Putin Jugend in Kaliningrad

This paper is the work of students, not an authoritative scientific account.
It is an exercise, in which the students were to choose a group of people or an organization in East / Central Europe and imagine that they were planning to do anthropological fieldwork in that group/organization. The paper is an exercise in creating a synopsis (research plan) for this fieldwork. The paper is NOT: (a) a finished synopsis, which has been approved by our institute, and it is NOT (b) the intention that this fieldwork will ever be carried out. All synopses are based on publically available documents (mostly from the Internet), and (in some cases) on one or two emails received from members of the group/organization (the latter information has been used with the permission of the author).

<< Due to Danish privacy regulations, names and emails of participants have been deleted. >>

Introduction

In the year 2000 the Russian federation entered the new millenium with a new president. Shortly after the inauguration of president Vladimir Putin a youth organization appeared on the scene to follow the president closely.

We: Olavi Linna, Lisa Rosager and Agne Rymkeviciute have decided to conduct fieldwork within this group.

Setting the stage

When the former east-bloc fell apart in the early 1990 it was considered just a matter of time before Russia and the rest of the former communist states would ripe the fruits of capitalism. President Jeltsin appointed a team of young economist led by Egor Gaidar and the ideologies of Thatcher, Milton Friedman amongst other theories to reform Russia's economy (Hosking 2002). They thought that the sooner any form of socialism was abandoned and ´swift marketization´ be introduced the better"…to delay <the process> would be to prolong the inevitable agony of transition" (ibid s.596)

Some scientists within this field (Naspary 2002, Aganbegyan 1988 etc) have argued that the economy of the Soviet Union, and now Russia, has been in decline since the late 60´s due to an inability to shift from a strict industrial economy to an economy based on information technology. That first the Soviet Union then the Russian federation has been in a sort of an economical limbo, in transition, and that this has created a milieu of low moral, alcoholism, mistrust in the leaders, widespread corruption and cynicism (Naspary 2002).

Russia entered the new millennium with fundamental questions of identity still unresolved. At the same time several shadow identities, inherited from the past, still lingered on raising several questions of where and how to go on (Hosking 2002).

The Russian president Vladimir Putin is, in his policies, trying the to get the population of Russia to accept their past. The situation is in our understanding, somewhat similar to the situation within the former East Germany where "…millions of East-germans <are> confronted <with> their memories…" (Ten Dyke 2001 :45). It is symptomatic that some authors discussing this confrontation state that "…not all Stasi empoyees were engaged in criminal activities…" (Behrend 1991: 79).

In Russia one step in this process of accepting the memories have been taken and that is to accept the hymn of the Soviets as the national anthem of the Russian federation. Symbolically the war veterans have gotten their medals back, in so doing some of the memories have been justified.

As Naspary stated in his work with dispossessed people in Kazakhstan, the dispossessed identify themselves morally to a "Soviet past" ( Naspary 2002). The dispossessed do not see the past as completely positive, but certain negative elements of the past have been erased or replaced, this is by Naspary called "the negative construction of a soviet identity" (ibid:145) in lack of a better option, and in contrast with the present moral of the society, an idealized past is constructed to serve the needs of the present⁽¹⁾. By bringing some symbols and rituals as representatives of the past, the present is reflected in the past and projected onto the future. The past as a mental bridge, or refuge, from the present chaos to something more trustworthy (Malkki 2002, Naspary 2002).

Approximately at the same time when Boris Jeltsin gave up his presidency of the Russian federation for Vladimir Putin a group called "Idushie Vmeste" (I.V.) emerged on the stage. They recognized a need for young people to once again become interested in the political directions Mother Russia was having. This group has since become a wide-spread youth organisation within the Russian borders and is getting, according to their founder Vasily Jakimenko, thousands of membership applications every week (der spiegel, may 2002). The group have by some been nick-named "putin-jugend" for their fondness of Putin.

We are assuming that there are some similarities in the construction of history between ´the dispossessed´ and I.V. That in creating the future Russia Idushie Vmeste are projecting some elements of the past onto the future.

