Symbolic appropriation of a Baltic City: on the peculiarities of Klaipėda in comparison with Kaliningrad and Olsztyn (1945-1990)

Abstract

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.