The name Kaliningrad in the Russian enclave of the same name between Poland and Lithuania will disappear from Polish maps and official documents and be replaced by the old Polish name of this city, the government announced in Warsaw on Wednesday.
Citing a recommendation from a national toponym commission, the Polish development minister pointed out that in future Kaliningrad would again bear its Polish name Krolewiec, which historically also referred to the Prussian city of Königsberg.
“We don’t want Russification in Poland, so we decided to call Kaliningrad and its region in our own language,” Minister Waldemar Buda is quoted as saying in an official statement.
The spokesman for the Russian Presidency, Dmitry Peskov, immediately reacted by saying that it was no longer even a matter of Russophobia, these were processes bordering on insane taking place in Poland.
“It doesn’t do Poland any good. These are not just unkind acts, they are hostile acts,” he said.
Founded in 1255 by the Teutonic Order, the city became its capital in the mid-15th century, then successively that of the Duchy, Kingdom and Free State of Prussia.
The original name Conigsberg, in honor of Bohemian King Ottokar II, who participated in crusades in the region, evolved into Königsberg in German, Krolewiec in Polish, Karaliaučius in Lithuanian and Korolewiets in Russian.
The city was given the name Kaliningrad in 1946, in memory of the Chairman of the Presidium of the USSR Supreme Soviet, Mikhail Kalinin, when the Soviet Union took possession of the enclave as compensation for the destruction and losses during the Second World War.
“The naming of a large city near our border after Kalinin, a criminal who was partly responsible for deciding on the mass execution of Polish officials in Katyn in 1940, evokes negative emotions in Poland,” Buda said.
Both Poland and Russia also called in diplomatic representatives stationed in their respective countries on Wednesday over two other incidents that have heightened tensions.
Moscow convened the Polish chargé d’affaires to protest a “provocation” organized on May 9, the day of commemorations of the victory over Nazi Germany in Russia, when pro-Ukrainian activists blocked the Russian ambassador who had come To lay flowers in front of the house of the mausoleum of the Soviet soldiers in Warsaw.
“This scandalous act has become another link in the chain of provocations from Warsaw,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said, promising a response.
The Russian ambassador was summoned to Warsaw and received a note of protest over the May 7 interception of a Polish plane over the Black Sea by a Russian warplane on behalf of Frontex.
“We strongly condemn the provocative and aggressive behavior of the Russian side, which constitutes a serious international incident,” Polish Foreign Ministry spokesman Lukasz Jasina tweeted.