the World movement for the rights of African Americans Black Lives Matter reached a new level. Now activists intervened in the renaming of a Berlin metro station. Long time residents did not like the name Mohrenstrasse (Mohrenstrasse street of the Moors) because the first root of the word “moor”, which here is considered racist and offensive. The Ministry of transport has proposed to name the station in honor of the great Russian composer Mikhail Glinka. But this solution only caused a new scandal.
the fact that Glinka died near Mohrenstrasse, so the Berlin Ministry and thought about whether not to call the station in his honor. The idea to rename it to Glinkastrasse (Glinkastrasse) criticized for anti-Semitism of the Russian composer. German newspaper Bild wrote an article, putting on nationalist ideas of the composer.
And Berliner-Zeitung even dismantled the Opera “Prince Kholmsky”, which Glinka wrote the music. The publication indicates that “we are talking about the conspiracy of the Jews, who had penetrated into the Russian government and the clergy and to destroy them from the inside.” Opera is no longer performed for good reasons, according to the newspaper, it is full of anti-Semitism. It is also known that Glinka had frequently allowed himself anti-Semitic attacks against his contemporary, musician Anton Rubinstein.
“the Plot is anti-Semitic, even if anti-Semitism was widespread and accepted at that time, says the plot of the Opera historian from Berlin’s Humboldt University, Jan Klas Berends. — I do not think that we should get rid of the names of streets or stations, bearing the names of people like Glinka, but renaming the station in his honor now — quite another matter”.
you need to change the name of the subway station? The fact that since opening in 1908 it was renamed several times. Communists who ruled East Berlin did it twice. Mohrenstrasse she became in 1991. Since then, for several years conducted a campaign related to the fact that the station is again renamed.
After the tragic events in Minnesota, the fight against racism grows stronger. It is therefore not surprising that the disputed name of the station once again attracted the attention of activists.
the Newspaper Spiegel writes that the next street was the “Moorish” in the early XVIII century as lived there, black slaves, and freed from slavery by Africans. The Berlin transport company argues that the request to rename Mohrenstrasse originally received from its employees, and the change itself only underscores the intolerance of the company against any forms of racism.
“missed the Glinka is only one side of criticism of the Berlin transport company. To the situation and joined the activists of the “black community” and those who call to consider when p��naimenovanie the streets in Berlin, the German colonial history in Africa,” writes Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.
the Activists proposed the name for the station – “street of Anton Wilhelm AMO” (Anton-Wilhelm-Amo-Straße). AMO was a famous philosopher and scholar of African descent in the eighteenth century. Anton Wilhelm, a former slave, stolen, and later “donated” and inherited. In the end, AMO received an excellent education and wrote not a single scientific work, including “On the legal status of the Moors in Europe”.