As the geographical location of our fieldwork We have chosen the oblast Kaliningrad due to its special location within the federation. The location serves us the possibility to do fieldwork in a place where both the oblast and the group are looking for its identity within a federation which also is looking for it.

Geographical area of study⁽²⁾

Kaliningrad is geographically the westernmost point of the Russian federation. The Kaliningrad oblast is not connected geographically with the rest of the Russian federation, but is an own enclave with borders to Lithuania, Belarus and Poland. In "Soviet times" Kaliningrad was within the borders of the Soviet Union, but due to the break-up of the union the situation has changed not only geographically. There have been non-official thoughts about an independent Kaliningrad since the break-up, but this has not been discussed at official levels

Due to the locality close to the EU and the Baltic-sea, the oblast has relatively high economical development. Foreign investors are establishing themselves in the region, and at an official level the mood is optimistic.

The Kaliningrad oblast has about 900000 inhabitants of which about 80 percent live in cities. Aboot 450000 live in the city of Kaliningrad, this city is also the place in which most of this study will take place.

80 percent of the inhabitants of Kaliningrad are of Russian origin. About 10 percent are BelaRussian, 7 percent Lithuanian and 3 percent can be considered as "others".

As the EU is evolving to include within a few years Lithuania and Poland the location of Kaliningrad has raised several problems. The most immediate problem is the question of transport both of people living in Kaliningrad to other areas of the Russian federation, but also of goods within the Russian federation. Due to this people living in Kaliningrad will need special treatment at border control. A solution has been accepted by both the EU and Russia, but it is not "perfect". There is a strong belief at an official level that a "good solution" for the problem will be presented.

Idushie vmeste

The subject of our fieldwork, as we mentioned earlier, will be a fraction of a widespread youth organization called "Idushie vmeste" (I.V) with its "headquarter" in Moscow. The fraction we will have as our field of study is though the Kaliningrad "department" the organization contains people of both sexes between 15 and 30 years old.

The organization was founded in the beginning of the year 2000, and according to an interview we made with two members of this group the organizations goal is to make young people politically more active, to increase the respect for different political institutions in Russia and to increase the knowledge and respect for Russian culture.

I.V. is according to themselves not to be seen as an official political organization, in fact they are denying to be political at all, but merely a youth organization with an interest in politics.

At official levels there are no economical connections between the president of Russia and I.V although the group is founded by a, from the KGB years, former friend and colleague of Putin; Vasilij Jakimenko. Some wry comments have been presented in media that Putin has bought a crowd. This has not been confirmed. Altough I.V has got an unofficial blessing by the president himself, according to an interview we made.

Idushie Vmeste is spreading their message via, what they call, "legal demonstration", but which can be seen as "happenings". One of the reasons why I.V has been brought up in the eye of media is the book-exchange happenings in Russia where people can exchange two books of "filthy literature" with some other more respectable product of respected writers such as Dostojevskij, Pusjkin or Tolstoy. This is because I.V also believes in the abolishment of filthy language, drugs and alcoholism (but not alcohol per se) with an increase of a healthy lifestyle and happiness in general. They believe that "postmodern" Russian writers such as Vladimir Sorokin and Viktor Pelevin are representing a disgraceful aspect of Russia and must as a result not be allowed to write their filth. Due to the fact that I.V sued Sorokin of writing pornographic material, this side of I.V has been heavily discussed in especially German media where the writer Sorokin has a heavy following. I.V lost the case.

Information gathered from the Kaliningrad tourism bureau, and the interview we have mentioned above, concluded that there is a rather active fraction of I.V situated in the city. The Kaliningrad fraction of I.V has about 40 members all of them fitting in the age group 15 to 30 years.

