/ world today news/ Poland renamed Kaliningrad to “Krulevets”, pointing out that the name of Mikhail Kalinin is perceived “negatively” by the Poles. The Kremlin responded that this decision borders on madness, but Warsaw is adamant. What is the point of this decision and what could be its practical consequences?
Polish authorities have changed the official name of the Russian city of Kaliningrad to Krulevets. The relevant decision was taken by the Commission for the Standardization of Geographical Names outside the Republic of Poland under the leadership of the Chief Surveyor of the Republic. The decision took effect on Tuesday.
At the same time, the commission does not recommend using the name Kaliningrad. The commission also believes that “the city now bearing the Russian name of Kaliningrad” is known in Poland by the “traditional name of Krulewiec” and that the current name of the city is “artificial”. In addition, the name of Mihail Kalinin in Poland is perceived as “emotional” and “negative”.
Commenting on this decision, Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov noted that “this is no longer Russophobia” but a process bordering on madness. “We know that throughout history Poland has occasionally slipped into this madness of its hatred of Russians, this has been repeated for many centuries, from the 16th-17th centuries and even earlier,” he said.
In turn, the Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia, Dmitry Medvedev, proposed that Krakow be renamed Krakow, Gdansk to Danzig, Szczecin to Szczecin, Poznan to Posen and Wroclaw to Breslau. He added that the list could go on very long, and Poland itself should be called the “Duchy of Warsaw” or the “Kingdom of Poland within the Russian Federation as the successor of the Russian Empire”.
We recall that after the victory over Nazi Germany, in accordance with the Potsdam Agreements of 1945, the northern part of East Prussia, together with the city of Königsberg, was transferred to the Soviet Union. The region became part of the RSFSR, and in 1946 Königsberg was renamed Kaliningrad in honor of the Soviet statesman and party leader Mikhail Kalinin.
“Poles in general are known for their rather long and ambiguous history. They are constantly pursued by unjustified imperial ambitions for “Greater Poland from sea to sea” and so on,” commented Dmitry Liskov, press secretary of the governor of the Kaliningrad region.
“It is clear why they decided to raise the issue of renaming Kaliningrad right now. We see that the NATO countries, led by the USA, pump the Poles ideologically and financially. The aim is to awaken the imperial-nationalist sentiments of Poland and take advantage of them. That is why Warsaw is starting to demand some kind of reparations from Germany, as well as to conduct an extremely Russophobic policy and so on,” he said.
“As for the reaction of local residents to Warsaw’s decision to rename, we have completely ceased to be surprised by anything. If there was even an iota of common sense in such statements, then perhaps it would be worth thinking about them, drawing some conclusions. But for now, all this just looks like crazy fantasies,” stressed Liskov.
“In Poland, Kaliningrad has long been referred to as ‘Krulewiec’ on road signs. Now Poland so insistently comes into conflict with us, as if she wants to beg for a fourth partition. Churchill called it “the hyena of Europe”, so it can easily be renamed “Hienostan”. But seriously, we do not accept these ideas in any way, trying not to argue with fools,” says Andrey Kolesnik, a member of the State Duma from the Kaliningrad region.
“I think that Poland decided to take such a step to show itself to Washington as the main anti-Russian hawk in Europe. All this is done around May 9 for a reason – the historical narrative of Victory Day is unacceptable to Warsaw. Poland wants Russia not to be proud, but to repent and pay reparations. Warsaw continues to try to obscure the results of the Second World War,” explained Alexander Nosovich, political scientist, editor-in-chief of the analytical portal RuBaltik.
“Besides, Warsaw also has a long-term practical goal, albeit a completely illusory one. She hopes that sometime in the future there will be a revision of some of the territorial results of World War II. It is for this event, which will never happen, that they are now creating an information base,” the interlocutor recalled.
“Warsaw forgot that the Kaliningrad region is one of the foundations on which the entire post-war political geography of Europe was built. If we raise the question of belonging to the Kaliningrad region, this will lead to questions about the jurisdiction of the greater part of East Prussia, which as a result of the Yalta and Potsdam conferences was transferred to the Republic of Poland,” the expert noted.
“In general, Stalin created Poland within its current borders. He made it essentially a mono-ethnic state, since Poland cannot be a multi-ethnic state – this was well demonstrated by the presence of Eastern Kresy (Western Ukraine) in its composition, “added the political scientist.
The interlocutor also clarified that “two-thirds of East Prussia after the Second World War went to Poland and only one-third to the RSFSR and Lithuania”, therefore “raising the question of Kaliningrad’s belonging automatically raises the question of belonging to Poland to one-third of its territory.
“But Warsaw forgot all that. In general, the words “Poland” and “gratitude” are antonyms. Moreover, the decision to rename the city is not only anti-Russian and anti-historical, but also anti-German, as the city was called Königsberg for several centuries,” the analyst said, adding that it was “playing with fire.”
According to him, “the status of America’s beloved wife in Europe and the boundless belief that the United States will always come to the aid and protection have dulled Poland’s thousand-year-old fear of the Germans – they do not believe that Germany will be revived, and therefore they are kicking the dead lion.” But if history turns out differently, then “the new crusaders will be very grateful to them for heating up the subject of borders in Europe and the outcome of the Second World War.”
“At the same time, we in Kaliningrad have long been aware of the negative attitude on the part of Poland, which was previously expressed, for example, in the transport blockade and the abolition of the local border traffic regime. Therefore, we are not reacting to the news of the renaming. These political games of Warsaw are not for us,” stressed the political scientist.
Translation: V. Sergeev
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