Moscow Renamed After Stalin

According to Simon Sebag Montefiore's *Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar*, on at least two occasions Stalin's courtiers proposed renaming Moscow Stalinodar. Yezhov proposed it in 1938 when he saw he was losing favor with the Vozhd and was trying desperately to avoid the fate of his predecessor Yagoda. Again, in 1945 after the victory over Germany, Kaganovich proposed it. On both occasions Stalin angrily rejected the idea.

What if Stalin had agreed? After all, sometimes he claimed to be--and perhaps was--unhappy with the honors his sycophants proposed for him, yet ended up accepting them. When it was first proposed to make him Generalissimo, he replied, "Comrade Stalin doesn't need it. Comrade Stalin has the authority without it. Some title you've thought up! Chiang Kai-shek's a Generalissimo, Franco's a Generalissimo--fine company I find myself in!" http://nemaloknig.info/read-183615/?page=71 But in the end he did accept the new title. Becoming Generalissimo did make some political sense, in that it differentiated Stalin from mere marshals (who had become dangerously prestiigous during the war and whom he now wanted to cut down to size). Renaming Moscow Stalinodar would just be seen as pure vanity. (Blaming the "personality cult" on Stalin's vanity is an oversimplification. He was well aware of the difference between himself and the mythical "Stalin" of the cult he had created for political purposes. Once he berated his son Vasily for exploting his surname. "But I'm a Stalin too," Vasily protested. "No, you're not," Stalin replied. "You're not Stalin and I'm not Stalin. Stalin is Soviet power. Stalin is what he is in the newspapers and the portraits, not you, no not even me!" https://books.google.com/books?id=f-HerzgvxssC&pg=PA6&lpg=PA6)

But suppose he does accept the name change. Obviously, it's too grotesque to last indefinitely after Stalin's death. Still, when does it get changed back? According to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_places_named_after_Joseph_Stalin most Soviet places named after Stalin were not renamed until 1961 (in the "peoples' democracies" some were already renamed in 1956). But of course these were very secondary places--Moscow was unique, and its renaming after Stalin would be uniquely offensive.
 
I guess Moscow would be renamed Stalinodar. I'd imagine that it would be renamed Moscow as soon as de-stalinization happened due to the unique cultural significance that Moscow has.
 
I guess Moscow would be renamed Stalinodar. I'd imagine that it would be renamed Moscow as soon as de-stalinization happened due to the unique cultural significance that Moscow has.

This. Then again, how long did they let Leningrad replace St. Petersburg?

might is also start a tradition of renaming major cities for Soviet leaders? Kiev for Khrushchev?
 

Cook

Banned
I made the mistake of loaning my copy of Stalin to a friend in Darwin a year ago, and she hasn't returned it. When was it proposed that Moscow be renamed after Stalin, was it before Tsaritsyn was renamed? Would Tsaritsyn have been renamed after another hero of the revolution or would Stalin have emulated Alexander on Macedon, and seen a string of cities named after himself?
 
I made the mistake of loaning my copy of Stalin to a friend in Darwin a year ago, and she hasn't returned it. When was it proposed that Moscow be renamed after Stalin, was it before Tsaritsyn was renamed? Would Tsaritsyn have been renamed after another hero of the revolution or would Stalin have emulated Alexander on Macedon, and seen a string of cities named after himself?
Tsaritsyn was renamed in 1925, so it was after, and Stalingrad would have kept the name.
 

Cook

Banned
Tsaritsyn was renamed in 1925, so it was after, and Stalingrad would have kept the name.

Then suddenly you would have a queue outside Comrade Stalin's office, made up of various city and oblast administrators, all wanting to rename their areas of authority after the Vozhd. And god help the city that didn't send a representative.
 
Then suddenly you would have a queue outside Comrade Stalin's office, made up of various city and oblast administrators, all wanting to rename their areas of authority after the Vozhd. And god help the city that didn't send a representative.
"Comrades, this is the 12:00 Generalissimo Stalin from Stalinodar to Stalinabad, calling at Stalinogorsk, Stalino, Stalingrad and Stalinsk. The rear six carriages will be detached at Stalingrad for Stalinsk. Three cheers for Comrade Stalin!"
 
Why would it be StalinODAR? Stalin's Gift? Why would Moscow be a gift? very weird.

Moscow was extensively rebuilt during the 1930's and this "New Moscow" (see http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-To-ANl9k8...Cja9Hzytk/s1600/Yuri+Pimenov+-+New+Moscow.JPG for Pimenov's famous painting with that title) was presumably Stalin's "gift" to the Soviet people. And of course it was due to Comrade Stalin's wise leadership that Moscow was saved in 1941, and this too was presumably a "gift."

The other reason is that all the other possibilities--Stalin, Stalingrad, Stalinsk--were already taken by other cities.
 
Why would it be StalinODAR? Stalin's Gift? Why would Moscow be a gift? very weird.

Yezhov wrote:

Yezhov said:
Гений Сталина является историческим даром человечеству, его путеводной звездой

Which means something like "the genius of Stalin is an historic gift to mankind, its guiding star".

Yezhov also quotes a poem:

Yezhov said:
Мысль летит быстрей, чем птица,
Счастье Сталин дал нам в дар.
И красавица столица
Не Москва —
Сталинодар!

Which means:

Yezhov said:
Thought flies faster than a bird
Stalin gave us happiness as a gift.
And the beautiful capital
is not Moscow, but Stalinodar.

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Сталинодар

Stalin's personality cult was probably bigger than the Kim family's.
 
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