Subjects of the Empress. Wider Context of Regional History  Education on East Prussia and Identity Processes in Contemporary Kaliningrad Oblast.
Subjects of the Empress. Wider Context of Regional History  Education on East Prussia and Identity Processes in Contemporary Kaliningrad Oblast.

Summary/Abstract: Political, economic and social changes brought about by the dissolution of the Soviet Union have had a significant impact on Kaliningrad Oblast, the empire’s westernmost territory of geostrategic importance. Formerly belonging to the German province of East Prussia, the region was meant to become Sovietised completely. The end of the Cold War led to a complete bankruptcy of such policies. At the turn of the 80s and 90s the emergence of a grass-roots interest in the officially forbidden parts of the Oblast’s history made the question of the relation between its pre-war and postwar past up-to-date. Its topicality was strengthened after the 2005-06 commemorations of founding the city of Königsberg and Kaliningrad Oblast, in which both central and regional authorities were heavily involved. This paper aims at identifying how elements of the history of East Prussia have been selected, interpreted and incorporated into the regional history education course books in contemporary Kaliningrad Oblast. It argues that the growing criticism of the course books’ contents has been related to Russia’s domestic situation since the 2012 presidential election and the tensions with the West after 2014. Both events have hastened the process of forming and cementing the so-called new Russian conservatism which has had a growing influence on the Baltic semiexclave.

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