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Abstract
This article addresses the myth-making narratives of the Great Patriotic War in Kaliningrad Oblast’ in the Russian Federation. The myth of the war became one of the key elements of Russia’s politics of memory, serving as a tool of legitimisation for the authoritarian regime and a source of Russian national pride and patriotism. However, the regional version of this discourse is more than merely a historical narrative imposed by central power structures. The war serves as a foundational myth of Soviet Kaliningrad, which replaced German Königsberg in 1946. As such, it validates the presence of the postwar migrant community on the formerly German territory and frames the identity formation process.
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No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 According to the census of 17 May 1939 (Eaton Citation2013, p. 199). Part of the population perished as a result of the war, while many others were evacuated from East Prussia by the German authorities in late 1944 and early 1945.
2 There is no consensus among researchers regarding the number of people who remained in Königsberg and East Prussia after the end of hostilities (Sakson Citation2011, pp. 163–67).
3 While the last transport of displaced Germans officially left Kaliningrad on 21 October 1948, the region still had more than 1,500 Germans who could not be found on time or whose labour was indispensable. See Fisch and Klemiesheva (Citation1995, p. 399).
4 It was also strongly influenced by Soviet propaganda. Königsberg and East Prussia were depicted as ‘a hornet’s nest of militarism and fascism’. As Nicole Eaton points out, ‘every distinctive feature of the East Prussian landscape—the steep slanted roofs, the medieval cobblestone streets, the meticulously-tended country roads, the narrow-framed windows and ornamented dark brick warehouses and factories lining the port—seemed to be identifying markers of fascism’ (Eaton Citation2013, p. 196). However, the confrontation with the prewar cultural landscape marked by Germanness sometimes had positive connotations. The first settlers often discussed the civilisational advantage of the new place; for instance, they praised the furnishing of houses and technical advancement of agriculture (Kostyashov Citation2003, pp. 50–3).
5 Return migration was prevalent; as estimated by Kostyashov (Citation2003, pp. 131–32), the number of those who decided to return (obratniki, from obratit’, to go back) amounted to one-third of the overall number of newcomers.
6 Only one of my interviewees defined the territory of the oblast’ as an ‘ancient Slavic land’. He was a retired engineer, who took care of a small museum devoted to local history in the south of the oblast’. Interview, Ozyorsk, 9 August 2009.
7 This was facilitated by anti-German resentment among new Soviet settlers who suffered during the war, and anti-German rhetoric adopted by the local authorities and the Communist Party. Such rhetoric was present in the Kaliningrad Oblast’, even though the official Stalinist discourse after World War II was not anti-German and did not equate the Germans with Nazism (Berger Citation2015, p. 198).
8 In fact, the port of Pillau/Baltiysk was more strategically important for the USSR. Furthermore, Stalin’s geopolitical narrative was undermined by the fact that the warm-water ports of Klaipeda and Liepaja were already under Soviet control.
9 Of course, the USSR sought to promote not only ‘a single state-produced version of the past’ (Wertsch Citation2002, p. 73), but also aspired to control memories in the private sphere.
10 The percentage of the Russian population who are proud of the victory in the Great Patriotic War has not changed significantly in 20 years of research. ‘Memory and Pride’, Levada Centre, 10 November 2020, available at: https://www.levada.ru/en/2020/11/05/memory-and-pride/, accessed 15 May 2015.
11 About intertwining categories of collective memory, identity and myth, see Stråth (Citation2000), Szacka (Citation2006a), Assmann (Citation2008, Citation2011).
12 The Soviet Union could no longer (and still cannot) fulfil such a binding function, because among the Russians—despite the improving image of this period in recent years—its assessment is still ambiguous (according to the aforementioned characteristic of a myth, the USSR cannot be considered as providing the basis for one). The collapse of the USSR is not a positive point of reference; referring to Giesen’s categories, as previously cited, it should be considered a traumatic element of Russian collective memory. On the role of the USSR in contemporary Russian collective memory see, for example, Todorova and Gille (Citation2010), Kasamara and Sorokina (Citation2015).
