The space of metaphor in the space of the created locus (based on Hrant Matevosyan’s prose)
- DOI
- 10.5922/2225-5346-2025-4-8
- Pages
- 151—168
Abstract
Any city holds hidden meanings associated with its history, intentional or unintentional plans of builders, representations of power and practices of residents, revealing archaic or pseudo-archaic elements in the city structure. The article focuses on Yerevan as a space of multiple symbolic layers, conflicts and re-significations. The authors trace how in the Armenian capital throughout the 20th and 21st centuries there was a deliberate displacement of some signs by others — from the demolition of religious and Soviet architectural objects to toponymic transformations. Analyzing examples of street renaming, the authors reveal how ideological strategies are manifested both in state initiatives and in local commercial names. Particular attention is paid to protest movements (from 1988 to 2022), in which the street acts as a space for the articulation of collective subjectivity. Methodologically, the work draws on the semiotics of space, the anthropology of the city and the theory of representation (including Lefebvre), examining how material and symbolic practices conflict, coexist and shape ‘place’ in the anthropological sense. The article offers an interpretation of Yerevan as a living urban text, where each renaming and protest action is a struggle for the right to meaning.