City linguistic landscape in the time of war

Background. A new field, critical urban toponymy, emerged at the end of the 20th century. In Ukraine, this field is a component of studies on linguistic landscapes. The research analyzes toponymic transformations in urban spaces as tools for decolonization and deoccupation as well as the relationship between names, historical and cultural memory, and state ideology. However, there is still a lack of systematic studies examining the place names of urban objects through the lens of war.Contribution to the research field. The presented studies may help to understand the significance of a city’s adequately constructed linguistic (urbanonymic) landscape in the context of war. They illustrate how the correct linguistic construction of the living space impacts the outcomes of physical military confrontations and hybrid warfare, particularly semantic warfare.Purpose. This article aims to demonstrate how the linguistic landscape of a city is connected to war, how it can serve as a tool of influence, and how it can become an instrument of either victory or defeat.Methods. The principles of critical toponymy theory, commemorative theory, and security studies theory were employed. Descriptive analysis, content analysis, discourse analysis, and axiological research methods were applied.Results. The capacity of a society to effectively and securely organize its own life is directly or indirectly influenced by two factors — space and time. Space can be understood as both physical-real and mental-virtual. The physical space represents the primary target of physical warfare, while the virtual space embodies the focus of semantic warfare. The analysis of the connection between language and space in both manifestations reveals that significance lies not only in language but also in the symbolic meaning, typically encoded in keywords, linguistic constructions, and especially in the names of various spatial objects.Discussion. Current war spans a broad temporal horizon, making the study of language, including proper names, in the context of war a primary task for Ukrainian scientists. This provides an opportunity to highlight the importance of language and to offer the world insights into how language manifests in war and how war manifests in language.