LL-L "History" 2004.11.22 (01) [E]

[Lowlands-L]

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L O W L A N D S - L * 22.NOV.2004 (01) * ISSN 189-5582 * LCSN 96-4226
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From: Helge Tietz <helgetietz at yahoo.com>
Subject: LL-L "Places" 2004.11.21 (03) [E]


Hello Roger,



The nowadays city of Kaliningrad shows apparently very little resemblance to
the old Koningsbergen, according to friends of mine in Latvia who have been
there way back in the Soviet times it is just an assembly of Soviet blocks
with no medieval centre left. It was bombed out during WWII and after the
Red Army took it in April 1945 the remaining German inhabitants left the
city voluntarily or by force and were replaced by Soviet citizens from all
over the Soviet Union bringing with them the Russian language. The hanseatic
City of Koenigsberg was founded as a trading post in medieval times in the
old Prussian lands, the Prussians themselves spoke a Baltic language which
became extinct in the 18th century though the pre-Soviet place-names betray
the origin of the old East Prussian people. The population on the country
side adopted a Low Saxon dialect with a Baltic influence, e.g. “girl” was
“marjell” in East Prussian Low Saxon deriving from old Prussian “marjel”.
The city of Koenigsberg was founded as a Low Saxon Hanseatic city but
adopted High German at a very early stage and the traders apparently
preferred High German as a spoken language. Low Saxon was only re-introduced
into the city through numerous immigrants from the surrounding country side
but the upper class remained High German speaking until the mass emigration
in 1945. The more northern hanseatic cities of Klaipeda (Memel), Riga and
Tallinn retained Low Saxon as their official language much longer and one of
the old towers of Tallinn is still called “Kiek in de Kök” (kijk in de
keuken). So don’t expect too much from Kaliningrad, the Soviets have tried
very hard to wipe out its past and model it on a Soviet design, perhaps on
the country-side you might encounter the occasional pre-war building though
by linguistic means nothing of what used to be East Prussia has remained and
the last speakers of the old East Prussian Low Saxon who fled to the west in
1945, like my aunt, will probably have died in the next five years or so.
Regards to the Esperanto-Congress!



Helge


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