INTRODUCTION

Interest in studying the identity of the inhabitants of Kaliningrad Oblast began almost immediately after the collapse of the USSR and has not weakened since. The reasons for this are the peculiarities of the geopolitical position of the region and concern about the state loyalty of Kaliningraders due to close contacts with neighboring European countries. The events in Ukraine and Crimea’s change of jurisdiction have shown that such anxiety is not baseless. In conditions of acute internal political crises, the population’s nonrecognition of their state as truly “their own” may act as a decisive factor in realizing a self-determination scenario. However, the situation in Kaliningrad Oblast only vaguely resembles that in Crimea. There have never been any problems of linguistic competition or interethnic rivalry for the right to consider oneself “primordial masters of the land.” The last German population left the region in the early 1950s, and nostalgic tourists who come to see their ancestral homeland can hardly be suspected of intending to reclaim it. And the locals treat them with sympathy rather than prejudice. Nobody expects mass repatriation or restitution. Nevertheless, the lingering perception of the region as a “trophy of war” and the unfavorable comparison with its European neighbors create a sense of ideological competition for cultural dominance. In the last decade, these emotions have provoked an information campaign against Germanization of the region in the context of national security threats.Footnote 1 Its supporters and protagonists proceed from the notions of classical geopolitics about the revanchism of states that, for one reason or another, have lost part of their territories. According to this logic, the territorialization of the imaginary Prussian–Germanic identity and concern for restoration of historical heritage are signs of cultural expansion and the basis for legitimizing a hypothetically possible change in regional jurisdiction. Although the policy of strengthening national-state identity through discursive suppression of threats to sovereignty appears instrumentally justified one, it has serious side effects: an increase in mutual suspicion, erosion of trust, and social disunity. The matter lies not only in the expression and demonstration of patriotic feelings. Many, if not all, actions, deeds and habits of a person are manifestations of his identity. Calls to patriotism and prohibitions on the demonstration of other forms of cultural loyalty remain a pro forma and trigger rejection if they do not rely on pragmatic and completely mundane practices. The exaggeration of the role of ideology and underestimation of quotidian factors are the reason for the failure of many projects for forming the “necessary” identity. If we consider the situation in Kaliningrad Oblast from these positions, it becomes noticeable how politicized the issues of Kaliningrad’s identity are. Close attention to its ideologically significant components is combined with a lack of attention to worldview issues and discursive context. Little is known about the social convictions of Kaliningraders—the ideas and views they share that help people explain what is happening—and even less about the inconstancy of mental schemes that can change a person’s view of him/herself and others, interpretation of past and present events. This article attempts to partially fill this gap. Based on a comparison of interview materials conducted in August 2020 and conclusions of sociologists obtained in earlier studies, the paper aims to show shifts in the understanding of the surrounding reality that took place in Kaliningrad society at the beginning of the 21st century, and to identify the nature of their influence on the self-identification of Kaliningraders.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

Identity is a conceptually important, widely used, and, at the same time, vague concepts, overloaded with meanings. The first studies of the identity of Kaliningraders interpreted it as the result of a synthesis of a person’s value and emotional ideas about his/her belonging to various communities, distinguished according to the principle of cohabitation in a specific territory. The presence of such “imaginary communities” (Anderson, 2016) was concretized via the specifics of the region’s geopolitical position, which affects the behavioral practices and lifestyle of people. This approach corresponds to the concept of identity proposed by (Erikson, 1956), according to which a person’s self-identification is based on his awareness of the integrity of his personality, which is formed in certain social and cultural circumstances and is based on an understanding of acquired experience. The variety of problems and social environments that a person encounters predetermines the multiplicity and variability of his/her identity, and cultural certainty determines its stability (Erickson, 1996). The analytical advantage of Erickson’s concept is the ability to recognize individual components of human self-determination, e.g., Russian, European or local identity, rank them according to social significance, observe the dynamics of changes, and assess the role in the formation of ideas shared in a particular society.

