Kaliningrad – an ambivalent transnational region within a European-Russian scope. Evgeniy ChernyshevЧитать онлайн книгу.
type="note">57. It may be argued that boundaries can be compared one to the other as «the symbols and reality of the physical extent of the state, as social and political facts, with form and function different in minor details but similar in most major ways», as frontiers, on the contrary, are phenomena of history58. Frontiers cannot be isolated from their «particular historical circumstances because they are the products of historical forces which cannot be duplicated, and which in most cases are older than those entities which are framed by the modern boundaries of nation-states»59.
As can be confirmed the border issues has appeared widespread by scholarly debate. On the one hand it concerns the boundaries of Europe. In this case the discussions include geographical, cultural or historical issues. First of all, they touch upon the broad question of European identity and the semantic dilemma of the term European. On the other hand the academic debate concerns the question of the European Union borders. Such diversity of areas results from the phenomena of boundaries60.
Meanwhile, anthropological theories and methods enable ethnographers to focus on local communities at international borders in order to examine the material and symbolic processes of culture. This focus on everyday life and on the cultural constructions, which give meaning to the boundaries between communities and between nations, is often absent in the wider perspectives of the other social sciences61. Still the scientific studies devoted to the issue of Kaliningrad are characterized by the limited concern on the importance of daily cultural practices, which serves only as a facultative argument for the Russian political scientists and sociologists.
Thus, I would like to contribute to a broader understanding of Europeanization, which is not comprehended as an exclusively political or historical practice, but also as a cultural practice62, then the theoretical approaches of Verdery63 and Buchowski64 in contexts of post-socialist Poland and Romania are applicable in the field of post-socialist Kaliningrad transition under European surrounding. As is known, the «collapse of the Soviet Union changed the geopolitical, economic and mental maps, and withdrew the elementary ordering paradigm, historical basis»65 in all abovementioned societies.
Nonetheless, for many «Easterners», the West continues to be a model they want to apply, in which democracy, free market, consumption and affluence prevail. But for quite a few among them the effective realization of this goal now looms as a menace over local economic interests and national, religious and cultural identity. The principle of hierarchy has come to dominate the redefinition of identities66.
Regional culture of Kaliningrad enclave
In the 1990s, the studies of regional particularities were intensified in the Russian social sciences. Studies were promoted by the trend of regional sovereignty, requiring the development of a new regional cultural policy; as well as the need for understanding the specifics of regional development in the context of globalization.
The majority of Russian researchers agree: the distinctiveness of the culture of each particular region due to a variety of geographic, economic, historical and social factors, as well as the specifics of the socio-cultural experience and cultural consciousness of residents. In particular the problems of regional culture are discussed in the theoretical studies of cultural philosophy and cultural studies67.
Taking into account the objectives set out in this study should be made, first of all, the following concepts: region68; regional culture69; are applied to the Kaliningrad regional culture – enclave and exclave70; cultural landscape71.
The concept – the region – is considered in the thesis as a socio-cultural phenomenon, which is caused by the specifics of the geopolitical, ethno-cultural, historical and cultural diversity of the Kaliningrad region.
Regional culture is understood in this thesis as original integrity of certain area, which is reflected in the human mind, representing the unity of the world of nature, and society. This totality has temporal and spatial characteristics.
Since the literature on various aspects of the Kaliningrad region often contains the term enclave/exclave and enclaveness/exclaveness, so in the dissertation analyzed the significance of these definitions and varied contexts of their application. According to fundamental research on this topic by Vinokourov72, I define the enclave as part of the territory of the state, surrounded by the territory of another state. In cases if the area has access to the sea used the notion of half-enclave. The decisive criterion for enclave-defining is the sovereignty over a particular territory. Under the working theories of exclaves, an exclave is understood as a region separated from the mainland, surrounded by more than one other state: since Lithuania declared independence in 1990 the Kaliningrad region became an exclave of the Soviet Union, but after its collapse – an exclave of the Russian Federation.
Exclaveness, pogranichnost73, multi-ethnicity, multireligious, multilayered ambivalence are hallmarks of the Kaliningrad region culture, that’s why has importance the concept of the Kaliningrad regional identity: it reflects the specific features of bordered region.
