Ljubljana is unique in comparison to other European capitals in its urban toponymy – the names of squares, roads, streets, all the way to (in)visible microtoponyms. Since the ideological cleansing in 1952, even in the vicinity of representative churches, including the cathedral, there are no names after their patron saints, and the vast majority of other names related to the Church and religion have also been abolished. The article aims to determine what has happened to Ljubljana's non-sacred toponymy of ecclesiastical and religious origin from the city's founding until today. Over the centuries, the people of Ljubljana have named individual areas, squares, streets and roads after churches, chapels and monasteries, often (occasionally) descriptively. This practice in Slovenian and German, in which practically everything was written until the mid-19th century, lasted until the beginning of the 19th century, when the city magistrate determined permanent street names, then only in German. While toponymy had previously been decided spontaneously by popular vote and only a little by written tradition (in German), the city authorities later took over the main role, and the names of squares, roads and streets became and remain a matter of politics to this day. Some of the new names for old locations were not accepted by the people or were only established with difficulty, but unofficial use could no longer influence the official nomenclature as before.
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