Theoretical / analytical perspective

Our field of investigation is the Kaliningrad department of the youth organization "Idushie Vmeste". We wish to find out in what way the membership of this group influences the young peoples self-identification. How do they create their identity through their membership of this group in relation to each other and the outside society? We believe that there are several important points that influence the creation of identity for this specific group of young people in a different way than might be the case in mainland Russia. These are:

1. Kaliningrad is part of the Russian Federation, but geographically separated from the mainland.

2. The members of Idushie Vmeste is a generation of transition, having experienced only the last years of communism - the massive changes that characterized the years after is "their time".

3. The recent conflict about Kaliningrad being geographically trapped inside the EU when Poland and Lithuania become members in 2004.

4. The high crime rate in Kaliningrad and problems with drugs and alcoholism (a general problem in Russia).

5. Symbols play an important part in the work of I.V For example they have arranged happenings on the day of the Bolshevik revolution: Wearing t-shirts with an image of Putin they made a public book-exchange, where people could exchange modern Russian "trash litterature" for the classical Russian writers as Dostojevskij and Tolstoy. Furthermore, the Kaliningrad department of I.V is surrounded by the old Soviet symbols - statues, signs on buildings etc. - You could say that Kaliningrad is a "museum" of the Soviet era. People relate to these symbols, and have done so all of their lives.

Our thesis before the fieldwork

We think that this group is a kind of transition phenomenon. They emerged as a reaction to the chaotic political and economic situation in Post Soviet Russia and the problems with crime, drugs, cynicism and alcoholism that surfaced in the wake of these changes.

The young people might only have a vague memory about what the communist era was like in real life, but their parents and grandparents remember, and have given them their view on the matter. Literature and films are in themselves windows to the past, images, which can be interpreted anew in the present. In the light of the post Soviet chaos, communism may provide a nice and stabile image of the past. If that is the case, the communist symbols that surround the inhabitants of Kaliningrad, become symbols of something good, a nostalgic window to the past.

Symbols are forms to which content can be applied. Meaning that a group of people can relate to the same "forms" and create an "imagined community" (Anderson) without necessarily applying the same meaning or content to it. Or in the words of Anthony Cohen:

"…community is largely in the mind. As a mental construct, it condenses symbolically, and adeptly, its bearers' social theories of similarity and difference. It becomes an eloquent and collective emblem of their social selves." (Cohen,1985:114)

Kaliningrad's connection to the imagined community called Russia can thus be seen as a mental and symbolic construction. Looking back in history we consider this to be true.

Until its surrender to the Red Army in1945 the city was called Königsberg and was part of Germany. Becoming part of the Soviet Union, considerable changes were happening: The German inhabitants who had not already fled were expelled or kept prisoners (Ole Nyeng, Weekendavisen 29/11, 2002), and as a symbol of its belonging, the city was renamed after Mikhail Kalinin, the Chairman of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of Soviets of the RSFSR from March 30 ^th 1919 to July 15 ^th 1938. He never set foot in Kaliningrad (Pertti Joenniemi, 1997). This is comparable to Benedict Andersons description of the imagined community established in the 16th century between Europe and "the New World" through the reuse of already existing toponyms (e.g. England and New England). This along with language and folklore, Anderson says, became the emblem of a brotherhood. The heritage framed a common belonging, an imagined community for its bearers (Anderson, 1991). As for Kaliningrad, it became part of the Soviet Union's "new world", a conquest to include in the communist brotherhood. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union, and the independence of the countries surrounding Kaliningrad, the strong brotherhood is threatened, and must be reestablished through new strong symbols, and this is what I.V in Kaliningrad can provide. Their public appearances with Putin's image printed on their t-shirts, and the book exchange in favor of classical Russian writers, are strong symbols of their Russian-ness.

We wish to find out what meaning the young generation apply to these symbols, since they are no longer just symbols of the past, but also present symbols of the organization's ideals.

A very essential point for the members of I.V. in Kaliningrad in their creation of a Russian identity is the recent conflict between Russia and the EU. When Poland and Lithuania join the EU in 2004, inhabitants of Kaliningrad will face some difficulties traveling to mainland Russia and vice versa. As mentioned above, the EU and Russia have reached an agreement concerning visas to travel through EU countries to get from mainland Russia to Kaliningrad and vice versa. The Russian argument against any form of visa was that it would be degrading for a Russian to apply for a visa to travel within his / her own country. This is important in relation to the identity process. The geographical and political separation of Kaliningrad and the mainland, we think, will make the claim for a Russian identity even stronger than is the case now. The inhabitants of Kaliningrad need to show/prove their membership of the Russian Federation to themselves and to the outside world.

