Russian Toponyms as a Form of Distributed Museality in the United States

The object of this study is Russian toponyms in the United States, examined as a specific form of distributed museality operating outside institutional museum frameworks. The research focuses on the cultural landscape of the Russian diaspora, where place names are interpreted not as auxiliary linguistic or historical-geographical labels, but as spatially fixed yet immaterial museum objects. These objects exist in situ and acquire museal qualities only through processes of activation, including narration, routing, public interpretation, and community participation. The study investigates the conditions under which a toponym begins to perform core museum functions such as memorialization, interpretation, and spatial linkage, thereby contributing to the formation of stable configurations of collective memory. Particular attention is given to diasporic and migration-driven contexts, where material traces of the past are often absent, and toponymy remains one of the few enduring forms of historical and cultural presence in public space. The research adopts a qualitative, interdisciplinary methodology combining cultural landscape analysis, elements of critical cartography, and interpretation of memory narratives within the theoretical framework of new museology and the ecomuseum approach. The scientific novelty of the study lies in repositioning toponymy from the domains of historical geography and linguistics into contemporary museum theory. For the first time, the toponym is conceptualized as a non-musealized museum object capable of fulfilling museal functions beyond institutional settings. The article proposes a model of commemorative routes as a form of ecomuseum exhibition without physical infrastructure, enabling the integration of dispersed toponymic traces into a reproducible museal system. It is demonstrated that routing functions as a key mechanism for assembling distributed museality, not by eliminating fragmentation, but by rendering it operational. The study concludes that Russian toponyms in the United States constitute a low-cost yet high-impact museum resource suitable for engaging with dispersed and dissonant heritage in transnational contexts. These findings contribute to the expansion of museum theory and offer practical implications for heritage governance beyond institutional concentration.