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Concept
Kaliningrad Oblast
Summary
Kaliningrad Oblast (Калининградская область) is the westernmost federal subject of the Russian Federation. It is a semi-exclave situated on the Baltic Sea. The largest city and administrative centre of the province (oblast) is the city of Kaliningrad, formerly known as Königsberg. The port city of Baltiysk is Russia's only port on the Baltic Sea that remains ice-free in winter. Kaliningrad Oblast had a population of roughly 1 million in the Russian Census of 2021.
The oblast is bordered by Poland to the south, Lithuania to the north and east, and the Baltic Sea to the northwest. The territory was formerly the northern part of the Prussian province of East Prussia; the remaining southern part of the province is today part of the Warmian–Masurian Voivodeship in Poland. With the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II, the territory was annexed to the Russian SFSR by the Soviet Union. Following the post-war migration and flight and expulsion of Germans, the territory was populated with Soviet citizens, mostly Russians.
The territory of what is now the Kaliningrad Oblast used to be inhabited by the Old Prussians and other Western Balts, prior to the Teutonic conquest in the early Late Middle Ages. The Old Prussians became extinct due to Germanisation in the first half of the 18th century. The Lithuanian-inhabited areas of the Teutonic State were known as Lithuania Minor, which encompassed all of modern Kaliningrad Oblast until the 18th century.
In the 13th century, the Teutonic Order conquered the region and established a monastic state. In 1255, on the foundations of a destroyed Sambian settlement known as Tvanksta, the Teutonic Order founded the city of Königsberg (modern Kaliningrad), naming it in honour of Ottokar II of Bohemia.
The Northern Crusades, including the Lithuanian Crusade, were partly motivated by colonization. The German colonist peasants, craftsmen, and merchants were predominantly concentrated in the southern part of the Teutonic State and did not move into Nadruvia and Skalvia due to the Lithuanian military threat.
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