All these advantages have been fully exploited in the ongoing research. Regular polls have shown the stability of the structure of Kaliningraders’ identity: predominance of regional self-identification and gradual growth of its Russian component. The option “Russians, citizens of Russia” in 2001 was chosen by 25% of surveyed residents of Kaliningrad Oblast; in 2015–2016, according to some data, 41%;Footnote 2 according to other data, 60% (Klemeshev et al., 2017; Lyovkina and Alimpieva, 2015; Martynova and Grigorieva, 2018a; Rossiyskiy …, 2017). Among the explanatory factors mention was made of the region’s relative isolation, the difficulty of contacts with the main territory of the country compared to the frequency and ease of travel to neighboring Poland and Lithuania, and shifts in the composition of the region’s population as a result of migration. Recent migrants from other regions of the Russian Federation and CIS countries more often called themselves Russians than native residents of Kaliningrad.Footnote 3

Despite the clarity and consistency of this explanation, it left a feeling of dissatisfaction. An objection was raised, first, by the excessive objectification of groups, distinguished according to the principle of shared identity. They emphasized the multiplicity, instability, and fundamental incompleteness of human identity and the conditionality and permeability of intergroup boundaries. In discussions about the Kaliningrad’s identity, the term “identification” is increasingly used (Brubaker and Cooper, 2000), implying the flexibility and situational nature of people’s perceptions (Berendeev, 2007; Drobizheva, 2017; Kuznetsov, 2017; Lyovkina and Alimpieva, 2015).

Second, according to the results of longitudinal research of the Institute of Sociology of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Russian identity is one of the most widespread collective identities in the country, but it is far from always a priority and, moreover, is reflected (Drobizheva, 2017). According to Samuel Huntington, the “natural” hierarchy of self-identification, reflecting the closeness of a person’s connection with various territorial communities, is built in accordance with the priority of local, regional, and only then national-civil (country) identity. Local solidarity is always more important than national solidarity, except in cases of the population’s mobilization against various external threats (Huntington, 2004). Therefore, concern about the weakness of Russian identity may be far-fetched, and it makes sense to analyze not so much the nominative relationship (Kaliningrad or Russian), as the content-richness of identities and the strength of the associative ties that arise.

Third, in the conducted studies, subjective factors have been very poorly taken into account. Thus, the relatively low adherence to Russian identity in the first post-Soviet decade could have been explained not only by the crisis situation in the region and the novelty of its geopolitical position, but also by the poor understanding of the term “Russians,” which is still ambiguously perceived today. Not to mention that the limitedness of a person’s worldview owing to the narrow framework in which her/his lives is a typical feature of a provincial society. Similarly, the increase in the number of residents in Kaliningrad Oblast who share a Russian identity can be explained not only by the strengthening of civic consciousness and migration inflow from other Russian regions, but also by the atmosphere of political distrust and fear created by the campaign to combat “Germanization.”

Attention to the sociocultural context of identity formation highlights the importance of its cognitive (knowledge, information) and reflexive (self-directedness) aspects. In the world of information richness and changing discursive practices, multiple interpretations of the same events and facts are becoming the norm. The belief in the presence of unshakable principles, cultural codes, and traditional values that had previously determined the integrity of the individual and stability of society is progressively weakening. The diversity of viewpoints, none of which can be completely trusted, even if it is backed up by scientific knowledge and undeniable authorities, makes a person doubt everything, including him/herself. The answer to the questions who I am and how do I want others to perceive me is never final and depends on newly received information and sociocultural context. This idea, as applied to Kaliningrad Oblast, was intuitively expressed by Mikhail Berendeev (2007, p. 129): “A person who considers him/herself a Kaliningrader, in two minutes, in a different situation, with no less conviction, can characterize him/herself as a European, and on the morning of the next day, as a Russian.” In other words, identity appears not as a mirroring of multiple personality traits and not as a result of identifying oneself with a certain group or social role, but as derived from practice, past experience, and a plurality of choices—as a reflexive project, supported by narratives and controlled by social orders and habits. The more modern the society is, the more an individual is absorbed in him/herself, and the less role traditions and social prescriptions play in the regulation of social relations (Alexander, 1996; Archer, 2007; Beck et al., 1994; Chaffee, 2019; Craib, 1998; Giddens, 1991; Gurevich, 2010).

