From 'trophy' to 'patrimony'

This presentation is based on a decade-long ethnographic study and camera-led interviews conducted in Kaliningrad, Russia. Formerly German East Prussia, the region experienced unprecedented levels of violence during and immediately after World War II. Its German-speaking population was drastically reduced, and the survivors were later deported. New Russian-speaking settlers were brought in. As with other instances of occupation and population displacement, new historical narratives emerged to support claims of ownership. However, subaltern practices of reconstruction, claiming, and appropriation of historical memory persisted. They formed around the traces of German-period architecture, blueprints of urban spaces, photographs, and small objects. How do these entities ‘act,’ and what effects do they have on their owners, users, and keepers? What are the dynamics and differences in their performativity? Drawing on examples from the fieldwork, I demonstrate that collecting in Kaliningrad serves as a form of evidencing. I explore the ways in which such evidencing occurs: through imagination, guessing, staying with the unknown, and delegating agency. The presentation concludes with an analysis of the politics of heriticization, and its problematic status -- between forgetting and historical recovery, commemoralization and cultural appropriation.