Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The article actualizes the significance of interdisciplinary research into a region on the basis of a case study of East Prussia and seeks to bring out a problematic character of “professional regional history” in the context of the contemporary science of history. One of the major aims of the article is to emphasize theoretical reflections on interdisciplinary research into a region by featuring some research methods, viz. micro-history and applied history. The employment of the said methods that encourages multiple and precise studies of historical personalities and details typical of the collective consciousness of individuals in a local territory opens an opportunity to also grasp the relationships between cultural, social, economic, and political factors by revealing a clear view of the historical context.

The paper analyses the context of the formation and the narrative structure of the borussianistic historical master narrative based on the myth of Prussia’s German mission. By examining the relationship between the master narrative and the culture of remembrance, the article shows how, during the period of 1871-1914, the meanings of the borussianistic historical master narrative were consolidated into public commemoration practices of East Prussia and how that consolidation changed the multiplicity of identity intrinsic to East Prussia in the first half of the 19th century. On the basis of a case study analysis (the erection of a national monument “Borussia” in Klaipeda/ Memel), the article investigates the forms of application of borussianistic historical master narrative meanings on the territory of East Prussia, inhabited by mixed Lithuanian and German population.

The paper analyses particular meanings which integrated the Germans and Lithuanians living in Prussian Lithuania, defined their regional patriotism, and constituted the fundamentals of the regional culture of remembrance in the 19th and the early 20th c. It also examines the circumstances which, at the turn of the 20th c., gave an opportunity for part of Prussian Lithuanians to create alternative meanings, based on the Lithuanian historical master narrative, and encouraged Prussian Lithuanians to maintain their ethnic peculiarity and to support their distinction from Germans. Since Lithuanian historical narrative, created in Prussian Lithuania, became a source of alternative meanings, its structure, as well as the sources of its formation, is exhaustively analysed in the article. The author tries to resolve the issue whether the alternative culture of remembrance, based on the structure of meanings which were consolidated in the Lithuanian historical narrative and characterized by its own ceremonies, rituals, and monument erection practices, had formed in Prussia Lithuania.

The article discusses the main factors which shaped the peculiarities and distinctions of political elites in East Prussia in the first half of the 19th c. Among them, it names the growth of self-sufficiency of provincial nobility during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, the role of political elites in the liberal movement for constitutional reforms in Prussia, as well as the use of historical research and symbols of the past, increased in the first half of the 19th c. for the definition of distinction of both the province and its representatives. In the article, particular attention is paid to the examination of the factors of Russian neighbourhood and East Prussia’s position in the borderland between Prussia and Russia, showing their impact during crucial to Prussia events of 1813 and 1848. Due to the intertwining of all of those factors, in the first half of the 19th c., the consciousness of political elites in East Prussia ranged between regional provincial patriotism, Prussian patriotism (perceived through the relationship between the King and his subjects), and the growing sense of belonging to the German nation.

Between 1848 and 1871, German identity gained importance in East Prussia. The basis for the nationalization was the increased opportunities for communication in smaller cities and even villages in Prussian Lithuania provided by the newly founded associations. Additionally, the press developed into the most important medium allowing the adoption of national sentiments on a level wider than the local areas. A national movement encompassing all political camps did not appear on the German side. Only liberals and democrats supported the German national state. The conservatives remained distanced to the German nation state as they primarily identified themselves with Prussian patriotism.

Jewish immigration, which increased in East Prussia particularly after the Crimean War (1853-1856) because of an immigration policy that had been liberal for decades, brought especially young Litvak families to the region. They came with the decided endeavour to leave a part of their Litvak traditions behind and to establish themselves in Prussia. Which Jewish identity did they pass on to their children, who grew up as citizens of the Reich? And how did the identity of the grandchildren’s’ generation unfold? That very prominent change of identity is shown on the basis of one family that proves to be exemplary for Jews who immigrated in the second half of the 19th century. Several generations can be defined. The generation of the immigrants had children who explicitly felt German. The life of the grandchildren was connected to the decision for forced migration and thus with commitment to a new chosen homeland (in most cases, Palestine), in which the mental relationships to their home region were shaped in a very ambivalent way.

The article analyses the transformations of the European science of philology in relation to the strengthening of nationalism, as well as the reflection of the trend in the context of East Prussia and Prussian Lithuania. The developments in comparative philology presupposed researchers’ interest in the studies of Baltic languages, Lithuanian in particular. The establishment of the Department of Sanskrit and Comparative Philology at Königsberg University both formed the tradition of academic Baltic studies and united the efforts of the intellectuals of East Prussia for the preservation of linguistic and ethnic-cultural heritage of Prussian Lithuania. The text Aus Baltischen Ländern by lawyer and cultural worker Ludwig Passarge is a characteristic example featuring the reflection of the ethnic-cultural model of Prussian Lithuanians against the background of predomination of comparative linguistics typical of the intellectual context of Europe in the 19th c.