Capital cities cast a spell over their countries. They are magnets, drawing to them money, culture, tourism, commerce and, in the case of London, Russian oligarchs and their 'unexplained' wealth (see Catherine Belton's Putin's People for her explanations), houses, yachts and the GRU. And now sanctions. Because of a country whose capital city's name has undergone a makeover. All my long life I have known that Ukraine's capital is Kiev. No longer. It's now Kyiv. Why?
I learned in school that the capital of China was Peking. We had to start using Beijing as its name in about 1979. I know, that's a post-colonial transliteration thing but worth mentioning. Maybe Kyiv is too.
Ho Chi Minh City used to be known as Saigon until the locals heard the musical Miss Saigon and hated it. Claude-Michel Schönberg flatly refused to rename it Miss Ho Chi Minh City. OK, it's not the capital; just thought you'd like to know.
I'm tempted to sneer at the fact that New Delhi is no longer new but it appears that ND is a district within what Wikipedia calls the 'megacity' of Delhi.
Capital cities seem to be a root cause of inequality within a country. What if we (the UK) declared that from now on Middlesbrough is our capital? Would that city shoot from #1 in the 'most deprived places in the UK' list of the highly esteemed Daily Mirror right up to #1 in their 'least deprived' list? Surely worth a go. If it works, we could move the capital around the country every ten years [this happens in Dido's Phoenicia in Civilization VI] and reap the benefits of capitalisation. Memo to Michael Gove, Secretary of State responsible for the government's 'levelling up' strategy.
Anyway, I'm off to the opera in Middlesbrough, followed tomorrow by a visit to the Middlesbrough Tate and dinner at the Middlesbrough Ritz. See, it's working already.
Oh and no, I'm not meaning to make light of the lot of the people of Ukraine - or those of other currently war-torn countries: Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Yemen, Myanmar (let me know if I have omitted your country).
I’ve long advocated that parliament should relocate to Manchester or Leeds as the buildings in London are falling down. But even then I suspect it wouldn’t make much difference. The capital of Pakistan is Islamabad. But it’s Karachi that is the magnet. Same with Brazilia and Rio. And what about Canberra and Sydney.
ReplyDeleteI’ve also wondered about these name changes. We don’t say ‘München’ or ‘Roma’ or ‘Lisboa’
Why not?