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

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href="#note88" type="note">88.

      During my empirical study I asked my respondents about the format of interaction within political, economic and cultural dimensions in the space of the borderland region and whether it is legitimate to talk about the hierarchy or the interdependence of these measurements. I have collected very different answers, which made the basis of empirical research in the light of the idea that the culture is but one element in the definition and reproduction of a political system.

      I consider the point of Strassoldo relevant who concluded that the ambivalence of border life is a defining feature of border societies in several respects89. Border people may demonstrate ambiguous identities because economic, cultural and linguistic factors pull them in two directions. They are also pulled two ways politically, and may display only a weak identification with the nation-state in which they reside. This ambivalent border identity affects the role that border communities play in international cooperation and conflict90. Everyday practice of young Kaliningradians and empirical research logically fall on this theoretical basis.

      For Anderson, borders are both institutions and processes. Anderson also stresses that «borders are markers of identity, and have played a role in this century in making national identity the pre-eminent political identity of the modern state»91.

      The frontiers are markers of identity, in the twentieth century usually of national identity, although political identities may be larger or smaller than the «nation» state. Frontiers, in this sense, are part of political beliefs and myths about the unity of the people and sometimes myths about the «natural» unity of a territory92. These «imagined communities», to use Anderson’s93 phrase, are now a universal phenomenon and often have deep historical roots. These communities are defined by imagined boundaries, if we follow Cohen’s remark, that «where cultural difference was formerly underpinned also by structural boundaries, these have now given way to boundaries which inhere in the mind: symbolic boundaries»94. To accept this assumption, we must proceed from the fact that «human consciousness and social organization are profoundly conditioned by territory and frontiers»95. I note the importance, of how Cohen estimates symbols as a resource for identity. According to his point of view they are «pragmatic devices which are invested with meaning through social process of one kind or another, they are potent resources in the arenas of politics and identity»96.

      I share the view, that in certain circumstances the frontier acquired a mythic significance in building nations and political identities, becoming, as Anderson signalized, the mythomoteur of a whole society97.

      For Barth98, ethnic groups are socially designed using individuals who adjust their cultural identity by emphasizing or underplaying it according to current context. Individuals can cross the boundaries between groups if they find it advantageous to do. Moreover they can maintain regular relations across them, but this does not affect the durability and stability of the boundaries themselves. Accordingly, «cultural emblems and differences are thus significant only in so far as they are socially effective, as an organizational device for articulating social relations»99.

      Here it is necessary to bear in mind that according to the discourse of anthropology the «boundary» is the word with the most general application; whereas the term «border» item is situationally specific and «frontier» has come to be reserved to fairly strictly limited geopolitical and legal applications100. At that point following question has considerable importance, «why inter-group boundaries are sharply marked even as people cross them and even as the cultural differences between the groups change»101.

      In this regard, I share the view of Sezneva who, in writing about Kaliningrad, takes the point that «there are no reasons to believe that a certain behavioral pattern will automatically lead to the formation of a particular political attitude, or learning about a history will automatically form a particular identity. How people categorize and identity the social world and themselves within it, and how these categories impact on their behavior are not the same issue. Categories of self-understanding do not always provide a basis for collective action and the formation of collective subject-ness»102.

      As Barth stressed, the critical focus of investigation should be «the ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses»103. As known, Barth emphasizes that boundary-making involves two phenomena: self-ascription and ascription by others. But he tends to focus on one side rather than the other, emphasizing internal identification rather than external constraint and the shaping influence of wider structures, such as those of class and the state. However, it makes sense to distinguish «between two analytically distinct processes of ascription: group identification and social categorization. The first occurs inside the… boundary, the second outside and across it»104.

      Cohen takes the similar point as Barth. He stresses that «culture, identity and symbolism all converge on the concept of ethnicity» and makes a critic of the last one: «In some respects, this is the most difficult word of the three, since it appears to mean something – indeed, has been imported into lay usage for this reason – but, in practice, means either everything or nothing at all. Ethnicity has become the politicization of culture»105.

      Cooper and Brubaker argue that «identity» is always «situated» and «contextual»106. This related to approach of viewing identity as «a process that is a temporal and dynamic phenomenon, which has a history, and even is itself situated in history as experience»107.

      A combination of historical memory and geography provides a sense of commonality resulting in a perceived, distinct kind of groupness108. Does this thesis holds true in Kaliningrad? If Kaliningrad’s territorial isolation engenders a sense of «boundedness»? Borders operate as hard geographic facts and geographic borders translated into social boundaries. If the choice with whom to distinguish themselves (Russian or Europeans) is a choice between two temporalities for Kaliningradians?109 These questions need to find their answer in this thesis.

      Structure of thesis

      The main part of the thesis consists of three chapters.

      The first is «The Kaliningrad region and its historical background» illuminates the issues of historical background and birth of the Kaliningrad Oblast’. Significant attention paid to migration flows as a source of demographic capacity before the collapse of the USSR and the formation of regional society.

      For a comprehensive review of the historical context attention is paid to the deportation of German population and analysis of the settlement of first Kaliningradians. In this regard, important sources are archival materials and

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