Reviving and Adjusting Pre-War Myths on East Prussia in Contemporary Kaliningrad Oblast and in Memory Politics of Russian Authorities
Cordes, Milosz Jeromin LU
(2022)
CBEES Annual Conference 2022
- Abstract
- East Prussia was a region populated by people of many different ethnoses, confessions and languages. Initially settled by Germans after the Teutonic Knights had conquered native Pruthenians, it quickly became a melting pot of newcomers from different regions of Europe.
East Prussian diversity took a serious hit after the unification of Germany in 1871. The homogenisation policies adopted by the authorities in Berlin resulted in forceful Germanisation of the region’s population. It became even stronger after Germany’s defeat in World War I, when East Prussia got cut off from the rest of the country, and after 1933, when Nazi propaganda used the region to purse Third Reich’s political goals.
Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast was... (More) - East Prussia was a region populated by people of many different ethnoses, confessions and languages. Initially settled by Germans after the Teutonic Knights had conquered native Pruthenians, it quickly became a melting pot of newcomers from different regions of Europe.
East Prussian diversity took a serious hit after the unification of Germany in 1871. The homogenisation policies adopted by the authorities in Berlin resulted in forceful Germanisation of the region’s population. It became even stronger after Germany’s defeat in World War I, when East Prussia got cut off from the rest of the country, and after 1933, when Nazi propaganda used the region to purse Third Reich’s political goals.
Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast was created on the ruins of East Prussia. It was the first province of Germany in its 1937 borders that the Red Army had seized. Because of that, the region was subject to vendetta for actions taken by German soldiers in the Soviet Union.
Shortly afterwards, Kaliningrad Oblast started playing an important role in Soviet state propaganda. Whereas for pre-war Germany it was an outpost of Germanness in the East, Moscow described it as a lair of the fascist beast and a fortress of German militarism. The region’s new inhabitants lived in constant fear of the German and, as the Cold War emerged, U.S. threat.
The next decades brought a gradual rise of interest of the local population in the pre-war history. It exploded in late 1980s along with perestroika and early 1990s along with collapse of the Soviet Union. It all led to an ‘East Prussian carnival’ with symbols of pre-war Königsberg and Ostpreussen becoming ubiquitous.
When Vladimir Putin came back to the presidential seat in 2012, he started pursued the so-called new conservative project which meant to unify the narrative of Russia’s and Soviet Union’s history. According to it, Kaliningrad Oblast became a region tied with the Russian Empire for many centuries. Increasingly militaristic and imperial notions clashed with the grass-root interests of positive aspects of the pre-war history and started replacing the latter.
Such a policy gained strength after the 2014 events in Ukraine (annexation of Crimea and war in Donbas) and before the 2022 full-out invasion of Ukraine. Those who pursued their academic or amateur interests about East Prussia became accused of trying to implement Königsbergization of Kaliningrad Oblast.
This paper seeks to track reasons and mechanisms that led to Russian state apparatus adopting and transforming German myths about East Prussia to make them fit in the neoconservative project. It analyses myths created and exploited before 1945, their immediate confrontation with the new geopolitical reality, as well as gradual revival at the turn of 1990s. It then seeks to understand the political and social reality of the so-called Putin’s Russia and the importance of myths pertaining to Kaliningrad Oblast in overall memory politics of the Kremlin. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/ca5d3ded-b4c4-424d-807b-d287a30ea62b
- author
- Cordes, Milosz Jeromin
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2022-11-30
- type
- Contribution to conference
- publication status
- unpublished
- subject
- keywords
- Kaliningrad, Kaliningrad Oblast, Russia, Russian Federation, East Prussia, Germany
- conference name
- CBEES Annual Conference 2022
- conference location
- Stockholm, Sweden
- conference dates
- 2022-11-30 - 2022-12-02
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- ca5d3ded-b4c4-424d-807b-d287a30ea62b
- date added to LUP
- 2023-02-07 17:21:59
- date last changed
- 2023-02-14 10:57:06
@misc{ca5d3ded-b4c4-424d-807b-d287a30ea62b,
abstract = {{East Prussia was a region populated by people of many different ethnoses, confessions and languages. Initially settled by Germans after the Teutonic Knights had conquered native Pruthenians, it quickly became a melting pot of newcomers from different regions of Europe.<br/><br/>East Prussian diversity took a serious hit after the unification of Germany in 1871. The homogenisation policies adopted by the authorities in Berlin resulted in forceful Germanisation of the region’s population. It became even stronger after Germany’s defeat in World War I, when East Prussia got cut off from the rest of the country, and after 1933, when Nazi propaganda used the region to purse Third Reich’s political goals.<br/><br/>Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast was created on the ruins of East Prussia. It was the first province of Germany in its 1937 borders that the Red Army had seized. Because of that, the region was subject to vendetta for actions taken by German soldiers in the Soviet Union.<br/><br/>Shortly afterwards, Kaliningrad Oblast started playing an important role in Soviet state propaganda. Whereas for pre-war Germany it was an outpost of Germanness in the East, Moscow described it as a lair of the fascist beast and a fortress of German militarism. The region’s new inhabitants lived in constant fear of the German and, as the Cold War emerged, U.S. threat.<br/><br/>The next decades brought a gradual rise of interest of the local population in the pre-war history. It exploded in late 1980s along with perestroika and early 1990s along with collapse of the Soviet Union. It all led to an ‘East Prussian carnival’ with symbols of pre-war Königsberg and Ostpreussen becoming ubiquitous.<br/><br/>When Vladimir Putin came back to the presidential seat in 2012, he started pursued the so-called new conservative project which meant to unify the narrative of Russia’s and Soviet Union’s history. According to it, Kaliningrad Oblast became a region tied with the Russian Empire for many centuries. Increasingly militaristic and imperial notions clashed with the grass-root interests of positive aspects of the pre-war history and started replacing the latter.<br/><br/>Such a policy gained strength after the 2014 events in Ukraine (annexation of Crimea and war in Donbas) and before the 2022 full-out invasion of Ukraine. Those who pursued their academic or amateur interests about East Prussia became accused of trying to implement Königsbergization of Kaliningrad Oblast.<br/><br/>This paper seeks to track reasons and mechanisms that led to Russian state apparatus adopting and transforming German myths about East Prussia to make them fit in the neoconservative project. It analyses myths created and exploited before 1945, their immediate confrontation with the new geopolitical reality, as well as gradual revival at the turn of 1990s. It then seeks to understand the political and social reality of the so-called Putin’s Russia and the importance of myths pertaining to Kaliningrad Oblast in overall memory politics of the Kremlin.}},
author = {{Cordes, Milosz Jeromin}},
keywords = {{Kaliningrad; Kaliningrad Oblast; Russia; Russian Federation; East Prussia; Germany}},
language = {{eng}},
month = {{11}},
title = {{Reviving and Adjusting Pre-War Myths on East Prussia in Contemporary Kaliningrad Oblast and in Memory Politics of Russian Authorities}},
year = {{2022}},
}