The article is dedicated to the analysis of ideologically meaningful proper names, mainly oikonyms, and also to the indication and description of the three main tendencies noticed in Ukrainian oikonyms from the end of 1989 until 2016, during the social and political transformations in Ukraine and the decommunization processes connected with it. Using examples, the authors illustrate the phenomenon of korenizatsiya (nativisation), namely the recovery of historical names from before sovietisation, allusiveness, ensuring a neutral nature for names by referring to objects outside the area of politics and ideology, as well as glorification, the honoring and memorializing of events, heroes, and symbols connected with the past and modern history of Ukraine.

The aim of the paper is to discuss the linguistic and onymic properties of the geographical names of the Hutsul region (Гуцульщина, Ukraine) used by Stanisław Vincenz in the first volume (“Prawda starowieku”) of his tetralogy “Na wysokiej połoninie” (“On the High Uplands”). The volume was first published in 1936. The second edition appeared in 1980 in Poland and was the one which had the greatest impact on the reception of the Vincenz’s work in the Polish readership after WW2. This is why the 1980 edition has been used as the source of analysed toponymic material. The main finding is that the analysed toponymy is of heterogeneous and (to a certain extent) hybrid nature, combining Polish, Ukrainian, and dialectal Hucul linguistic properties, which perfectly coincides with general tendency in the use of geographical names of the Hucul region in texts produced in the Polish language from the mid-19th century. The names used by Vincenz in the book written in the period 1930–1936 seem to faithfully reflect some specific characteristics of Hutsul toponymy in the 1930s (as discussed by the linguist Stefan Hrabec in his dissertation). Finally, some instances of toponyms’ declension present in “Prawda starowieku” are discussed together with some examples of (partially folk) etymologies codified by Vincenz in his work.

The article contains preliminary considerations on the principles of the standardization of geographical names in Poland, in particular the names of physiographic objects. The notion of a country’s language policy has been referred to as one of its tools is the standardization of geographical names. The general objectives of the Polish language policy were listed as such: the assertion of legal status of the Polish language as the first language in Poland; the assertion of conditions for the development of national and ethnic minority languages in the country; the construction of a Polish- language national and state community. Legal acts concerning Polish language and geographical nomenclature were indicated. It was stated that the assumed effect of political and linguistic actions should be to develop a nomenclature in correct Polish, one which is pragmatically effective, rooted in tradition and, as a result of this study, one should expect to achieve an optimal course of the language communication process in each communicative community. Then, the criteria of the linguistic correctness of geographical names applied to date were discussed and similarities indicated in the standardization procedure with regards to geonyms and specialist terms. The rules of the detailed standardization procedure will be presented in the second part of the article

In the 20th century toponymy of the Kłodzko Land underwent serious changes, which with no doubt can be called a revolution. After 1945 and the displacement of the German population all the pre-war names were substituted with Polish ones, which, unfortunately, only rarely were connected with the former tradition, in some cases as old as the middle ages. Most of new names were introduced by a special commission whose main aim was to mark that the new areas gained by Poland after the World War II (the so called Regained Territories) were successfully taken into possession. However, many places and objects (some mountain tops, rock formations, springs, parts of villages) did not receive a name. In the next decades, new local communities started to accustom the mountainous landscape and independently gave names to various nameless (in Polish) places. Unfortunately, due to the depopulation of rural areas in the Kłodzko Land and other formal reasons, the process was quite slow. The main aim of the paper is not only to analyse those changes, but also to compare the numbers of names in chosen moments of the 20th century. For this purpose three types of maps in 1 : 25 000 scale were used: pre-war (German) “Meßtischblatt”, a Polish topographic map representing the situation at the beginning of the 1970s and, finally, the “Army topographic map” from the end of the 20th century. On the first map 531 geographical names were marked, on the second — only 225, and on the third — 277, which is still approximately half of the number before 1945.