The concept of “reflexive identity” (Beck et al., 1994; Giddens, 1991) corresponds most to the intent of this article, since it allows us to explain the mechanisms of the influence of shifts in social perceptions of Kaliningraders on their self-identification. When planning the study, we wanted to immerse ourselves in the discursive reality, having compared people’s views and assessments with demographic, socioeconomic, and sociological facts.

The main method of study was a content analysis of interviews conducted in August 2020 with representatives of the expert community of Kaliningrad Oblast. Our partners in this dialog included journalists, sociologists, historians, civic activists, entrepreneurs, museum workers, and employees of regional and municipal administrations, i.e., people who form the information agenda and influence the interpretation of events.

An interview guide was developed, which included the following blocks of questions:

—the main problems of the region and city and strategies for their solution adopted at the level of administrations and practiced by local residents;

—determination of the “particularity” of Kaliningrad Oblast compared to Russia and neighboring European countries;

—description of the distinctive features of the local society, relationships between people, habits, and lifestyles;

—social activity and passivity, people’s involvement in public initiatives and/or elimination from public activities;

—peculiarities and geography of contacts, mobility and life experience;

—attitude towards cultural heritage and implemented projects for its preservation and maintenance.

The thematic structure of the interview was strictly adhered to, although the questions were adjusted depending on the field of activity and competence of our respondents. We also asked them to explain such contradictions of Kaliningrad society as: “They live in Russia, but are more often in neighboring countries,” “they live relatively well, but they feel bad,” “they share anti-Western sentiments, but are friends with their western neighbors,” “they value German cultural heritage, but they don’t cherish the Soviet one and don’t treat it as heritage,” etc. In total, 30 interviews were conducted with a single guide. Expert opinions were compared with interpretations of the results of surveys conducted in different years. We look at differences in assessments as at symptoms of shifts in public consciousness. We were aware of the problematic nature of broad generalizations based on a single field study, so we considered it as a pilot project to develop a program for further research.

RESETTLEMENT REGION

Discussions about Kaliningrad Oblast as a resettlement region precede almost every study devoted to its socioeconomic, demographic, cultural, and political problems. The migrant narrative has become so deeply imbued in the public consciousness that the formula “everybody here are newcomers” began to be perceived as an immutable truth and a ready-made explanation for all occasions. This argument is also given when it comes to disunity and lack of initiative in Kaliningraders (If you are newcomers and can leave tomorrow, you may not be sitting on your suitcases, but you will definitely not be building something major. Why?! (m., journalist)), and when, in a more positive way, there is a low level of antimigrant sentiments (You are trying to transfer your Moscow views to our region, but we do not have any fear of migrants, because here all newcomers and every family has migration experience (f., professional sociologist)).

However, historical facts, census data, and opinion polls paint a different picture. Actually “resettlement”—the replacement of the German population by Soviet, mainly Russian—took place in the first postwar years (Kostyashov, 1996; Kretinin, 2015; Martynova, 2014a). It was a stressful migration, the bulk of migrants were disadvantaged and war-weary (Kostyashov, 2009). The living conditions in the new place were hardly “sweet” (Vostochnaya …, 2018), although today the former problems have been erased from memory, and stories about the high prewar standard of living in the region, which caused mixed feelings of admiration and frustration among the first settlers, are quite common.

In the next 40 years, the situation stabilized. The main factor that determined the demographic dynamics was not migration, but natural population growth. Over the years, a new generation of Kaliningraders was born, grew up, and had their own children.

The second wave of mass migrations was associated with the collapse of the USSR, at first it took the form of an “exodus” of the Russian and Russian-speaking population from Kazakhstan, the neighboring Baltic states, the countries of the Caucasus and Central Asia. Later they were replaced by labor migrants and immigrants from other Russian regions, who viewed Kaliningrad Oblast as a place to live, a springboard for business, career growth and, possibly, further migration “to the West.” At the same time, the region began to lose population in the migration exchange with Moscow, Moscow Oblast, St. Petersburg, and its neighbors—Lithuania and Poland.

