Tsaritsyn, Stalingrad, Volgograd

Tsaritsyn

The city was founded in 1589 as the fortress of Tsaritsyn, to protect newly won Russian land along the Volga. In the Russian Civil War of 1918–20 Joseph Stalin organised its defence against the White armies, and the city was later renamed in his honour: Stalingrad, from 1925.^[1][2]

Stalingrad

From August 1942 to February 1943 the German army, at the limit of its advance, tried to take the city. It was reduced to rubble; then Soviet forces cut off the German salient and destroyed an army group of some 300,000 men.^[1] The battle, which ended on 2 February 1943, is estimated to have cost 2 million casualties and is widely seen as the point at which Germany was forced onto the defensive.^[3]

Volgograd, mostly

The city was rebuilt after the war. In 1961, as part of the de-Stalinisation begun by Nikita Khrushchev, it was renamed Volgograd.^[2]

The old name has never quite gone. In 2013 city lawmakers voted to use Stalingrad for ceremonial purposes on six days a year, including 2 February and 9 May.^[2] Before the battle’s 80th anniversary in 2023 a bust of Stalin was unveiled in the city, veterans proposed renaming it, and rumours spread that the name Stalingrad would be restored.^[3]

“The southern city went by the name Tsaritsyn until it was renamed Stalingrad in 1925. It became Volgograd in 1961, eight years after Stalin’s death and after his legacy fell out of favor.”^[3]