Poland's decision to rename the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad as part of the conservative government's policy of extolling national history will in practice have no more repercussions than changing the name on official documents and road signs.
“The change to Königsberg does not introduce new obligations for employers or the need to update documents: Königsberg will be on maps and guides, but the name Kaliningrad will disappear from Polish roads. It is estimated that up to several dozen signs with this name will have to be changed. We are taking inventory of the plates to calculate the costs,” explains Karol Gbocki, spokesperson for GDDKiA in Olsztyn.
The Commission for the Standardization of Geographical Names beyond the Polish Borders recommended on May 9 to change the name of the Russian border region with Poland by Königsberg for the city and Königsberg Oblast for the region. “We do not want the Russification of Poland and that is why we have decided to change the name in our mother tongue of Kaliningrad and the Kaliningrad region,” Polish Development Minister Waldemar Buda explained at the time.
The date chosen was not random. The changes were announced on Victory Day, although if it were not for Victory Day, Kaliningrad would not exist, as the enclave was the result of the post-war order established at the Tehran, Yalta and Potsdam peace conferences.. Stalin explicitly demanded during his deliberations that the territory of the northern part of East Prussia be given to the Soviet Union, and the Allies agreed to his request.. Captured by the Red Army on April 9, the German city of Königsberg became the center of the new Soviet administrative unit.
“It's not even about Russophobia anymore, it's processes that are close to madness that are taking place in Poland,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, for whom the step taken by Poland does not bring anything good.. “They are not just unfriendly actions: they are hostile actions,” he added.
According to Marek Biernacki, a CP deputy and former head of the Interior Ministry, it was to be expected that Russia would not perceive this decision as a “symbolic snapping of the nose, but as a political act: the first step towards dividing Russia after the lost war and the absorption of the Königsberg region by Poland”, explains Biernacki, a specialist in Russia.
Since the aggression, Poland has not issued tourist visas to Russians and has erected a barrier on the border with Russia from Königsberg. Already in 2016 – under the pretext of the security of the World Youth Days – it suspended the small traffic without visas with Kaliningrad, and it has not yet unblocked it. “Russian polls indicate that the least supporters of the war with Ukraine are precisely the inhabitants of this region, in my opinion this is due to the opening with Poland that has existed for years,” adds Biernacki.
Kaliningrad is the last name that the series that the Commission for Standardization has erased, although not from the map, since the Russian enclave will not cease to exist for that reason. In April, the Commission introduced dozens of changes to the names of the structures in Belarus and Ukraine. Among others, the Vankovich Mansion in Minsk and the Mickiewicz Mound in Novogrudok entered official circulation. Poland will no longer use the Russian name Novogrudok Volynsky (introduced by a decree of Catherine II), but Zwiahel in Ukrainian. Six months ago, Kyiv also made the decision to change to the historical name of Zwiahel from before the partition of Poland.. Also the Polish name Dbrówka was introduced instead of the Ukrainian Dubriwka. This proposal was made by a Pole residing in this town.
Already a year ago, the city of Elblg also broke its partnership agreement with Kaliningrad and changed the name of the roundabout to Bitwy pod Grunwaldem. “It also broke off cooperation with the partner cities in Belarus: Baltiysk, Novgorod the Great and Novogrudok,” says Lukasz Mierzejewski of the Elblg press office.
According to Polish media, in the case of Kaliningrad, the Commission was responding to the request of a group of 12 people from Warsaw who signed a petition as “local government, community activists”.. His request to exchange Kaliningrad for Königsberg was submitted to Minister Buda in November last year.. The resolution on the name change was adopted on April 12, that is, on the eve of the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of the Katyn Massacre, which has been celebrated on April 13 since 2008.. On that day in 1943, information was revealed in Berlin that mass graves of Polish officers murdered by the Soviet NKVD under a decision of the CPSU Politburo had been found in Katyn.. Kalinin's signature “for” appears under the request of NKVD chief Lavrenty Beria to execute Polish prisoners of war from the Kozelsk, Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps.
Founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Order, the city was named in honor of the Bohemian king Ottokar II, and was known as Konigsberg -Królewiec in Polish Karaliaucius in Lithuanian and Korolevets in Russian-. In 1946, the Soviet Union changed its name to Kaliningrad, in honor of the Chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, Mikhail Kalinin.
The name of Kaliningrad has an “emotional and negative” resonance in Poland, especially now that the successor country of the USSR, Russia, is waging war in Ukraine.. “The fact of giving the name of Kalinin to a large city near our border, a criminal co-responsible, among other things, for dictating the decision on the mass murder of Polish officers in Katyn in 1940, evokes negative emotions in Poles” said Buddha.
It is estimated that 25,000 Poles, mostly army officers considered anti-communist, were massacred by the USSR political police in a forest near Smolensk in 1940 on the orders of Josef Stalin.. Kalinin was one of the six Soviet Politburo signatories to the execution warrants and not only in the Katyn Forests but elsewhere as well.. The Soviet Union long denied responsibility for the massacre, accusing the Nazis of the crime, before admitting responsibility in 1990.
Although the recommendation of the state committee is not binding, Polish state bodies refer to Kaliningrad as Królewiec. Apart from that, everything will remain the same, including the fortification of Poland on its border with that enclave started after the invasion of Ukraine.. The Polish army has erected a temporary 2.5m high wire fence and last month began installing cameras and motion sensors along the 232km border.. Anti-tank obstacles have also been placed at border crossings.
Polish authorities are concerned that Russia could use that border as a new migration route to the EU, following reports of an increase in direct flights to Kaliningrad from the Middle East and elsewhere.. Poland has also erected a 5.5m high steel fence along part of its border with Belarus following a surge in migrants crossing into Poland, Lithuania and Latvia from there.