S on the start of it. What would be the effect of it? Why it wasn't happened OTL?
Click to expand...
In 1938, Yezhov proposed renaming Moscow to Stalinodar (Stalins gift). Stalin opposed the idea and it was forthwith prohibited to rebrand any more places to Stalin's name.
 
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Lalli

Even if Stalin would re-name Tallinn, its name would be returned during de-stalinisation so not any actual changes abnd it would be just footnote on occupation of Estonia.
 

Crueldwarf

Stalin didn't actually liked to rename places after himself. It was a way for various functionaries to attempt to ingrate themselves to him. And at some point he became really tired of it and forbade the practice altogether.

So it very much unlikely for any new cities to be renamed after Stalin in the 40s.
 
Gukpard

Gukpard

minhow said:
Considering how Stalin liked to rename cities to names like him, with examples of Stalingrad (Volgograd), Stalino (Donetsk) and Stalinabad (Dushambe), it is pretty weird that he didn't renamed the estonian capital Talinn(Talin in estonian) to something more similar to his name, due to similarity.

What if Stalin had renamed Tallinn to Stallinn (Stalin), by putting a S on the start of it. What would be the effect of it? Why it wasn't happened OTL?
Click to expand...

For scenario sake, you need Stalin to die and some hardcore fanboy like Molotov to replace him. This might lead them to rename the city.

Assuming that happens the name can continue as long the USSR doesn't destroy his image. I don't think the fall of the USSR was a likely outcome so today you would see pro Soviet countries atlas coming with Talinn named "Stalin" while maps printed in anti Soviet countries would come with "Talinn".
 
CHKeeley

CHKeeley

There’s also the little detail that “Stalingrad”, “Stalino”, “Stalinodar”, etc actually make linguistic sense and had precedent in Russian city naming conventions. Turning “Tallinn” to “Stallinn” is like a bad pun and incoherent language-wise. If that city was to be renamed, it was be either reverted to “Revel” as part of a denationalization campaign, or something with a proper city suffix in Russian like “Stalinsk” or the less-likely “Stalinovo”
 
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Laqueesha

Laqueesha

After Estonian independence and statehood is restored in the early 1990s it gets renamed back to its pre-Soviet name, the end.
 

Lalli

Laqueesha said:
After Estonian independence and statehood is restored in the early 1990s it gets renamed back to its pre-Soviet name, the end.
Click to expand...

Not need evenn wait that long. The oldname would be returned only just in few years after Stalin's death like was done with other cities named after Stalin. In post-Soviet Estonia whole incident would be just some footnote of history of the occupation.
 

minhow

Interesting answers.

It will be probably reverted after de-stalinization, but would be renamed after the fall of USSR, now that Tallinn was associated to Stalin?

I didn't knew that Stalin didn't liked to rename cities with his name. What knew that he once said that he didn't liked his personality cult, but that could be propaganda to show that he was humble.

I know that sounds like a bad pun, but the similarities are there and was surprised that nobody used that.
 
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