Cultura histórica y nombres de calles. Aproximación al nomenclátor contemporáneo de Barcelona y Madrid

The street names of a city weave an interesting tapestry of memory. Urban place-names shape a particular macrotext that expresses and contains several identitarian and mnemonic discourses. In this article, the author deals with the symbolic of street names. The political and commemorative tone of Spanish urban place names is explained as a logical fruit of European traditional historicism and as a consequence of modern political contexts. Street names are considered as a relevant part of the European historical culture, that is to say, as one of the sources, by means of which Europeans interpret, objectify and use history. The article has primarily a theoretical pretension. It proposes a methodological scaffolding in order to study street names and other elements of public memory. However, the street names of Barcelona and Madrid are also explored (specially modern names) in order to identify their main ideological narratives.