Perhaps the Czechs gave the Polish language commission the idea. The Russian exclave of Kaliningrad, sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, will now be called Królewiec in Polish. It contains the word for king, so it corresponds to the German name Königsberg, under which it first belonged to the Teutonic Order, later to Prussia and finally to the German Empire until the end of the Second World War.
Most recently, Polish efforts regarding the Baltic Sea exclave have focused on enclosing it with three rows of 2.5 meter high barbed wire to protect itself. Not only from Russian aggression, but also from possible streams of refugees. It is feared that the Kremlin could send refugees from African and Central Asian countries to the EU via Kaliningrad as well as via Belarus.
Now the state “Commission for the Standardization of Geographical Names Outside the Republic of Poland” is also setting an example and recommends reinstating the name Królewiec, which has been used for centuries. Because the name Kaliningrad, which has been valid since 1946, is artificial, has nothing to do with the region and arouses negative feelings among Poles. Mikhail Ivanovich Kalinin, the namesake, as chairman of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet, co-signed an order for the execution of Polish prisoners of war in 1940. As a result, around 22,000 Polish officers and intellectuals were murdered, including in the town of Katyn – today this place is representative of the crimes of the Soviet Union in Poland. One should not allow another country to use a name that is unacceptable to Poles, the commission explains.
Moscow was not unaware of this statement, which was made on the very day of the victory celebrations over Nazi Germany on May 9. The decision “borders on madness,” said Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, adding that it was a “hostile act.” The Polonization of Kaliningrad appears consistent. In a new edition of the list of geographical names from 2019, the commission noted that it had significantly expanded the list of Polish names – this particularly affected areas that were Polish until the Second World War. So in Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine, but also in today’s Czech Republic and Slovakia. Together with Królewiec, new recommendations for Ukrainian instead of Russian place names were issued.
Kaliningrad would be Královec in Czech. When Russia announced the annexation of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts last fall, a few Czech pranksters responded by announcing that they would annex Kaliningrad with Poland’s help. “We see an old church and prefab buildings behind it, so it looks very Czech,” one of the videos said. The Teutonic Order is said to have named the town Königsberg in honor of the Bohemian King Přemysl Otakar II. Královec became an internet hit. Also in Poland. Where it is now serious – at least as far as the name is concerned.