/ˈmi.wɔʂ/ Miłosz J. Cordes

Tag: obwod kaliningradzki

  • Online Book Discussion on June 30th, 12:00 CET

    Online Book Discussion on June 30th, 12:00 CET

    🗓️ Save the date: on Monday, June 30th at 12:00 CET I will be talking about my latest book, Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast. Together with Iwona Reichardt and Krzysztof Żęgota, we will look at the intricacies of Kaliningrad Oblast’s history and its uses in the context of contemporary Russia’s domestic and foreign policies.

    Published by Routledge / Taylor & Francis Group, the book summarises debates on the Oblast’s regional identity until 2018 (Vladimir Putin’s third presidential term) and makes the connection between the region’s specific geographical location, its non-Russian civilisational legacy and the weaponisation of memory by the incumbent Russian political regime at the federal and international levels.

    Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast helps understand the reasons behind Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and shed light on strategies employed to sustain the system created in Russia over the last 25 years.

    Many thanks to the Richard Pipes Laboratory at the Institute of Political Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Wojciech Łysek for suggesting and organising the event!

    Registration link: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/PBBaSO1NR3qw7PNZV7qxwA

  • Book Release: Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast

    Book Release: Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast

    When I began my postdoctoral research at Lund University’ I did not expect the team of scholars I joined to be so interested in the memory politics in Russia’s Kaliningrad Oblast. I had just spent three years there as a diplomat which, on top of my previous academic research at the Institute of Slavic Studies of the Polish Academy of Sciences, had given me much food for thought. It thus did not take much for Per Anders Rudling and Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation to convince me to revise to my original Ph.D. dissertation to update it and make it fit the rigours of an academic monograph.

    I embarked on a journey which turned out to be more straining and more satisfying than any other one in my hitherto academic life. Three years later, here it is. Collective Memory in Post-Soviet Kaliningrad Oblast has just been published as part of the Routledge Histories of Central & Eastern Europe series.

    The book features summary of debates of what it meant to be an inhabitant of Russia’s westernmost region in the first 25 years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. It traces changes going beyond the region itself – from the initial high hopes and much uncertainty to the emergence of a certain degree of regional pride and to an increasingly sharp reaction of federal authorities against a diverse, inclusive narrative of the Oblast’s pre-1945 non-Russian and non-Soviet past.

    Kaliningrad Oblast was a playground for refined official Russian memory policies already ten years ago. Its complex history reveals tensions affecting both domestic and foreign policies of the Kremlin and the inability to accommodate the rich cultural landscape of the northern part of East Prussia under the conditions of the increasingly authoritarian regime. The book is also a study of the use of old Wilhelmine, Weimar and Nazi Germany myths about East Prussia in the changed geopolitical circumstances after the Second World War and in the run-up to Russia’s annexation of Crimea, war in Donbas and full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

  • Browar za lasem. Polessk-Labiawa

    Browar za lasem. Polessk-Labiawa

    Kontynuuję cykl artykułów poświęconych nieoczywistym miejscom w obwodzie kaliningradzkim. Po Ponarcie i Żeleznodorożnym przyszedł czas na Polessk. Tekst opublikował “Przegląd Bałtycki”.

  • 77 lat temu rozpoczęła się zagłada Królewca

    77 lat temu rozpoczęła się zagłada Królewca

    Dzisiejszej nocy (26-27 sierpnia) obchodzimy 77. rocznicę pierwszego z dwóch brytyjskich nalotów bombowych na #Królewiec. Drugi, trzy dni później, dopełnił dzieła zniszczenia centrum miasta, które na przestrzeni wieków tworzyli ludzie wielu etnosów, wyznań i światopoglądów.

    Zagładę Knipawy, Lipnika i Startego Miasta obserwował Michael Wieck – Żyd, który cudem przeżył Szoah i późniejsze sowieckie rządy wojskowe.

    Zapraszam do lektury mojego najnowszego artykułu w portalu “Przegląd Bałtycki“: https://przegladbaltycki.pl/17641,sierpniowy-koszmar-krolewca-oczami-michaela-wiecka.html.

  • O Żeleznodorożnym w “Przeglądzie Bałtyckim”

    Zadebiutowałem na łamach portalu “Przegląd Bałtycki” tekstem poświęconym miejscowości Żeleznodorożnyj, przed którą od lat stoją poważne wyzwania: https://przegladbaltycki.pl/17084,kapitalne-gierdawy….

    Czy tzw. remont kapitalny, stosunkowo nowy pomysł władz regionalnych, zwiększy atrakcyjność przedwojennych Gierdaw? Debiut ma również wymiar fotograficzny, ponieważ artykułowi towarzyszą zdjęcia mojego autorstwa. Można je znaleźć również tutaj.

    Dziękuję redakcji “PB” za współpracę!

  • 100 years of Poland’s consular presence in Königsberg/Kaliningrad

    Last year we celebrated the 100th anniversary of Polish consular presence in Koenigsberg/Kaliningrad. On this occasion, together with my colleagues we worked on a small commemorating piece for Korolievskiye Vorota. The article got published in December 2020. Big thanks to everyone that helped this initiative come to life!