In "Ethnic Groups and Boundaries" Frederik Barth defines ethnicity as a process going on between and within ethnic groups, but mainly it is a border process. A group defines itself inwards by "what we have in common" and outwards by "how the others differ from us". Furthermore he points out that ethnicity is created through action, and that ethnicity and identity are closely linked (F. Barth, 1969)

Anthony Cohen builds upon this definition to create his own thesis about how a community is constructed. He expresses it like this:

"This consciousness of community is, then, encapsulated in perception of its boundaries, boundaries which are themselves largely constituted by people in interaction." (Cohen,1992:13)

Our thesis is that the I.V. in Kaliningrad create their identity through categorizing themselves as Russians as opposed to Europeans, Poles and Lithuanians. They seek to accentuate the differences between Kaliningrad and the surrounding non-Russian countries and the resemblance between Kaliningrad and Russia - for example through the use of the former soviet symbols. In this way the ties to the mainland become stronger, and the symbols frame their common belonging (Cohen, 1992).

We wish to find out in what context Soviet symbols are used in the present.

We think that nostalgia is part of the reason for using old symbols in a new context. In that way more people can relate to them, because they have always been there. Also in a chaotic situation like the years after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, people have a need to state their belonging - especially if ones national belonging is threatened geographically as is the case for people in Kaliningrad. In this situation symbols and history are striking means of setting out explicitly ones (national) identity. Again turning to Anderson, history and its symbols can be used in the construction of nationalism, here considered something positive, i.e. as national unity or identity. In this process historical events and symbols are sorted in categories of things to remember and things to forget, or in useful and useless history (Anderson, 1991). In this way, the symbols of the Soviet era are evaluated in order to carry the most positive values from the past into the future; some symbols are rejected, some reinterpreted and perhaps some are simply adopted. The result is a pure set of symbols serving as icons for I.V. or perhaps the entire Russian identity.

"His face turned towards the past. Where we perceive a chain of events, he sees one single catastrophe which keeps piling wreckage upon wreckage and hurls it in front of his feet. The angel would like to stay, awaken the dead, and make whole what has been smashed. But a storm is blowing from Paradise; it has got caught in his wings with such violence that the angel can no longer close them. This storm irresistibly propels him into the future to which his back is turned, while the pile of debris before him grows skyward. The storm is what we call progress." (Walter Benjamin in Anderson,1991 :162)

Perhaps the angel has stopped propelling and is floating above the ground in the new Russia as Naspary has stated (Naspary 2002). We think that I.V. are trying to get the angel back on track.

Methodological, ethical and practical perspectives

Methods

We argue that qualitative research methodology is the most suitable for our research project because it lets us go further into the particular problem raised in the work.

On the one hand we will examine how "Idushie Vmeste" represent themselves in the media (the press published by this organization), internet pages (also designed by I.V.), via conversations, actions. On the other hand, we will analyze how they are represented from the 'outside', i.e. how does the media (the official press), internet sites (Russian and western) represent them, and why are they by others identified with new komsomols or are called a mix of komsomols, China's chunveibins, Hitler's jugend and, sometimes, as having relations with skinheads (see, for example in the page http://www.vokruginfo.ru/news/news2238.html, 2002, 17^th of October).

In exploring these two positions ('inside' view and 'outside' view), we will answer the Main question:

How does the youth organization Idushie Vmeste create a common identity through the use of Soviet symbols?

We will answer this main question by answering the following research questions:

1. Which Soviet symbols are used, and in what way?

2. Does I.V. reproduce, reinterpret or reject Soviet symbols and how important are these symbols for their creation of identity?

3. How does I.V. create their identity through their membership of this group in relation to each other and the outside society?