Since the mid-2000s, there has been a new migration wave, which has compensated for population outflow. People were already talking about the benefits of migration, not the stress. A category of “new” migrants appeared—former compatriots who received state and regional support upon changing citizenship and moving to the Russian Federation. The share of pensioners who move here after completing their labor activity “in the north” or in other resource regions of the country has noticeably increased.Footnote 4 The importance of seasonal migrations associated with the purchase of housing in a resort area for their own residence in summer or to receive rental income from tourism has risen. Be that as it may, and no matter how great the role of migration, the share of local natives among the inhabitants of the region grew throughout the entire postwar period.

According to the 1989 census, the share of local natives among the inhabitants was 40%; in 2002, 48%; in 2010, it exceeded half the population; and by 2015, it reached 60% (Abylkalikov and Sazin, 2019). Among the younger generations, the indicators were even higher: 82% for those born in 1980–1984, and already 91% in the 1990s (Abylkalikov and Sazin, 2019, p. 41). Sociological pollsFootnote 5 also give close values. Moreover, all researchers emphasize: Kaliningraders are incomparably more likely to associate the region with “their land” and “native land” than with an “island” or “enclave.”

It would seem that there is every reason to talk about the rootedness of the inhabitants of Kaliningrad Oblast, investing in this concept a sociological (duration of residence, presence of intergenerational ties, common experience, memory, local and regional identity), and not ethnographic (indigenous peoples, aborigines, autochthonous population) meaning. The difference between these approaches is fundamental, although both of them associate the idea of people’s interest in local and regional development, trust, and solidarity with a sense of rootedness.

Let us consider an example to show the effect of the mix of concepts. In a study by reputable Kaliningrad researchers, we read: “The resettlement character of the population, both in the past and, to a large extent, the present, in addition to the well-known “garrison” quality of the region, does not contribute to the formation of the autochthonous regional population” (Andreychuk and Gavrilina, 2011, p. 73). However, the autochthonous population of modern Kaliningrad Oblast was exterminated or assimilated during the first crusades, and today there are hardly any forces capable of reviving it. Neither were the prewar inhabitants of the region autochthonous, although they were old-timers with a long history of generational change. The uprootedness felt by today’s Kaliningraders is created not only by migrations and the aforementioned garrison quality, but also by the dominant narrative “here everyone is a newcomer.” In fact, the Kaliningrad identity of the regional inhabitants is being questioned by the constantly reproduced discourse of immigrants who are not entirely sure of their rights or their future. The fact is poorly reflected that Kaliningrad Oblast, being a resettlement region, has long ceased to be a region of newcomers. The familiarity of the dominant mental scheme distorts the perception of modern realities.

This thesis is well illustrated by newspaper articles that study the demographic dynamics of the region’s population. They present as a problem even growth in the population of local natives—a positive fact from the viewpoint of overcoming uprootedness.Footnote 6 It is assumed that the need for contacts with relatives living in other Russian regions is weakening among second- and third-generation Kaliningraders, which may entail an increase in the risks of isolationism, separatism, etc. Although such inferences result from analytical one-sidedness, when they pass through media filters, they appear as threats and actualize the discourse of security. A situation of a “kingdom of crooked mirrors” arises, which, as in the famous book, drives real problems inside and forces people to avoid discussing them, destroying the positive basis of identity.

“OTHER” RUSSIANS

Already the first studies of the identity of Kaliningraders showed the prevalent view of themselves and regional society as “special Russians” (Kalashnikov and Budilov, 2019; Kaliningradskaya …, 2002; Klemeshev and Fedorov, 2004; Martynova, 2014b; Zadorin, 2018). The circumstances of place and time played a role in this self-determination, which, from the viewpoint of local residents, allowed them to adopt the European lifestyle and become more “civilized” (Alimpieva, 2003, 2009). Among the main reasons for this transformation are the accessibility and frequency of travel abroad, the massive possession of international passports, the adhering to the consumption and fashion offered in neighboring Poland. Statements such as our Ikea in Gdansk (f., administration employee); for us, of course, Europe was and remains a huge trade center (m., journalist); Kaliningrad airport in Gdansk, get a ticket for 10 euros and fly (f., editor) were interpreted as signs of belonging to the European cultural core. Together with the region’s German past and predominant regional self-identification among residents, such a view of things gave grounds for reasoning about the unique “Kaliningrad ethnocultural phenomenon” (Andreychuk and Gavrilina 2011; Shakhov, 2002, 2017). Without dwelling on the scientific consistency of this approach,Footnote 7 we note that the terminology developed within its framework has gained popularity. The terms “Russian Europeans,” “European Russians,” “Kaliningrad ethnos,” and “Rusobalts” began to be widely used in other research and media, influencing public opinion.

