Recovered Territory: Königsberg/Kaliningrad as Virtual History

Författare

Kristian Gerner

Summary, in English

Applying the concept of virtual history, it is possible to reconcile the Soviet history of East Prussia with what came before not only by writing history in a conciliatory and objective manner, but also by presenting the past as one. With this I mean that it is possible to transcend the time dimension and to supersede the notion of history as a chain of events. History need not be written in books as texts. It can be told as images, i.e., through the exposition of artefacts – archaeological objects – and images – photos as remnants from the past. The ultimate method of course is to make a movie where different times can be made to co-exist Another trick is to use a museum. In the small resort of Zelenogradsk at the seaside a couple of miles from Kaliningrad, there is a small museum – about Cranz. This was the German name of the town, whose 750th anniversary had been celebrated in 2002. The name of the museum is simply “Historical and Archaeological Museum”. The idea behind the museum has obviously been to compress time, i.e., to make the past timeless or present all periods as equal before God

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