Kaliningrad – an ambivalent transnational region within a European-Russian scope. Evgeniy ChernyshevЧитать онлайн книгу.
feeling of foreignness led to the suspicious and cautious attitude to these artefacts along with the activities of Soviet propaganda, even to the denial of the so-called «bourgeois remnants». The list of «bourgeois remnants» contained many achievements of urban infrastructure and agricultural practices. Therefore, in the early post-war years the attitude of the population to destroying of remnants of architectural heritage and infrastructure was mostly indifferent. The position of the Kaliningrad region as ’an outpost of the Soviet Union in the far west’ imposed certain restrictions on the cognition, and on ways of obtaining knowledge. The state authorities have seen Kaliningradians, who has knowledge of the region, as «find for spies» («nachodka dlya shpiona»). Figuratively speaking, the state monopolized the «alien» cultural space and guarded it as a top secret. The lack of knowledge led to the emergence and spread of all sorts of rumours and speculation among the inhabitants, even establishing mystical local folklore.
2.3.3. Attempts to control perception
However, the desire to ignore the architectural and cultural heritage was associated not only with the desire to destroy the alien past, but also to deprive the first settlers of the possibility to compare the standards of living. It may be aligned to the contemporary situation: Kaliningradians compare the standard of living and way of life not with the rest of Russia, but with neighbouring Eastern and Central Europe. Such memories were typical of many who arrived in Kaliningrad in the late 1940s: «When approaching the city, I was struck by houses with a slate roof: It was beautiful. I immediately felt that there lived other people. Neat brick or stone village houses, asphalted roads lined with trees»174. It is noteworthy that districts of the city that were prestigious and attractive in Königsberg remained attractive for life now.
In contradiction with above-mentioned perception, the authorities cared about making their «mythology» of region. In the second half of the 1940s was designed a short course on the history of East Prussia, which was used for lectures at enterprises and educational institutions of the region. The history begins with a description of prosperity of ancestors of Slavs. For a description of their way of life used such expressions: «bountiful land», «cultivated fields», and «hard-working people». With the arrival of the Crusaders is a radical change of scenery and expressions took place: «The trouble came from the west – invaders, German knights». They «turned the country into a desert», «looted assets», and «massacred or enslaved the population». Then some information about Königsberg: «The knights choose providently a place for their nest of robbery. Connection to the sea by the channel made it possible to get necessary manpower and weapons and send the loot to German states»175. One can see that there is a dichotomy within the West, and Königsberg is represented as the hotbed of most negative features.
However, negative information about the history of the region has been available for a short time. Shortly after the beginning of the Kaliningrad resettlement, any mentions about East Prussia and people who inhabited it were erased from the printed historical materials. All mentions about Germany were removed from print media and publications. Phrases such as «on land reclaimed from the Germans» or «restore factory» were undesirable, because it is impossible to restore something that does not exist. It seems to be created anew, which means that the first Kaliningradians became «pioneers» of the new region.
Another important aspect of perception has been associated with the war. Immigrants is often seen a region as a trophy. On the one hand, the trophy can be seen as a gift that is easy to obtain and thus easy to lose. On the other, if take in account material and human losses incurred by the Soviet Union during World War II, the trophy has acquired a symbolic value. These two features led to perception of new habitat as an area filled with the symbolism of the official ideology. However, it was the interim habitat. Nobody knew how long would continue this interim phase: neither ordinary people, nor regional party authorities.
Under these circumstances, the construction of the collective memory of new residents becomes an important part of the official Soviet propaganda. The core element of the official discourse – which was the basis of this propaganda – is World War II as an initial point of reference to the history of the region. The long history of this area was deliberately suppressed. Artefacts of the past were destroyed, or simply not recovered.
It should be noted that this ideological politics was only partly successful. New residents – who found themselves surrounded by an alien cultural landscape – were forced to interact with material manifestations (artefacts): it was simply inevitable. Ideologues and representatives of the party apparatus themselves interacted with these material manifestations. Their interaction was understandably even closer than interaction of ordinary Soviet citizens.