However, referring to a “special” Kaliningrad society and Kaliningraders as “other” Russians would have looked like a repetition of the well-known scenario, if a different trend had not emerged against this background. Judging by publications, since the mid-2010s, the influence of a diametrically opposing narrative began to grow—Kaliningraders are no different from other Russians. The same polls in which the main focus was drawn to self-determination of Kaliningraders as “Europeans” showed that they belonged to Russian cultural continuum.Footnote 8 Among the main features that Kaliningraders attributed to themselves are the same characteristics as “Russian man,” which are consistently reproduced in any research on this topic: from “simple,” “kind,” “cultural,” and “responsive” before “lazy,” “drinkers,” and “lack of initiative.”Footnote 9 The set of Kaliningraders’ values also contains no surprises: as in other regions of the country, they value material well-being and a sense of stability over interesting work, new impressions, freedom, and opportunities for self-realization (Kuznetsov, 2016, 2017; Vendina, 2016). Structural differences in the value system are explained by generational rather than geographical factors; the main shifts are characteristic of young ages (Kuznetsov, 2017; Martynova and Grigorieva, 2018b). Therefore, it is not surprising that the “discovery” of significant similarities between residents of Kaliningrad Oblast and other Russian regions was made by people whose were in the years of undivided dominance of the discourse of regional features. We can say that the pendulum of Kaliningrad identity has swung in the opposite direction:

—Every year I have to organize several events, and, to be honest, I do not see any difference at all between us and the residents of, say, Kurgan oblast. In general, there are none (m., researcher);

—We are more oriented towards the West than to the East… I did not travel much in Russia. … My first big trip was to Vladivostok, three years ago. We flew for a day. We went by taxi to the city, and the taxi driver began the local spiel for visitors. And after about 15 minutes I realized I had deja vu, that he was singing the same song I do when I greet guests. That the Russian history here is not rich, not long, that once upon a time there were some wonderful Jurchen people who performed craniotomy in the 13th century. … We have Prussians. The following is a story about a Moscow “bloodsucker,” and that we have all the resources to live happily ever after. … All three weeks that we were in Vladivostok, I found some parallels. I saw these houses and did not understand why they were so similar. Then, in the course of conversations, it turns out that they were built by Germans. And I gradually realize that we are very different and very close. For me it was a discovery, a shock that at different ends of this huge country, which I, to be honest, did not perceive all this “there” as my homeland. Here, yes; there, no. And suddenly, all these three weeks I felt “at home.” I was imbued with the fact that I am a Russian person, and it became interesting to me, based on what I saw there, not here. (m., entrepreneur).

The above excerpts from the interview (and the limited volume of the article does not allow us to cite other examples) illustrate well the thesis about the reflexive nature of identity and the significance of the discursive context as a condition for its formation and maintenance.

ALIEN CULTURE AND SOVIET BARBARISM

The legacy that Kaliningrad Oblast inherited from various historical eras is rich and varied; among other things, this baggage includes dissident sentiments. They were widespread in the Brezhnev era, but, as a rule, they did not go beyond friendly circles and kitchen conversations. In the post-Soviet era, the accumulated discontent spilled out, acquiring the meaning of the truth gained through suffering. Prioritization of a person’s private life has come to be seen as just as fundamental a political principle as the dogma of public interests that prevailed quite recently. In this logic, the actions of the Soviet government were interpreted as erroneous and inhuman. Everything that was Soviet became “barbarism,” and everything that was pre- and non-Soviet was viewed as “culture.” And in a free society a public discussion began, of the remnants of foreign culture, miraculously preserved during the period of Soviet barbarism (m., researcher). This viewpoint captured the space of social imagination, it was repeatedly broadcast to us in numerous stories about the destruction of the drainage system of the polder lands of the region, the removal of cathedral bricks for the construction of pigsties and sheds, the demolition of the ruins of the royal castle in the center of Kaliningrad, the felling of old trees, etc. In this paradigm, everything Soviet was categorically deprived of the features of culture.

