LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Vokietija (Germany); Sovietų Sąjunga (SSRS; Soviet Union; USSR); Identitetai; Identiteto formavimas; ženklai; Simboliai; Konkuruojančios ideologijos; Praeities interpretacijos; Politologija; Lithuania; Germany; Soviet Union; Identities; Formation of identity; Signs; Symbols; Competing ideologies; Interpretations of th past; Politology.
ENFew cities have suffered a fate like the east Prussian city of Memel/Klaipeda did in the 20th century. The city on the Memel River (Lith.: Neman) has belonged in the past hundred year to the old German Empire and the Third Reich (to 1920, 1939-1945), the Republic of Lithuania (1923-1939), the Soviet Union (1945-1990), and finally to Lithuania again. The shifting history of the city has show that various states, nations, and political systems have sought to buttress their claims by stamping the city with their mark, with the result that a fairly differentiated, even rather contradictory, identity has emerged, which has always been geared towards a recording of Memel's/Klaipeda's association with its own culture, nation or world-view. Vasilijus Safronovas has succeeded in creating a study that examines a remarkably fluid representation of these ideologies of identity. The book offers not only an important new approach to the history of the city Memel/Klaipeda, but also how much the search for, and the construction of, identities have been co-determined in their historical development. Safronovas works through the adaptive strategies developed by German, Lithuanian, and Soviet intellectuals and nationalist dogmatists, analyzing them and arranging them through their nearly century-long development. His examination offers a methodological approach, which can be usefully applied to other cities in the Baltic Sea region. The German edition has been revised and updated from the Lithuanian original by the author.