In our research we will use the following methods.

We wish to use ethnographic analysis of media and internet sites to gain insight "how are these documents written; who writes them and who reads them; for what purpose and for what occasions; what is omitted; what does the writer seem to take for granted about the readers; what do readers need to know in order to make sense of them?" (Silverman 1995:60-61). For us it is important what kind of self images of the organization are promoted by the media and internet sites? Do they contradict the image of I.V. created by the official media and internet sites?

Due to this analysis we may also answer the following questions: What symbols are used, for what purpose and in what contexts are they used? What meanings does I.V. put into those Soviet symbols?

Visual images (photos, television broadcastings, etc.) could be another source of data for our field research gained from mass media. It is difficult, but not impossible to transcribe images (photos or TV views, etc.) as well as words. I.V. have their own photo rubric in their official internet sites (See, for example, the following sites: http://www.idushie.ru/photos/misc/veterans/ShowPic.php?id=01 and http://idushie.ru/photos/weekphoto/ShowPic.php?id=00; 2002, 17^th of October). We argue that analysis of visual images is an important method as well.

The analysis of newspaper articles (published by I.V. and official as well), internet sites (created by the organization and 'others'), visual images, diaries that carry diverging representation of I.V. organization, will help us to create topics that we can address in the interviews and in the informal conversations with members of I.V.

Open-ended interviews combined with informal conversations will help to understand the meanings, which the group members attach to Soviet symbols.

Why, while denying communist ideology, does I.V. adopt some symbols of this ideology, reinterpret and reproduce others? Informal conversations will let the respondents speak more freely and this will let them point to what is the most important for them in constructing themselves as members of I.V.

Participant observation is also very important to answer the research questions posed by us. As Silverman writes, "the focus of participant observation is on what people are doing rather upon what they are thinking." (Silverman 1995: 37). Participation in the public actions, or in the private gatherings, or in the meetings, for example with veterans of World War II or with abandoned children let us gain insight to how this organization produces itself "through the activities." (Silverman 1995:37).

We wish to complement participant observation with informal conversations, i.e. to use observation through participation in informal conversations.

Comparative aspect is also important. It is needed to know Soviet symbols and to compare them with present-day I.V. symbols in order to know whether this organization reproduces, reinterprets or directly adopts communist symbols and their meanings.

Ethical issues

A number of codes of social research ethics are written but they don't solve all the problems related with collecting material and making it public. "The biggest problem in conducting a science of human behavior is not selecting the right sample size or making the right measurement. It's doing these things ethically." (Russel Bernard, 2000: 21) What is ethical? According to Russel Bernard "the fact is what is popularly ethical research today may become popularly unethical tomorrow and vice versa. Times and popular ethics change." (Russel Bernard, 2000: 70)

Research must be ethical, but it must be objective as well.

We recognize I.V. to be a politicized organization - this is clear looking at their activities, from the part "Active civic position" of Moral Code where I.V. confirm their duty to help the president to take out the country from the crisis (see, for example, http://www.idushie.ru/rus/about/kodeks/index.php; 2002, 20^th of September) and, of course, from the very title of the organization - "Walking together with Putin". So ethics is especially important. We have to introduce ourselves as anthropologists, and guarantee the anonymity and confidentiality (i.e. do not use publicly personal information of informants) of our informants if there is demand for that.

Research has to be ethical, but it must be objective as well. Introducing participants to the main objectives of our study (this is important according to the ethical codes of social science) must be done ethically. Sometimes not saying the whole truth will be necessary. For example, introducing ourselves and our research project to members of I.V., it is not necessary to formulate our questions so precisely as in the project.

Above we spoke about ethical problems of involvement of anthropologist to the fieldwork - i.e. how should we introduce ourselves, our objectives, the rights of respondents. But sometimes unexpected problems can arise, for example, the respondents could show great interest and offer financial support for the project (as it happened to us). Is it ethical for anthropologist to accept money from the researched people? Wouldn't, by offering the money, the respondents gain power to influence results of the research? Will the anthropologist be able to be objective exploring particular question after taking money? We have concluded that in our case accepting money would not be ethical.

