Title Symbolic appropriation of a Baltic City: on the peculiarities of Klaipėda in comparison with Kaliningrad and Olsztyn (1945-1990)
Authors Safronovas, Vasilijus
ISBN 9783879694068
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Is Part of Stadtgeschichte des Baltikums oder baltische Stadtgeschichte? : Annäherungen an ein neues Forschungsfeld zur baltischen Geschichte.. Marburg : Verlag Herder-Institut, 2016. p. 207-219.. ISBN 9783879694068
Keywords [eng] city identity ; historical symbols ; Kaliningrad/Keningsberg ; Klaipėda/Memel ; Olsztyn/Allenstein ; sovietisation ; symbolic appropriation of the city
Abstract [eng] Six days after the taking of Klaipėda by the Red Army forces, a Soviet Lithuanian newspaper published the words of the famous regional authoress Ieva Simonaitytė: ‘For centuries Lithuania Minor has been the land inhabited by the Lithuanians. It was a part of Lithuania. Today, thanks to the mighty warriors, she again joined to Lithuania inseparably. And Lithuania is now one body.’1 This quote demonstrates a national approach of symbolic appropriation, the use of which, after the Second World War, was possible both in Lithuanian and Polish parts of the former East Prussia. In Kaliningrad, the approach was rather different. ‘Everything that was implanted by the fascist Hannibals collapsed, sank into oblivion. The Soviet people came here [...] the real masters [...] to build a new life with their own labour and on the new socialist principles upon the ruins of the black past’,2 was reported on the radio in Kaliningrad in 1947.
Published Marburg : Verlag Herder-Institut, 2016
Type Journal article
Language English
Publication date 2016
CC license CC license description