Kaliningrad in the twenty-first century - independence, semi-autonomy, or continued second-class citizenship?

• Published date: 01 January 2010
• Author: Kronenfeld, David Thomas
• Date: 01 January 2010

Konigsberg, East Prussia--April 9, 1945. One hundred ten thousand Nazi and Soviet soldiers have perished in the struggle for the city and the surrounding region; (1) thirty to thirty-five thousand Nazi soldiers surrender to the Soviet Red Army after a months-long siege; (2) the foundation is laid for an ongoing international question spanning more than half a century. (3) Following World War II, the victorious Allies agreed at the Potsdam Conference to "the proposal of the Soviet Government concerning the ultimate transfer to the Soviet Union of the city of Konigsberg and the area adjacent to it.... subject to expert examination of the actual frontier." (4) The Soviets subsequently renamed the city and its surrounding region "Kaliningrad" (5) and began remaking the area in the Soviet image. (6)

Three years after Potsdam, in 1948, the Soviet government removed twenty thousand German citizens from the region, (7) the remnants of a 1945 population of more than one hundred thousand. (8) For the next fifty years, until its collapse in the early 1990s, the Soviet Union followed the historical Russian pattern of "Russification" through immigration and education. (9) By the time of the Soviet collapse, the population of Kaliningrad had been transformed from its almost exclusively German composition pre-World War II (10) to one consisting of more than seventy-eight percent ethnic Russians. (11)

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Kaliningrad, still under the de facto control of Russia, found itself surrounded by Poland and Lithuania with no terra firma link to the Russian Federation--Kaliningrad became an island. As a result, the past decade and a half have witnessed negotiations and policy plans between Kaliningrad and Lithuania, Poland, Germany, the European Union, and the Russian Federation. (12)

Immediately after the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1992, independence for Kaliningrad was, and is still, openly discussed, (13) and rumors circulated that Russia might sell the region to Germany in exchange for debt forgiveness. (14) As of 2002, however, Germany showed no interest in purchasing the region despite its strong historical and cultural ties and claims to the region. (15) Further, because of its exclave status, Russia's economic policies have often not served Kaliningrad's best economic interests, causing Kaliningraders to suffer. (16) Will a resurgent Russia under President Dmitry Medvedev (with Vladimir Putin in the shadows) govern the economic playbook for the Kaliningrad Oblast, or will Russia grant it the opportunity to function as a semi-autonomous region in determining its economic future? The central question today is not who will rule the region in the coming years, (17) but rather who will establish the region's economic rules for the foreseeable future.

This Note examines these two possibilities and argues that allowing Kaliningrad to determine its economic (and possibly, political) future is, as a whole, in the best interests of Kaliningrad, Russia, their immediate neighbors, and the European Union ("EU"). There are five categories of reasons in support of this argument: historical, socio-cultural, economic and legal, and Russian interests in granting Kaliningrad semi-autonomy or independence.

A semi-autonomous Kaliningrad Oblast could maintain some hard ties with Russia. For example, it might allow the Russian fleet to use the warm-water port facilities at Baltiysk, or provide Moscow with limited tax receipts, perhaps in the form of a lease payment such as that provided for by the agreement between the United Kingdom and China concerning Hong Kong. 18 Local authorities, however, could be granted the authority to develop and implement economic policy for the region and to deal directly with Kaliningrad's neighbors, Lithuania, Poland, and the EU at-large, on visa, trade issues, etc. Semi-autonomy or full independence would be determined by the holding of a plebiscite at a date mutually determined by local authorities and the Russian government.

I. HISTORICAL REASONS FOR SEMI-AUTONOMY

The Kaliningrad region has a history of changing allegiances and governing structures that spans more than a century. (19) Teutonic Knights ruled East Prussia from the thirteenth century until the mid-eighteenth century, during which time the city of Konigsberg functioned as a Hanseatic regional trade center, the medieval equivalent to a modern-day Hong Kong. (20) In the eighteenth century, the region became part of Prussia, and during Napoleon's 1806 invasion, it replaced Berlin as the Prussian seat of power. (21) Prussia served as the starting point from which Chancellor Otto von Bismarck built the German Empire in 1871. (22) Following World War I, the Kaliningrad region, then known as East Prussia, was cut off from Weimar Germany in order to allow Poland access to the Baltic Sea, (23) and a northern portion of the province was obtained by Lithuania. (24) Though largely ethnically and culturally German, the province did not regain land ties with Germany until the conquest of Poland in 1939. (25) From 1939 to 1945, the SS and Gestapo "colonized" the area surrounding Kaliningrad in an attempt to reduce perceived Slavic control under Adolf Hitler's concept of Lebensraum for the German people. (26)

