At 3 p.m. on Wednesday, October 25, 2023, a next-generation humanities lecture was held for Russian language students in the audiovisual room on the first floor of Seoyeon High School in Dongtan New Town, Gyeonggi-do. At this event, which was held as part of the Humanities Korea Plus (HK+) <Regional Humanities Center> project, Professor Gayoung Ko of the Asia Research Center at Seoul National University gave a lecture on the topic “Russian History and the Story of Three Cities: Focusing on Kaliningrad.”

First, Professor Ko Ga-young looked at the entire Russian history focusing on important events in order to improve understanding of Russia, and examined the history of Moscow, the current capital, and the history of St. Petersburg, the capital during the Tsarist Russia, including the construction process, development, and significance of the times. I looked at it centrally. He also explained about Kaliningrad, a very interesting city located outside the Russian mainland. Professor Ko Ga-young used a museum exhibition to understand the process in which Kaliningrad was founded by the Teutonic Knights and was called Königsberg, well-known as the hometown of Kant, before being returned to the Soviet Union after Germany was defeated in World War II.

After belonging to the Soviet Union, all Germans living there were expelled, and at the same time, a policy of encouraging emigration for Soviet people was promoted to that space, showing the city becoming Sovietized through photos. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, we looked at German-style buildings built with German capital, German villages made up of Germans returning to their hometowns, and today, large-scale Orthodox churches were built to emphasize Russian identity.