In this thesis to analyze the cultural space of the Kaliningrad region and to identify its specific was applied cultural approach, which allowed integrating accumulated research knowledge about the region. Cultural analysis involves a comprehensive study of the processes and trends taking place in the cultural space of the region.
Cultural analysis of complexly organized cultural space of the Kaliningrad region has caused a systematic approach to development, which had an important methodological significance for this study.
In this regard, was paid considerable attention to the concepts of enclave/exclave self-consciousness. Also in the thesis the influence of the enclave/exclave condition of the region on the identity of youth is shown. Therefore, the proposition is substantiated: in result of exclave character of region among young residents forming an identity, which is different from typical Russian – regional and local components are more significant than in other regions of Russia.
Thereby I perceive the region as a concentration of cultural reflection, which gives rise to new cultural meanings and creates new cultural texts that embody regional, Russian and all-European features.
I assume that the cultural space has integrative and evaluative properties. I share the point of view of cultural scientist Lotman74. He defined cultural space as a shared memory space from the standpoint of semiotic concept of culture. That is, culture is a collective memory and collective intelligence, which produces a supra-individual mechanism for storing and transferring of traditional texts, and developing of new texts.
However, time transforms the system of cultural codes, and thus changing the paradigm of memory – it is particularly the case within the Kaliningrad regional culture in the context of discussions about the relation to the German cultural heritage of the former East Prussia. Memory function allows restoring cultural dimensions. In the cultural space can coexist cultural dimensions of the present and of the past: their dialogue. It is about the coexistence of cultures, intercultural dialogue, which –
Kristof, Ladis: The nature of frontiers and boundaries. In: Kasperson, R.; Minghi, J. (ed.): The structure of political geography. Chicago 1969, p. 129.
Donnan, Hastings; Wilson, Thomas: Borders: frontiers of identity, nation and state. Oxford 1999, p. 49.
Szymanski, Adam: The establishment of the final borders of the EU. In: Janczak, Jaroslaw. (ed.): De-Bording, Re-Bording and Symbols on the European Boundaries. In: Wissenschaftliche Reihe des Collegium Polonicum, Band 16, 2011, p. 115.
Donnan, Hastings; Wilson, Thomas (ed.): Border Identities. Nation and state at international frontiers. Cambridge 1998, p. 4.
Römhild, Regina: Reflexive Europäisierung. Tourismus, Migration und die Mediterranisierung Europas, in: Welz, Gisela; Lottermann, Annina; Baga, Enikö (Hrsg.): Projekte der Europäisierung. Kulturanthropologische Forschungsperspektiven. Frankfurt/Main 2009, S. 262.
Verdery, Katherine: What was socialism and what comes next? Princeton 1996.
Buchowski, Michał: Rethinking transformation an anthropological perspective on post-socialism. Poznań 2001.
Verdery, Katherine: What was socialism and what comes next? Princeton 1996, p. 4.
Buchowski, Michał: Rethinking transformation an anthropological perspective on post-socialism. Poznań 2001, p. 175.
Kagan, Moisey: Filosofija kultury. Sankt-Petersburg 1996.
Voskressenski, Alexei; Porfiriev, Boris; Columbus, Frank (ed,): Russia on the Brink of the Millennium: International Policy and National Security Issues. New York 1998.
Ljapkina, Tatjana: Region kak predmet mezhdisziplinarnogo analiza. In: Sozialno-gumanitarnyje znanija, 3 (2007).
Vinokurov, Evgenij: Anklavy v mirovoj politike i ekonomike: opyt poslednich desjatiletij. In: Mezhdynarodnaja ekonomika i mezhdynarodnyje otnoshenija, 9 (2002).
Zamjatin, Dmitrij: Kultura i prostransto: Modelirovanije geograficheskich obrazov. Moscow 2006.
Vinokurov, Еvgenij: Teorija anklavov, Kaliningrad 2007.
Pogranichnost’ – is finding yourself in a «bordered zone» between physical borders, which forms a specific psychological status.
Lotman, Yuri: Kultura i vzryv, Moscow 1992.