Le ragioni di Königsberg: fenomenologia di una città perduta

The city of Königsberg, which for centuries was the capital of Prussia and one of the most vital centres of European thought and culture, ceased to exist in 1945 (destroyed by the ruinous bombing of the British RAF and later by the urban battle fought against the Red Army). It was replaced by Kaliningrad, the bleak post-war Soviet settlement built on its ruins. Its story represents one of the most tragic examples of cancelling the historical memory of territories, since the modi􀃶 cation of the toponyms and the physical destruction of the German heritage was accompanied by an eff ort at ethnic replacement unprecedented in history. The singular geopolitical condition in which the inhabitants of Königsberg/Kaliningrad live today, – physically isolated from the “motherland” and culturally extraneous to the territory in which they live – combined with the eff ects of the complex economic situation aggravated by the pandemic, is pushing the inhabitants of the city to question their sense of identity, turning to architecture in an attempt to rediscover – and recover – the past of the place. In recent years, alongside bland initiatives aimed at accepting a historically questionable state of aff airs - such as the conciliatory symposium “Kaliningrad: Visions of the future” in 2005, aimed at highlighting the absence of German claims and the full acceptance of the current situation - there has been a heated debate between citizens and authorities over the fate of Königsberg’s city centre and the castle area (the Altstadt), a result of the new sensibility and Germany’s twenty years of experience in rebuilding its lost heritage.