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Demonized, domesticated, virtualized: fortification buildings as a case of Prussian heritage in present-day Kaliningrad

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Eleonora Narvselius Open the ORCID record for Eleonora Narvselius [Opens in a new window]
Eleonora Narvselius*
Affiliation:
Centre for Languages and Literature, Lund University, Lund, Sweden
*
*Email: eleonora.narvselius@slav.lu.se
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Abstract

The article explores ways in which the nineteenth-century Prussian military architecture has been used and promoted as a part of the local heritage in the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. Accommodation of the old fortification buildings to tourism and museum work has been publicly discussed since the beginning of the 2000s, but neither local nor federal authorities have proposed a plan to adapt them to non-military purposes. As a result, these structures, which are protected by federal heritage laws and uniformly built of characteristic red bricks, have become an arena for various initiatives, experiments, and games with the past. Strategies of virtualization discussed in the paper reveal a lack of open public discussion about dark episodes of Russian and Soviet history. Consequently, it is important to learn more about how and why contemporary Kaliningraders appropriate the local German legacies, use globally accepted strategies of heritage construction, and develop cooperation with the EU countries, while remaining receptive to official historical narratives promulgated by the national center.

Keywords

KaliningradGreat Patriotic Warheritagefortificationsvirtualizationmythscapes
Type
Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 46 , Issue 3 , May 2018 , pp. 400 - 421
Copyright
Copyright © 2017 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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Interviews

Anonymous guide at the Museum of the Great Patriotic War in Fort 5. Interview conducted November 1,2013.Google Scholar
Anonymous guide at the Amber Museum in Kaliningrad, November 2, 2013Google Scholar
Aleksandra Artamonova, writer. Interview conducted November 8, 2013.Google Scholar
Andrei Arzhadin, guide and “guardian” of Fort 3 Friedrich Wilhelm 1. Interview conducted November 3, 2013.Google Scholar
Bartfeld, Boris, writer, businessman, and cultural manager in Kaliningrad. Member of the Union of Russian Writers. Interview conducted November 11, 2013.Google Scholar
Stas (Stanislav) Laurušonis, resident of Fort 1 stein. Interview conducted November 5, 2013.Google Scholar
Martyniuk, Andrei, museum intendent of the Museum in the Friedländer Gate. Interview conducted November 10, 2013.Google Scholar
Mikhailov, Sergei, writer. Interview conducted November 8, 2013.Google Scholar
Seliverstov, Yurii, photo artist, head of the Kaliningrad Union of photo artists. Interview conducted November 7, 2013.Google Scholar
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Zabuga, Yurii, architect. Interview conducted November 12, 2013.Google Scholar