13 According to Barbara Szacka, these three functions are assigned to the collective memory (Szacka Citation2006b, p. 411).
14 The 1,200 Guardsmen monument is of symbolic importance for the inhabitants of Kaliningrad. The decision to erect it was taken as early as on 8 May 1945 and the ceremonial unveiling took place on 30 September 1945. It is the first monument commemorating the Soviet soldiers who died on the territory of the former East Prussia and one of the first monuments of this type in the entire Soviet Union. In the official account, its unveiling symbolised the beginning of the ‘new, peaceful life of Königsberg’, derived directly from the siege of the city by Soviet troops (Brodersen Citation2008, pp. 126–29). The 1,200 Guardsmen monument can therefore be perceived as one of the tools in the process of the symbolic institutionalisation of the region or, in other words, as one of the first elements in the process of constituting a symbolic domain, namely the territory over which a given group dominates symbolically (see also Nijakowski Citation2006).
15 Interview with Vadim, student, Kaliningrad, 7 May 2016.
16 Interview with Nadia, student, Kaliningrad, 12 May 2016. For more information on the militarisation of the Russian society, see, for example, Webber and Mathers (Citation2006), Ackerman (Citation2019).
17 The permanent exhibition on the first floor of the Museum of History and Art and the entire exhibition of the Museum Bunker (Muzei ‘Blindazh’, Bunker Lyasha, the former headquarters of General Otto von Lasch, where the capitulation of Königsberg was signed) are devoted to the history of the war.
18 A separate issue is the inclusion of displays on the Afghan and Chechen wars alongside the portrayals of the Great Patriotic War. In the Museum of History and Art and in the school museum in the nearby town of Ozyorsk, in the south of Kaliningrad Oblast’, I observed a display of the names, photos, short biographies and military honours awarded to inhabitants of Kaliningrad Oblast’ who fought these more recent wars. Presenting these events in one sequence emphasises the continuity of the heroic struggle for the homeland. The Great Patriotic War serves as an archetype of all wars fought by the USSR and Russia (Domanska Citation2019, pp. 7–8). The aim of this is to strengthen the myth of the Great Patriotic War, to build the patterns and values which young people should follow. It is also another example of the messianic idea of Russia, which is portrayed as a state perpetually surrounded by enemies and forced to wage ‘defensive’ wars. In this context, every Russian war and military intervention, in Afghanistan and Chechnya, and also in Ukraine and Syria, waged since 2014 and 2015 respectively, are depicted as part of Russia’s messianic mission of saving the world and fighting off various threats, including through operations in remote areas.
19 The Kaliningrad region is famous for its amber resources, as it accounts for about 90% of the world’s amber reserves. Quotation from my research journal, 9 April 2016.
20 The quote comes from the account of the anniversary celebrations posted on the official website of the Kaliningrad authorities, available at: http://gov39.ru/news/101/82645/, accessed 11 November 2018.
21 Interview with Valentina, pensioner, Kaliningrad, 29 April 2016.
22 Interview with Vitaly, student, Kaliningrad, 20 April 2012.
23 Interview with Yuri, student, Kaliningrad, 2 July 2017.
24 Interview with Valentina, pensioner, came to the region in the 1950s, Kaliningrad, 18 April 2012.
25 Visit date: May 2016.
26 Prepared on the basis of photographs taken in the Museum Bunker on 25 March 2010 and an entry in my research journal the same day.
27 Prepared on the basis of photographs taken in the Museum Bunker on 25 March 2010 and an entry in the research journal from the same day.
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Monika Wójcik-Żołądek
Monika Wójcik-Żołądek, Faculty of Sociology, University of Warsaw, Karowa Street 18, 00–324 Warsaw, Poland. Email: [email protected]