Following the end of World War II, the Soviets ethnically cleansed the area (27) and developed it into "one of the most highly militarized areas in Europe." (28) Even though it was not connected physically with Russia, the Kaliningrad Oblast was still considered part of Russia proper and not a piece of any Baltic or Eastern European satellite. (29)

Thus, examination of Kaliningrad from a historical perspective reveals a pattern of geographical isolation that lends itself to semi-autonomous economic rule. The creation of the Polish Corridor during the 1920s and 1930s separated the Kaliningrad region geographically and economically from Weimar Germany. (30) Therefore, Kaliningrad functioned in many ways as a de facto semi-autonomous state for nearly twenty years simply due to its lack of a terra firma connection to the German Fatherland. Furthermore, the Kaliningrad region's six-hundred-year existence as an independent state demonstrates that semi-autonomous rule would not be a new idea to press upon a region with artificially created boundaries. Indeed, the region's troubled history offers precedent for the creation of a semi-autonomous region in the Kaliningrad Oblast with hard ties to Russia (i.e., stationing of Russia's Baltic Fleet in Kaliningrad), but only soft economic ties.

II. SOCIO-CULTURAL REASONS FOR SEMI-AUTONOMY

As a result of the changes of the past one hundred years, the Kaliningrad Oblast has developed a unique sense of place on the European continent. (31) Today the region contains a seventy-eight percent Russian majority, (32) but still has German cultural influences. (33) However, the region's leaders have vowed to rebuild its capital city of Kaliningrad in the pattern of a modern European city. (34) Such an attitude reflects Kaliningraders' lack of strong identification with either of the two nations that have controlled the area in the past century. (35)

During the Soviet period, much of Kaliningrad's population consisted of military personnel and their dependents. (36) As a result, it failed to develop a new cultural identity after the expulsion of its native East Prussian occupants. (37) In fact, Soviet officers and their families often referred to the Kaliningrad Oblast as "the West" during their deployments to the region. (38) In other words, Soviet officers and civilians felt as if they were leaving Russia and going to a more European nation. Today, the population (39) is approximately eighty percent ethnically Russian, eight percent Belarusian, seven percent Ukranian, two percent Lithuanian, less than one percent German, (40) and one-half percent Polish. (41) These figures are deceptive as to the cultural identity of Kaliningrad citizens because "an estimated 70 per cent have never been to Russia proper." (42) One scholar of the Kaliningrad issue asserts that the difficulties of traveling between Russia and Kaliningrad and the fact that more Kaliningraders have visited Europe than have visited Russia have contributed to an "island psychology." (43) This identity crisis (44) has been sharpened by the expansion of the EU and its attendant visa issues. (45)

While the Kaliningrad Oblast will retain an ethnically Russian majority for the foreseeable future, (46) this majority will be eroded by immigration (47) and other demographic trends. (48) As discussed, even though the population is ethnically Russian, it does not necessarily identify itself as culturally Russian. Kaliningrad's residents often feel that Moscow treats them like second-class citizens. (49) Moscow's treatment of the Kaliningrad Oblast will be addressed in the next section on law and economics. Because of this disassociation, semi-autonomy or full independence would not drastically change Kaliningrad's cultural identity. Indeed, semi-autonomy or independence might be the best way to create a common Kaliningradian culture. The citizens would identify more closely with a government and nation that exists in their own backyard than with one thousands of kilometers away, across the borders of another nation. Thus, the people of Kaliningrad should have the opportunity to decide whether it is a more European nation or a more Russian one. A plebiscite on semi-autonomy would allow Kaliningraders to decide if they want to control their own fate, but still maintain some ties with Russia; if they want to completely sever those ties with Russia and achieve full independence; or if they wish to maintain the status quo as Russia's "redheaded step-child."

III. ECONOMIC AND LEGAL REASONS FOR SEMI-AUTONOMY

The Kaliningrad Oblast has experienced many legal structures since the early 1990s, all of which have had a direct impact on the area's economic...