Klaipėdos universitetas

On the basis of the research papers in the present collection, the author focuses on the issue of how specific the symbolic appropriation of the former East Prussian territories (and primarily cities, such as Kaliningrad, Olsztyn, and Klaipėda) was as compared to the expression of the process in other Lithuanian cities, such as Vilnius, Kaunas, and Šiauliai. The article discusses the role of capital cities as standards for building the cultures of remembrance in regions, the role of national (or communist) symbols as instruments of symbolic appropriation, and the impact of the communication milieus that formed and maintained the cultures of remembrance in cities. The author identifies the similarities and differences in the processes of symbolic appropriation of Klaipėda, Kaliningrad, Olsztyn, and Vilnius.

Over the 20th c., the city of Grodno changed its political dependence more than once; at the end of World War II and in the postwar period, it experienced cardinal changes in the composition of its population. By interpreting the city as a palimpsest, the author examines the process of re-reading and rewriting of the meanings in the palimpsest that took place in Grodno in the 20th c. The author highlights the breaks and the continuity in the maintenance of the meanings and discusses the strategies applied to legitimate one’s presence in the city. The article discloses the meanings in the course of studies how the processes of cultural appropriation of Grodno changed the area of the city as a system of references consisting of the symbolism of a network of city streets, squares, individual buildings, religious sites, and other.

Like many other towns in East Prussia, Klaipėda lost almost all its former population during World War II and was inhabited by newcomers after 1945. After an example of Klaipėda, the article analyzes the process of comprehension of a newly inhabited area and making it one’s own. Klaipėda became a former East Prussian city having returned to Lithuania and simultaneously incorporated into the Soviet Union. That caused the clash of interests, the development of which also changed the systems of meanings that provided a framework for the appropriation process. The city was gradually comprehended in the process of formation of unique interrelationships of the meanings of Soviet ideology, all-Union patriotism, Lithuanian national culture, and East Prussian cultural heritage. In the article, the author identifies the processes that affected different configurations of the said interrelationships in different post-war periods.

The article analyzes the aspiration of the interwar political and cultural elite of Lithuania to turn Klaipėda Region acquired in 1923 into integral part of the state of Lithuania by construing collective memory that would unify Lithuania Minor and Major. The attention is focussed exclusively on the initiatives whose authors were the political and cultural elite of Lithuania that identified itself with the tradition of Lithuania Major.

The article analyzes the issue of East Prussian meanings in the environment of Prussian Lithuanians in terms of their “mental maps” and “symbolical geography”. Particular attention is paid to the analysis of the communication channels that affected the process of mental appropriation of “our own region” – East Prussia – by the ethnic group of Prussian Lithuanians. The significance of the historical tradition related to the reformationist provision of protection of the status of the Lithuanian language in churches and schools of Prussian Lithuania, as well as of the periodicals published in Lithuanian at the turn of the 20th c. in East Prussia, is emphasized, as it is considered to be a significant communication channel that formed the conception of East Prussia, a close and “one’s own” space from the geographical, administrative-political, and civilization viewpoints. The analysis is oriented towards the problem of “appropriation of the past”, and it contributes to the understanding how the meanings of East Prussia topical for Prussian Lithuanians formed and which symbols marked the presently imaginary spaces identified with East Prussia and Prussian Lithuania/ Lithuania Minor as its part.

The article deals with the settling down process of the newcomers to post-war Olsztyn, i. e. their efforts to develop their own relationship with the environment of the place of residence they arrived in from other territories. The author believes that the “national” (Polish) version of reading of the past of the city that took root in the Soviet years and that neglected the regional specificities of Warmia and Masuria served as one of the major stimuli accounting for the settlers’ formation of meaningful relationships with Olsztyn. By comparing the meanings used in the formation of relationships in the periods before and after 1989, the author demonstrates that the said “national” version of reading the past of the city presently co-exists with the efforts to popularize regional history and the multiculturalism of the past of Warmia and Masuria.