Practical perspectives

Before going to Kaliningrad to conduct fieldwork we have to settle some practical affairs.

First of all, we will need visas for some members of our research group (at the moment for two persons - for Finnish and for Danish. Lithuanians do not at the moment need visas for going to Kaliningrad. The Lithuanian situation might change as stated above).

Before outset we have to make contacts with some local institutions in Kaliningrad in order to approach them when we get to the place. These institutions could be the University or the department of I.V. in Kaliningrad.

It would be practical to have contacts with some informants in advance and later use the snowball method in seeking more respondents.

Because only one member of our group speaks Russian, an interpreter is needed for communication with members of I.V. in Kaliningrad, although the non-Russian speakers will attend intensive Russian language studies.

It is necessary to think about expenses of the fieldwork. This includes the costs of the tickets, accommodation and living in Kaliningrad.

We consider going to Kaliningrad for a pilot fieldwork, a fieldwork that would last for approximately one week. During this time we would establish primary contacts both inside and outside the group I.V. During this period we would also introduce some primary questions in order to get background material and create an interview guide for usage during the main fieldwork.

The main fieldwork should be carried out not too long after the pilot fieldwork, and preferably during springtime when a lot of symbolic dates can be studied. We think especially of the dates - The 1^st of May, the 7^th of May (the day president Putin in the year 2000 was inaugurated as president of the Russian federation). The main fieldwork is to be carried out in the spring of the year 2003 and last for approximately 5 months in total.

A research permission is not needed in Kaliningrad at the moment.

After the fieldwork intensive analytical work will be carried out, and the results should bring us the answers as well as new questions, to the questions we have presented in this synopsis. We expect that the final result will complement some aspects to already existing Post-Soviet studies, and introduce further fields of interest.

Bibliography

Anderson, Benedict (1991) Imagined Communities Verso

Barth, Frederik (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries Oslo Universitetsforlaget

Cohen, Anthony P. (1992) The Symbolic Construction of Community Routledge

Joenniemi, Pertti (1997) Kaliningrad: A Double Periphery? Working Papers 17, 1997: Copenhagen Peace Research Institute (COPRI)

Nyeng, Ole Weekendavisen 29/11 2002

Behrend, Hanna (1991) Kollektivschuld oder rechtstaatlichkeit? Das argument 33(1)

Hosking, Geoffry (2002) Russia and the Russians, a history from rus to the Russian federation. The Penguin Press

Ten Dyke, Elisabeth A (2001) Dresden, Paradoxes of memory in history. Routledge

Malkki, Liisa (1995) Purity and exile. Univeristy of Chicago press, Ltd, London

Naspary, Joma (2002) Post-socialist chaos, violence and disposession in Kazakhstan. Pluto Press

Russel Bernard, H (2000) Social research methods. Qualitative and quantative approaches. SAGE Publications

Silverman, David (1995) Interpreting Qualitative Data. Methods for Analyzing Talk, Text and Interaction. London, Thousand Oaks, New Delhi: SAGE Publications

http://www.idushie.ru/rus/about/kodeks/index.php  (access: 2002, 17th of October)

http://www.idushie.ru/photos/misc/veterans/ShowPic.php?id=01  (access: 2002, 17th of October)

http://idushie.ru/photos/weekphoto/ShowPic.php?id=00  (access: 2002, 17th of October)

http://www.idushie.ru/rus/about/kodeks/index.php  (access: 2002, 20th of September)

Notes

1. Issue mentioned by Malkki that there had been intense discussions between Levi-Strauss and J-P Sartre of the subjectivity and structure of History. As a true structuralist Levi-Strauss argued for the function history has in creating the present to serve the needs of the societ. Without going further into this discussion we are here recognising the point by Levi-Strauss.

2. The following statements and information were all given at the public debate: "The Kaliningrad question" in the Russian house of culture and science in Copenhagen 28.10 2002