—I cannot imagine any specific Kaliningrad, not Königsberg, but Kaliningrad architecture. It doesn’t exist. There is no Kaliningrad architecture! (m., journalist).

Perhaps the only topic not subjected to revision from dissident positions was World War II. It has remained an untouched part of the Soviet past, in which an “alien culture” nurtured Nazism, and the Soviet one made it possible to crush the “fascist barbarians in their lair.” However, this discourse in the post-Soviet years was undermined by the “tale of two totalitarianisms” actively promoted by Poland and the Baltic countries. Equalization of the Soviet and fascist barbarians met with quite understandable resistance from Kaliningraders: the shadow of the “executioners” in this legend fell not only on the prewar, but also on the current residents of the region, their parents and grandparents. Despite all the criticism of the Soviet regime and rejection of Stalinism, they did not at all consider it to be equivalent to Nazism.

—I don’t even want to get into this question, but I would not compare Hitler with Stalin. This is my viewpoint. Hitler for me is a terrible figure; Stalin, I wouldn’t say that he was perfect either. I have a grandfather: in 1942 in Arkhangelsk Oblast, well, he was convicted of libel and repressed. I only recently found where he died (f., library worker).

The situation is not much better with the assessment of the present. Germany in the postwar years has turned from a cursed country into an example of a prosperous and justly organized society.

—Germanization is not when you sigh, looking at the ruins, digging some shards in the ground. Germanization is when… here’s a friend of mine who works in Germany at a BMW plant. He lives 120 km from the factory, gets up at half past five in the morning… he drives very fast on the autobahn, which is very well built. In his expensive car. High-ranking specialist. At seven in the morning he starts working. He does not drink coffee at seven in the morning, does not sit with his colleagues, he starts working at seven in the morning. And he works until six in the evening. This is Germanization (m., entrepreneur).

This vision was relayed to the past of the region. Agrarian East Prussia, which retains many features of feudalism, was portrayed by our respondents almost as the most developed part of prewar Germany. The further people pushed back their imagination into history, the more romantic it seemed. The past was inhabited by knights, princesses, and well-dressed masters. To see and admire it, it was enough to buy prewar postcards and photo albums. This aberration of vision stems largely from the fact that the postwar generations of Kaliningraders have ceased to treat the surrounding cultural landscape as alien. Buildings, monuments, city ruins, and even hundred-year-old trees—witnesses of history—have become benchmarks for Russian self-identification. Their preservation was perceived in the context of maintaining the integrity of one’s own personality, not the desire to discover a Prussian in oneself, to protect the Prussian spirit and alien values. Although an increase in the intensity of a person’s feelings about the place of his/her own life was typical for all corners of the country, only in Kaliningrad Oblast did it give rise to the central problem of identity. Not so much the resettlement character of the region as the overloading of interpretations of local history with anti-Nazi and anti-Soviet meanings deprived the Kaliningrad identity of its support in the past, giving rise to ambiguity and nihilism.

Overcoming the crisis of the disappearance of historical continuity, which devalued the life of previous generations, was made possible by a gradual departure from the idea of opposing culture and barbarism. In the last decade, the narrative of the region as a cultural crossroads, traversed by many peoples who left their mark, began to gain more and more influence. It allowed avoiding extreme assessments and embedding individual episodes of history simultaneously in the Russian and European context.

—In general, I try not to talk about this topic, good or bad, because these are stages of history. Good or bad that Germany fell in the war, that Königsberg was destroyed. This is a historical truth triggered by a chain of events. It turned out that way. Is it good or bad that Königsberg castle was destroyed? Well, from the cultural viewpoint, of course; a catastrophe, of course, is bad. But from the viewpoint of the chain of events, this is all natural. It happened because it was launched this way, it happened thus. The same House of Soviets… we have a whole layer of people who say that this is the ugliness of the city, I don’t think so. … By the way, I cannot say that the castle was an architectural masterpiece. … It contained a certain symbolism. In was one kind of symbol of one, and the House of Soviets, another, and how can I say—is this good or bad? (m., architect).

