Kaliningrad – an ambivalent transnational region within a European-Russian scope. Evgeniy Chernyshev

      The Kaliningrad region is an administrative-territorial unit of the Russian Federation, which has the most unusual history among other entities of the Federation and consistently attracts socio-political and research interests. Established as a result of the Second World War the Kaliningrad region became a target for intensive Soviet resettlement policy. The complete shift of the population in extremely short period of time has prepared the necessary «testing ground» for voluntaristic construction of the collective memory of new inhabitants of the region – immigrants from various Soviet republics and regions.

      The cultivation of the idea that the territorial accession is just the trophy of war was an important arrangement of Soviet propaganda and cultural-educational policy, which was most pronounced in the first two decades after the war. The official discourse has ensured the fact that the Second World War is the starting point of history of the region.

      History and culture of the Kaliningrad region after 1945 has long remained beyond the scope of scientific research in Western Europe and in Germany in particular. Scientific interest in the «Kaliningrad issue» was focused mainly within the field of politics and economics. Researches on socio-cultural issues appeared only in recent times, and presented in studies of Kaliningrad’s youth by Matthes2, Hoppe3, Brodersen4.

      The second half of the 1980s marked a new phase in studies of the Kaliningrad region. It was officially recognized the fact of the continuity of pre-war and post-war (Soviet) histories. This trend was accelerated since the early 1990s,, when the discourse was aimed on questions of «who we are here?», «what is our mission?», «what are our roots?»

      Therefore in the post-soviet time the public and scientific debates on the question «whether is it appropriate to regard Kaliningradians as a distinctive group or community, framed by regional cultural markers», acquired a significant role in the political and everyday discourse.

      The 1990s may be defined as the period of updating the regional cultural, historical, ethnographic and multidisciplinary studies. Researches of this period are characterized by the introduction of results of ethnographic studies. The issue of cultural identity came to the fore in the last twenty years5.The issue of identity and regional consciousness is associated by many researchers with Kaliningrad’s exclave status6. This approach allows defining the Kaliningrad region as a geographical and political space, but also as cultural exclave.

      In the 2000s, due to the emotional quest of «Kaliningrad distinctiveness» and as a result of search for some regional «identity», not only the territory and place, but also people – Kaliningradians became the object of significant attention. In this context among political establishment is studied and crystallized the idea of «strengthening of loyalty» to the Russian statehood («center») among the Kaliningrad community. Particular attention is given to the young generation. To this end, political actors, mainly of the central government, bring to the agenda the topic of «latent separatism».

      Academic science, especially political science and sociology, were involved in carrying out the necessary adjustment of the attitude of Kaliningradians from superfluously «European» to more typically «Russian». Anthropology brings modest «contribution» to this activity. The complexity of the abovementioned factors leads to the enrichment and diversity of discourse about identity and regional culture as a model (modification) of the national identification core. Since 2004, the Kaliningrad region has become a Russian enclave within the EU and discourse articulated more intensely.

      In 2007, neighboring Poland and Lithuania became the members of the Schengen area and the «Kaliningrad issue» became a topic for EU – Russia relations. Since this time Kaliningrad regional official and public institutions are included in multilateral projects of «region-building» in the Baltic Sea region. The expiry of the valid law of «The special economic zone «Kaliningrad region»7 permanently brings the issue of economic security of the region, which has a lasting impact on «Kaliningrad distinctiveness».

      The «Kaliningrad issue» is quite actively developed by political science with the intensive involvement of the methods of empirical sociology and statistics. A number of questions rise: «What role plays the identification of the region’s residents with their space of habitat», «where are the boundaries of the construct of regional identity», «Do they lie exclusively within the administrative boundaries of the Kaliningradskaja oblast or construct of identity finds nutritional base abroad, in the border areas, in the „center“ or anywhere else?» and «Is it possible at all to measure the construct of regional identity by spatial categories?»

      Since the beginning of 1970s, the regular development of the academic design of «regionalism» theories in European academic circles began. Theoretical development of political anthropology, political sociology, social psychology, cultural history, focused on the categories of «place», «territory», «identity», «border» and «boundary». It is worth to note the studies of Keating8, Aronsson9, Neumann10, Joenniemi, Browning11, Paasi12.

      As an important milestone of the study of regional «historical self-consciousness» should be considered a long-term research project of Kaliningrad historians led by Kostyashov. The large-scale collection of memories of the first Soviet immigrants was published in the Polish, Russian and German languages and became a significant example of oral history13.

      At the same time, including through this project, a gradual shift took place among the German scientists away from the extreme views of Kaliningrad as a place without a past, or vice versa, as a place without a present and future14. In particular, Matthes15 has repeatedly appealed to the theme of regional identity of residents of the Kaliningrad region.

      Also I should note the high relevance of the studies of Hoppe16 and Brodersen17, who undertaken a successful attempt to reconstruct and analyze the cultural, historical and social contexts of everyday life of Kaliningradians in 1945—1970, that is, during the period of most massive ideological «processing» of the population and prior to the planned upgrading of the urban landscape

Скачать книгу