style="font-size:15px;"> However, the division of the city in the prestigious and non-prestigious areas began to form in the Soviet time early. These areas largely kept pre-war urban planning, as well as historic architecture, parks, and gardens. In addition, there remained elements of the exterior of the old city, such as cobbled roads.
In general, Kaliningrad is a typical example of the division of s urban habitat in the Soviet Union, but it retained a number of local features such as the pre-war urban planning with clear local demarcation. During the war, the central part of the city was largely destroyed, so there was no integrity of the urban centre.
The city of Kaliningrad had to play a role of extension of the entire Soviet Union. That psychological and physical experience had to be associated with macro-national Soviet identity. The process of the reconstruction of the city was dominated by the construction of standardized Soviet-style modernist structures, new street layouts, and insertion of public spaces that are typical of many other cities of the Soviet Union. City planners viewed the wartime destruction of the city as an opportunity to disregard historical «layer» of urban space: This approach was related to the ideological concept of complete historical discontinuity between Königsberg and Kaliningrad157. Newcomers after the war did not feel a sense of belonging to the place and they had no sense of belonging together158.
The establishment of the «Soviet man» has required a feeling of belonging to a certain group of people, and this feeling was weak in Kaliningrad. The authorities knew it. Therefore, the city of Kaliningrad was chosen as the centre to establish a new society, which itself would create its place from scratch. The city of Kaliningrad became the centre of attraction of the population. From 1959 (first Soviet census) to 1989 (last Soviet census), the number of residents increased gradually, and it eventually doubled from 200,000 to 400,000159. It should be emphasized that up to the present time the growth of Kaliningrad population never has a negative dynamics.
2. 3. Generational change and perception of cultural and historical heritage: Change in cultural paradigm
2. 3.1. Primary perception of a new territory
The frame of perception of East Prussia as a territory with its own history and unique features was determined during the war. «Public opinion» of the Soviet people, mentioned in 1943160, was formed gradually as it evidenced by the rhetoric of official propaganda. The main medium of «public opinion» had to come from soldiers and officers of the Red Army, as they were the first who physically confronted with a new cultural and historical landscape. These people had to be important reporters of the official discourse.
Crossing the border of East Prussia, the Red Army were able visually to perceive negative information, which had accompanied them all the way to Königsberg. There were posters with similar content near the border pillars: «Warriors of the Red Army! You stand in front of the lair of the fascist beast!» Apart from Königsberg, no other German city was perceived as the concentration of aggressive and revanchist spirit. The first published literature explained in simple language the image of East Prussia161.
The newspaper «Pravda», as official media of the Communist Party, almost immediately after the assault on Königsberg voiced an official point of view in the article «The Fall of Königsberg»: «The history of Königsberg is a history of crime of Germany. Entire history of the city was full of plunder, and another life was unknown»162. This ideological axiom was supposed to be some sort of code for the perception of history and culture of the province.
The war was the auspicious background for the perception of such propaganda. Therefore, it was relative easy task to establish the corresponding mood among participants of hostilities, who have seen the enemy face to face.
A special «semi-closed» status of the Kaliningrad Oblast played role of positive background for official propaganda. On 29 June 1946, almost simultaneously with the decision to establish the Kaliningrad Oblast, a secret decree of the Soviet government was issued. This decree classified the entire territory of the Oblast as «closed border zone». The access to the area was allowed only with permission issued by the militia163.
Conservation of negative perception of the area among newly arrived migrants was a more complicated task. It required the establishing of direct and consistent association between the «enemy» and the space, which was inhabited, built, and developed by migrants. Therefore, stereotypes that arose under military conflict should save their strength and actuality even after the war. First flows of migrants were relatively convenient material and a springboard for the training of such sentiments. It was a relatively easy task, as most of them did not have any insight into the territory to which they migrated.
The Kaliningrad Oblast is an unusual social and historical phenomenon. On the one hand, the previous population completely left the region, on the other hand, new residents who have never been there, arrived to the region. As a result, in a short span of time the population was completely replaced.
Migrants from the Soviet Union found themselves under new conditions of life. People felt themselves «abroad»; they knew only that before here lived «strangers». Settlers frankly said that they «come to Germany», «in Prussia». Such expectations raised a feeling of great interest to the new place. Conducting of meaningful social activities required comprehension of this land, its traditions, centuries-old ways of economic management, and social infrastructure164.
According to Hoppe, shortly after the end of the war the city was in a state of stagnation – «Kaliningrad is not a German city, but has not yet become a Soviet»165. First settlers arrived in this vacuum.
2.3.2. Process of cognition: «Complex of temporality» or «outpost in the West»?
Feeling of «other landscape» and depressive emotions led to the perception of residence in the area as temporary. Many settlers claimed that they did not think to stay here for a long time. As a result, many people obtained complex of ’temporary worker’ («vremenshchik»), which was based on the absence of ties to the new ground.
Psychological emptiness in addition to economic reasons has led to a significant flow of return migration to other more familiar parts of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, among the specialists, who worked in Oblast, was popular ’rotational’ («vahtovij») approach to professional career. Systematic and significant financial investment in social infrastructure substantially solved this problem until the end of 1960.
Settlers remember: «The relatives scolded us – why are you leaving your home? We did not expect to live here for a long time – we wanted back to Russia… We did not know what would go on»166. It was a common emotional mood accompanying many settlers. Party authorities understood the need to reverse migrant’s sentiments in a sense that they live at home, but not on a hostile foreign land. Therefore, the cognition of reality was required, but in the particular framework: regional authorities stayed faithful to ideological orientation of total negation of region’s history. Frameworks of knowledge had specific physical boundaries. On
Sezneva, Olga: Op. cit., p. 43.
Ibid., p. 41.
Data of the USSR census of 1959 and 1989.
Sovetskij Sojuz na mezhdynarodnych konferencijach perioda Velikoj Otechestvennoj voiny 1941—1945. Мoscow 1978. Vol. 1, p. 183.
Glebov, V.: Vostochnaja Prussia: Kratkij spravochnik. Moscow 1944.
Padenie Königsberga, Pravda, 13 April 1945.
Kostjashov, Juri: Sekretnye dokumenty otdela spezposelenij MVD USSR o zaselenii Kaliningradskoj oblasti v 1946. In: Problemy istochnikovedenija i istoriografii. Kaliningrad 1999, p. 64—67.
Kostjashov, Juri: O nacionalnoj strukture, etnograficheskich osobennostyach i socio-kulturnoj adaptacii sovietskich pereselencev v Kaliningradskoj oblasti (1945—1950). In: Nacionalnye otnochenija v novoe i novejshee vremia: teorija i praktika. Kaliningrad 2000, p. 66—79.
Hoppe, Bert: Op. cit, p. 29.
Obrussenije Prussii; http://www.vremya.ru/2010/2/13/245113.html, accessed 12. 04. 2013