This reasoning is dominated by the idea of time, involving everyone and everything in its vortex, which is opposed to the paradigm of place as cultural soil that makes Russians forever strangers and newcomers in Kaliningrad Oblast. The logic of the chain of events turns randomness into regularity and reduces the intensity of political passions, but the presented arguments run the risk of being suspended in a void without the support of local specifics. Such support was found in the private life of a person and accompanying routine of quotidian concerns. The discourse of the priority of human interests, which at the beginning of the post-Soviet era served primarily to denounce the Soviet regime, aroused genuine interest in the everyday trifles, feelings, and thoughts of people.

A vivid example is the publication history of the seminal work East Prussia through the Eyes of Soviet Re-Settlers. The book on the scientific method and information presented was revolutionary for Soviet historiography and was in the mainstream of an understanding sociology, placing at the forefront the issues of people’s self-awareness. Its publication, initially supported by the regional administration, was halted due to the inconsistency of facts of the oral history with the officially approved views on events.Footnote 10 Nevertheless, an abridged version of the book was published in small runs, first in Germany in 1998, then in Poland, St. Petersburg, and in 2002 by the publishing house of Kaliningrad University. Only 20 years later was a complete folio containing a large number of photographs published by the regional printing house (Vostochnaya …, 2018).

The history of the ordeal of the “history of re-settlers” fully reflects the transformation of the worldview shared by Kaliningraders: it has become important not to forget the past, but to remember everything that happened. The refrain of public presentations of the book sounded arguments about the invaluableness of eyewitness testimonies and proposals to collect the memories of friends and relatives not only about the war and postwar period, but also about the “thaw” and “stagnation” eras. It was immediately discovered that modern schoolchildren and young people do not know how to talk with their parents, they don’t know either the history of the country, or the history of their families (f., sociologist). Training seminars were held, and as a result, about 200 h of interviews with stories about everyday life during the Soviet era were collected. The depoliticization of the regional historical narrative contributed to the fact that family legends entered the public space, populated it, and “domesticated” the media of cities and towns in the region: this process turned out to be no less painful than the dissident truth about the Soviet regime.

The rethinking of local history through the events of private life first affected the German specifics of the region. Still, in the opinion of Kaliningraders, it was culture. The most striking example is the opening in 2014 of the AltesHaus apartment museum, which tells about the way of life of townspeople in prewar Königsberg. Then the trend of humanizing local history began to spread to the Soviet past. The founders of the museum of everyday German life also intended to show the complexity of the structure of Soviet society and the variety of styles and lifestyles of Kaliningraders. This concept went far beyond the clichéd notions of Soviet people as an indistinguishable gray mass. The new exhibit, accompanied by recordings of oral stories, should give an idea of life in a Kaliningrad “communalka,” where different generations and holders of different beliefs collided in the cramped space of a three-room apartment: the family of a sailor-whaler and his wife, student daughter and teenage son, and a representative of the local underground, who listened to “enemy” voices, watched Polish television, and is engaged in illegal traffics. Although these are small projects compared to the information campaign against Germanization, their impact on Kaliningrad’s identity is great, first of all, because they allow people to perceive and feel this land as their own, not alien.

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSIONS

In beginning the research, we set ourselves the goal of showing the peculiarities and changeability of the context of formation of the Kaliningrad identity and highlighting the role of nonideological factors, such as lifestyle, everyday narratives, and personal experience, in rethinking a person’s ideas about him/herself, “his/her” society, etc. A content analysis of interviews with specialists who shape the regional information agenda led us to the following conclusions.

First, Kaliningrad society is characterized by significant complexity and internal heterogeneity: along with massively shared ideas, a number of alternative social beliefs have formed here, allowing people to comprehend and rethink social and political realities in their own way. The active cross-border contacts of the most mobile part of the region’s inhabitants contribute to the introduction of new views on familiar things, and their diffusion and the filling of Kaliningrad identity with new meanings are facilitated by the compactness of the territory and close intraregional ties. The dynamism and weak controllability of ongoing changes raises the concern of the ruling elites and actualizes the problems of maintaining the usual social order. The main focus is on securitization policy. As a result, many nonpolitical issues important for the local society, including those related to issues of cultural heritage and historical memory, are politicized, turned into security threats, and removed from public discourse.

