“Own Foreign Land”: The Transformation of Attitudes Towards the Pre-War Past of the Region in the “Kaliningradskiy Komsomolets” Newspaper During the Perestroika Period

Abstract

The perestroika-time public discussion about the “white spots” of history in the Kaliningrad region focused on the history of East Prussia, which had previously been under a tacit ban. This article analyzes publications about the pre-war past of the region in the popular youth newspaper “Kaliningradskiy komsomolets” from 1985-1991. It examines the process of changing the regional historical narrative and characterizes the transformation of the historical memory of Kaliningrad residents during the years of perestroika. The paper aims to trace how the “discovery” of East Prussian themes occurred, who promoted the new historical narrative and by what means, and the stages through which the process of “appropriation” of the cultural heritage inherited after the war by the inhabitants of the region went. The study utilized a qualitative-quantitative content analysis method of newspaper texts, conducted with the help of the MAX QDA 2020 program. The results were interpreted using the categories of “Our Own” and “the Other” from B. Wandelfels’ philosophical concept and P. Nora’s “place of memory” one. The paper concludes that by the early 1990s, Kaliningrad society had varied approaches to the “pre-Soviet” period ranging from denial of the significance of the “foreign” and “the Other” heritage to its full acceptance as “one’s own”. The analysis of the content of the publications, including the commemorative practices reflected in the newspaper, shows that the regional historical narrative changed during the years of perestroika. The course of “exorcising the Prussian spirit”, approved immediately after the war, although not completely eradicated, became a marginal phenomenon, while the study, preservation, and utilization of the experience and historical and cultural heritage of the predecessors became the dominant trend in which the press of the glasnost’ era played a significant role.