The Perception of Regional History and of the Great Patriotic War by the Youth of the Kaliningrad Region in the Context of the Attitude to the Figure of Joseph Stalin

Abstract

The article is devoted to the study of the historical memory of young people in the Kaliningrad Region. According to the hypothesis of the study, the specificity of its content depends on the respondents’ attitude to Stalin, around whose personality there are manipulations aimed at reducing the role of the Red Army in Second World War. The main method of the study was formalized interviews with young people aged 18-35 (n = 1108). Focus group interviews acted as an auxiliary scientific method that allowed for the interpretation of statistically processed empirical data. The results of the study revealed differences in emotional attitudes toward the end of the Great Patriotic War. The young people who have a negative attitude towards Stalin more often focus on the tragic events of the war, perceiving the 9th May as a day of mourning for the fallen and as a day of remembrance of what the people experienced during the war. Victory in the Great Patriotic War is in the eyes of the majority of young people in the region the main event in Russian history. However, young people who have a negative attitude towards Stalin are much less likely to assess the victory in the same way. This peculiarity is conditioned by family memory - as a rule, Stalin’s opponents more often keep in their memory tragic events in the lives of their relatives during the war. Differences were also found among young people in the Kaliningrad Region with respect to regional history. On the whole, respondents indicated that they were most interested in the Prussian and German periods of history. However, pro-Stalinist young people are also highly interested in the Soviet period. In addition, neutral and pro-Stalinist youths have an overwhelmingly positive attitude toward the renaming of Königsberg into Kaliningrad, while among Stalin’s opponents there is a high proportion of supporters of retaining the historical name (Königsberg).