Doctoral Dissertation Research: The Role of History and Memory in Identity Construction: The Case of Kaliningrad, Formerly German Konigsberg

本文通过调查前德国城市科尼斯堡（Koenigsberg）在1945年被苏联接管并更名为加里宁格勒（Kaliningrad）后的历史，来研究一个国家操纵民族认同的能力。在接下来的几十年里，这座城市的战前历史成为苏维埃国家、地方政府和讲俄语的公民之间斗争的焦点。尽管有苏联的禁令，当地居民仍然保留着这片领土的德国历史。采访和档案资料将用于记录国家推动的官方历史，以及当地知识分子为重现该领土的德国历史所做的努力。建筑项目（解构、重建和保存）提供了特别有价值的历史记录，用于理解这些集体记忆的冲突是如何随着政治制度的变化而随时间变化的。

This dissertation investigates the ability of a state to manipulate national identity by investigating the history of the former German city of Koenigsberg after it was taken over by the Soviet Union in 1945 and renamed Kaliningrad. In the following decades, the pre-war history of the city became the focus of a struggle between the Soviet state, the local administration, and the Russian speaking citizens. Despite Soviet prohibitions, the local population maintained the German history of the territory. Interviews and archival data will be used to document the state-promoted official history and the efforts by the local intelligentsia to reproduce the German history of the territory. Architectural projects (deconstruction, reconstruction, and preservation) provide an especially valuable historical record for understanding how these conflicts over collective memory varied over time with changes in the political regime.