Woe to the Victors

World War II began 60 years ago.

There is an area in Russia which was previously never part of the Russian Empire and which was never even claimed by any of the previous regimes or rulers, even as far back as the time of Peter I or Catherine II. I have in mind what currently known as Kaliningrad oblast, made part of the USSR following the postwar division of Europe. Formerly part of East Prussia, the Soviets changed the name of its capital from KЪnigsberg (King's Mountain) to Kaliningrad, in honor of Mikhail Kalinin, Chairman of the Supreme Soviet Presidium. All the German residents were deported and their place taken by villagers from southern regions of the RSFSR, also against their will (there was only one German resident left, a very old half crazy man, living in what was left of an ethnic countryside settlement, who died shortly afterward).

Today, Kaliningrad oblast is a materialized version of the old adage, woe to the vanquished, and more. The city is also a case study in what happens to a captured territory when the victor's culture is inferior to that of the vanquished aborigines (we will not touch on the complex problem of German Nazism). This becomes especially conspicuous when comparing Kaliningrad to modern German cities. It is hard to overstate the attractive tidiness and color of these cities risen from the ashes in all their unique historical splendor, with temples, palaces, castles, clean rivers, numerous monuments, and a myriad of flowers.

Kaliningrad, rather KЪnigsberg, was that way before the war, a medieval museum city founded in the thirteenth century, venue of early Lutheranism, place of birth and work of a number of noted Germans, primarily the celebrated philosopher Immanuel Kant. KЪnigsberg Cathedral was built in the fourteenth century as one of Europe's first great cathedrals to become Protestant, and it is mentioned in every encyclopedia and textbook on late Gothic architecture. East Prussia was a developed agricultural region before World War II. Its farmers supplied all of Germany with dairy products and meat.

Then Russian villagers were forced to resettle this ruined land, bringing with them the Soviet order and tradition. Nothing was done to rebuild the old structures. What was left of the German burghers' settlements made up of solid, spacious, and comfortable red brick homes with tiled roofs was dismantled and used as construction material for ugly cabins and barns. In the postwar years the collective farms tried but failed to reach the former level of agricultural output. Until the USSR's collapse Kaliningrad oblast lived almost exclusively at the courtesy of Lithuania, as every weekend almost one half of the population would set off to buy milk and meat in that neighboring republic.

The new masters “restored” war-ravaged KЪnigsberg according to their own standards, with no attempts at aesthetics, historicism, or architectural versatility. The whole city was built up with Khrushchev apartment blocks (five-story buildings with several entrances and without an elevator or garbage chute; as a rule each floor contains four apartment). The remains of the picturesque castle downtown were torn down and the site was used for the construction of giant box to become the never-finished House of Soviets. The picture becomes complete by adding streets and sidewalks, all in a terrible condition, as though still bearing war wounds, and garbage strewn everywhere. A typical Soviet provincial town living up to its current name.

Kaliningrad is like an illustrated book showing the methods the Russian Empire applied to push out the culture of the indigenous population. All the streets, city districts, buildings, and suburbs changed their names. A number of priceless historic structures were torn down. All inscriptions on the surviving German monuments were until very recently in Russian. All the prewar German cemeteries were looted and leveled to the ground. After 1989 all Protestant and Catholic churches were taken over by the Russian Orthodox Church, although the city still has Lutheran and Protestant communities. A Russian pantheon of sorts was erected beside the KЪnigsberg Cathedral, with score of tasteless statues portraying Russian writers and poets ranging from Aleksandr Pushkin to Maksim Gorky.

Times are changing little by little. Restoration work was started on the cathedral, although it will not be a place of worship but a “cultural center.” Germans tourists now visit Kaliningrad, mostly middle- aged people, former residents. They have a hard time locating places once so very familiar. The main attraction is Kant's grave by the cathedral's wall. It is always buried under bouquets and wreaths. Germans walk through the cathedral, sighing and shaking their heads at the restorers' liberties with the ageless structure, gaping at the Eastern Orthodox chapel installed under the Protestant roof for reasons best known to whomever did it, eyeing the statue of the audacious poet Sergei Yesenin nearby. Woe to the vanquished indeed, but in this case woe to the victors as well.