Interest to the cultural and historical heritage of the past existed among professional historians and researchers, as well as among a range of local history enthusiasts who have always been. Their interest was permissible, but only within certain limits: for example, the study of ethnic or historical ties between East Prussia and Russia; search of lost Amber Room; but it is obvious that they have acquired knowledge extended far beyond that limits. In archives of party’s authorities were accumulated a lot of rare sources, which were analysed by party officials. Information about sources by word-of-mouth mechanism was passed to ordinary people.
Relation to the heritage of the past was inconsistent. On the one hand, dislike and nihilism that based on fabrications of propaganda; on the other, thrill and interest to something incomprehensible and unknown. It feels like you experience the mystery that you want, but at the same time, you are afraid to know. Therefore, the person has lost him/herself how better to proceed.
2.3.4. «Suitcase mood’
There was unequivocal official position of the Soviet authorities, which was based on the post-war agreements reached in Potsdam in August 1945, that the Kaliningrad region is an integral part of the Soviet Union. However, there were concerns among circles of the regional authorities and population, that their presence on this territory has a temporary nature. «Suitcase mood»176 was in the air, and particularly felt in the urban environment.
It is interesting to remember a phrase of Stalin, who, in conversation with Churchill at the Tehran Conference about the reasons for the transfer of part of East Prussia to the Soviet Union, noted that «historically this is native Slavic land»177. Churchill was not confused by this argument. Nevertheless, the ordinary Soviet citizens who were in the Kaliningrad region after the war could notice the striking difference between unfamiliar territory and the places where they had lived before. Therefore, there was a need to explain somehow the thesis of Stalin, whose statements were usually considered as axiomatic.
Professional scholars of the metropolitan universities and the Academy of Sciences of the USSR have been busy with scientific substantiation of this statement. Firstly, in July 1945, a group of archivists from the Main Archival Office was sent to Königsberg to survey the surviving archival collections. The people of Kaliningrad were regularly informed about the results of the excavation. «Many of these antiquities», wrote the regional newspaper, «convict German scientists in the falsification of history, utterly smash their pseudoscientific assertions that ancient population of East Prussia is not Slavs, but Goths»178. Propaganda literature was met with frankly ludicrous assertion: «In hoary antiquity lived on these lands ancestors of the Soviet people»179.
This statement was repeated in the «Large Soviet Encyclopaedia» in the article concerning Kaliningrad Oblast: «…on the ancient ancestral lands of the Baltic Slavs…»180
Therefore, the present of Kaliningrad was to be firmly embedded in the general
Kostjashov, Juri: Vostochnaja Prussia glazami sovjetskih pereselencev. Pervye gody Kaliningradskoj oblasti v vospominanijah i dokumentah. St-Petersburg 2002, p. 76.
Kostjashov Juri: Istoriko-kultyrnoje nasledije Vostochnoj Prussii i formirovanije istoricheskogo soznanija naselenija Kaliningradskoj oblasti, http://www.gako.name/index.php?publ=300&razd=228, accessed 28.2. 2013.
The definition «suitcase mood» was voiced by the Secretary of the party committee of Leningradskij district of Kaliningrad at the Third party conference of Kaliningrad in 1950. The reproach was made in address of party and government employees who had intention to leave the Oblast’ forever.
Sovetskij Sojuz na mezhdynarodnych konferencijach perioda Velikoj Otechestvennoj voiny 1941—1945.Teheranskaja konferencija. Мoscow 1984. Vol. 2, p. 167.
Kaliningradskaja Pravda, 26 July 1950.
«Brief course» of history was drawn up on the texts of regional radio broadcasts of 1947—1948: GAKO. The state archive of the Kaliningrad region. Box 19, folder 1.
Bolshaja Sovetskaja Enciklopedija. Moscow 1953. Vol. 19, p. 426.