For Barth98, ethnic groups are socially designed using individuals who adjust their cultural identity by emphasizing or underplaying it according to current context. Individuals can cross the boundaries between groups if they find it advantageous to do. Moreover they can maintain regular relations across them, but this does not affect the durability and stability of the boundaries themselves. Accordingly, «cultural emblems and differences are thus significant only in so far as they are socially effective, as an organizational device for articulating social relations»99.
Here it is necessary to bear in mind that according to the discourse of anthropology the «boundary» is the word with the most general application; whereas the term «border» item is situationally specific and «frontier» has come to be reserved to fairly strictly limited geopolitical and legal applications100. At that point following question has considerable importance, «why inter-group boundaries are sharply marked even as people cross them and even as the cultural differences between the groups change»101.
In this regard, I share the view of Sezneva who, in writing about Kaliningrad, takes the point that «there are no reasons to believe that a certain behavioral pattern will automatically lead to the formation of a particular political attitude, or learning about a history will automatically form a particular identity. How people categorize and identity the social world and themselves within it, and how these categories impact on their behavior are not the same issue. Categories of self-understanding do not always provide a basis for collective action and the formation of collective subject-ness»102.
As Barth stressed, the critical focus of investigation should be «the ethnic boundary that defines the group, not the cultural stuff that it encloses»103. As known, Barth emphasizes that boundary-making involves two phenomena: self-ascription and ascription by others. But he tends to focus on one side rather than the other, emphasizing internal identification rather than external constraint and the shaping influence of wider structures, such as those of class and the state. However, it makes sense to distinguish «between two analytically distinct processes of ascription: group identification and social categorization. The first occurs inside the… boundary, the second outside and across it»104.
Cohen takes the similar point as Barth. He stresses that «culture, identity and symbolism all converge on the concept of ethnicity» and makes a critic of the last one: «In some respects, this is the most difficult word of the three, since it appears to mean something – indeed, has been imported into lay usage for this reason – but, in practice, means either everything or nothing at all. Ethnicity has become the politicization of culture»105.
Cooper and Brubaker argue that «identity» is always «situated» and «contextual»106. This related to approach of viewing identity as «a process that is a temporal and dynamic phenomenon, which has a history, and even is itself situated in history as experience»107.
A combination of historical memory and geography provides a sense of commonality resulting in a perceived, distinct kind of groupness108. Does this thesis holds true in Kaliningrad? If Kaliningrad’s territorial isolation engenders a sense of «boundedness»? Borders operate as hard geographic facts and geographic borders translated into social boundaries. If the choice with whom to distinguish themselves (Russian or Europeans) is a choice between two temporalities for Kaliningradians?109 These questions need to find their answer in this thesis.
Structure of thesis
The main part of the thesis consists of three chapters.
The first is «The Kaliningrad region and its historical background» illuminates the issues of historical background and birth of the Kaliningrad Oblast’. Significant attention paid to migration flows as a source of demographic capacity before the collapse of the USSR and the formation of regional society.
For a comprehensive review of the historical context attention is paid to the deportation of German population and analysis of the settlement of first Kaliningradians. In this regard, important sources are archival materials and the results of the project «Settlers tell» of Kaliningradian historians led by Kostyashov.
We have in the focus the period of formation of the urban landscape of Kaliningrad, its perception by residents and public authorities. During this period of time, the establishment of Kaliningrad as a typical Soviet city based on official model of development of socialistic urban communities occurred. Migration dynamics is experiencing fluctuations and has changed the essence of the regional society in 1950—1980’s.
The developing of generational change and perception of cultural and historical heritage among Kaliningradians and followed change of cultural paradigm are resulted from a complex social und public process. It may be distinguished the process of cognition under the signs of «complex of temporality», «outpost in the West» and «suitcase mood». Attention is given to the turn of 1960—70s, which I believe is appropriate to be designated as the beginning of the mastering of the cultural urban landscape.
This chapter also devoted to theoretical approaches to the Kaliningrad region as exclave in consequence of the collapse of the USSR.
The next two chapters are based on empirical material including interviews and participated observations. The chapter «Positioning between Europe and Russia: strategies and experiences of Europeanization and exceptionality of Kaliningrad everyday» discloses the issue under the motto «what is the European everyday life of Kaliningradians?»
The strategy of everyday practices is affected by the emotional sentiments under the slogans of «fragment of Russia», «poor neighbor» and «pilot region». The Small border traffic, which was put into practice as an example of cross-border «European» everyday life in Kaliningrad is disclosed under the title «Hallo, Lidl, hallo Bedronka». Motives, moods, expectations from trans-boundary movements are viewed through the prism of emotional perception of territorial marginality as the characteristic and inevitable property of daily life in Kaliningrad.
Through the content of the chapter come the issue of «separatist sentiment» as a manifestation of «distinctiveness» and consciousness of the «uniqueness» as part of the public discourse and issue of loyalty to state. The Spirit of «pilot-ness» among Kaliningradians plays role of justification and attribution of distinctiveness of regional culture. «Pilot-ness» is understood as a concept with mostly a positive connotation.
The issue of consciousness of the third generation of Kaliningradians is based on the historical heritage as an actor of the transformation of mentality, which nourishes the discourse about the significance of the historic core of the city and cultural heritage. We approach the potentiality to reflect the past in the present and affect the future.
During interviews the question of «how and who distinguish themselves as young Kaliningradians» was articulated, as well as the adequacy and applicability of the issue «periphery» and metaphor of «bridge» on the boundary of Russian-EU landscape.
Appeal to the issue of the Kaliningradian identification on the transnational space takes place through the prism of All-Russian National Census 2010, which uncovered