Broken Identities
The Kaliningrad Region in the Post-War Era
Deutsche Fassung
Abstract
After East Prussia was captured, the northern half of Germany’s easternmost province fell to the Soviet Union and was given the name Kaliningradskaya oblast’. But the history of the region did not simply come to a halt. Not only do physical remnants of Königsberg still exist. The old was still present in the new in everyday life as well. The population exchange, the geographical position and the problems of everyday life hampered the Soviet regime in Moscow and provincial officials in creating new identities among the region’s inhabitants. The Kaliningrad and Soviet identities remain broken.
(Osteuropa 1/2007, pp. 73–84)