Königsberg and the adjacent area: how to achieve the Russian withdrawal

• In Event: Baltic Responses to Russian Aggression

Abstract

Both the Königsberg region and the Japanese Northern Territories are still occupied by Russian military forces, representing the major unresolved territorial questions of Soviet expansion during World War II. Stalin regarded the question of the Soviet Union’s western frontiers in Europe as “the main question for us in the war.” (The British Foreign Secretary (Eden) to the Secretary of State, Quebec, August 23, 1943. Foreign Relations of the United States. The Conferences at Washington and Quebec, 1943, Washington: United States Government Printing Office, 1970, p. 1113). The major hypothesis is that the US non-recognition policy of the incorporation of the region into the Soviet Union could serve as a long-term foreign policy tool to achieve Kremlin’s withdrawal, similarly as it did in the case of the Baltic States. The key research question is what could facilitate the Soviet withdrawal from the occupied territories, as they left Austria, Bornholm Island of Denmark, Germany and the Baltic states in the past. It would be important to analyze those withdrawals in comparative historical perspective in order to find out what economic and political conditions could encourage the Russians to withdraw from the illegally occupied territories, including the Königsberg region.

Short Bio

Darius Furmonavicius studied MA in International Relations (University of Nottingham, 1995), PhD in European History (University of Bradford, 2002), and Law in Nottingham and Birmingham. He is Director of the Lithuanian Research & Studies Centre in Nottingham, and an associate member of Chatham House. Previously, Furmonavicius was a Lecturer in the Universities of Nottingham and Bradford as well as a Bernadotte Schmidt Postdoctoral Research Fellow in European History of the American Historical Association in the Department of European Studies in the University of Bradford, Visiting Professor of Judith Steiner & Associates in London. Dr Furmonavicius is the author of “Lithuania Rejoins Europe” (LRC 2015) and “Lithuania Transforms the West” (Ibidem, 2024). His papers have appeared in, among others, Lituanus, International Affairs, Encyclopaedia Britannica, Istorija, Draugas, Europos Lietuvos, Lietuvos Aidas, Britanijos Lietuvis

Author

• Darius Furmonavičius, Lithuanian Research Centre (UK)