Second, the success of the policy of containing changes in the Kaliningrad identity with the aid of discourse tools is largely determined by the inertia and prevalence of the phenomenon of cultural lag. A quarter of a century later, Soviet and anti-Soviet views are still in demand, retaining their influence on the interpretation of the facts of modern life. This conclusion is also confirmed by the results of a study conducted in Kaliningrad Oblast in 2016 using the methodology of the World Values Survey project (Inglehart and Welzel, 2011). The region, like Russia as a whole, occupies an intermediate position on the scale of values between the poles of traditionalism and modernity (Kuznetsov, 2017). The legacy of the Soviet system is still strong here, which presupposed the unity of man and state, prevented changes in identity and punished violations. The fight against “Germanization” observed today in the region fits the same logic of imposition, prohibitions, and subordination (Alimpieva, 2014). Although society’s conservatism provides a certain margin of social strength, the chosen ideological course carries the risk of dogmatism, and therefore symbolic devastation of politics, preserving the appearance of consent in the absence of convictions.

Third, the content analysis of the interviews showed the emergence and strengthening of new narratives that accentuate fundamentally different views on life. Provided they are massively distributed, they can lead to significant social shifts, since they take the choice of self-identification out of the plane of politicized “truths,” without conflicting with them. Thus, a keen sense of the specialness of Kaliningrad society finds a balance in a sense of similarity with other Russians and the discovery of Russian cultural unity, a denial of Soviet values in interest in family history, a wary attitude towards German heritage in conversation about it as an environment for one’s own life, etc. Being a derivative of everyday practice, and not of state ideology, reflexivity adheres a mosaic of opposing views, working as a mechanism for reconciling incompatible and maintaining discursive balance. However, risks of a different kind arise.

Self-focus and its “I” entails a weakening of ideas about social obligations and civic consciousness. This trend is clearly seen in Russian society. According to Valery Fedorov, head of Russian Public Opinion Research Center (WCIOM), “Russian people, in contrast to Soviet people, are not interested in world events, but in themselves, their families, and at most in the city where they live. Everything else exists for them on TV, in the news….” (2008, p. 61). Anthony Giddens (1991) also writes about the phenomenon of “detachment from society,” pointing out that in the modern world, individuals make excessive requests of others while evading the demands on themselves. Finding freedom from social obligations and concern for the common good, they become prisoners of their desires and hostages of the search for pleasure.

One might think that such reasoning has little to do with Kaliningrad Oblast, but many of our interlocutors called a distinctive feature of Kaliningraders a kind of hedonism. In their opinion, this feature was expressed not only in the love of comfort, but also in the tendency to associate ideas of “normal life” with the practice of traveling to neighboring European countries, perceived as a huge supermarket and entertainment fair. Another thing is also important: this hedonism reveals the social and ideological stratification of Kaliningrad society. According to surveys, two-thirds of the region’s residents have rarely been abroad and have a very average financial situation,Footnote 11 so that their hedonism is most likely limited to the usual pleasures of life. This suggests that there are profound differences in thought and outlook on life between those who live in a world of traditional beliefs, authority, and loyalties, and those who share the values of individualism. Our experts undoubtedly belonged to the more modern part of Kaliningrad society. It is in this environment that the transformations described in the article took place, and precisely this environment produces shifts in the discursive context of the formation of the Kaliningrad identity. However, recording the changes, we can say nothing about the influence of the new worldview and degree of its penetration into public consciousness. A cautious assumption can be made: the level of pluralism of opinions achieved by Kaliningrad society does not allow us to speak about the identity of Kaliningraders in terms of social consensus, but it provides it with the necessary degree of flexibility and stability due to the balance of differing ideas and partial overcoming of post-Soviet nihilism. It is difficult to say how strong such a balance is, since it can always be disturbed by the struggle between efforts to maintain identity within the framework of traditional statist notions and the reflexive practice of modern society, in which an individual does not commit him/herself to obligatorily follow precepts and ascriptive social relations.