1. Research Problem & Introduction

Many researchers have focused on the transformations that took place in the postwar territories. Much attention has been devoted to issues of forced migration and the spread of political and social values. Much less attention has been paid to the role of ordinary residents (settlers and repatriates) as active participants in improving their own living conditions. This study aims to fill this gap by examining issues at the intersection of migration history, social history, and the history of everyday life.

Objective

The primary objective is to critically evaluate the existing historical data in order to answer the specific and focused research question: What role did ordinary people play, compared to the state, in postwar reconstruction and the improvement of everyday life? This involves a systematic analysis of sources to distinguish between areas where the state exercised actual influence and those where the population acted autonomously; identifying instances of institutional inefficiency or limited state capacity; and conducting a comparative study of the forms and scope of initiatives originating from both state institutions and citizens themselves.

2. Literature Review

The relevant scientific researches cover three levels of territory restoration: at the strategic level for the state, at the societal level, and at the individual level. A critical analysis of the ideological and political aspects of the region’s transformation reveals that, in the early post-war years, the territory was often viewed as a ‘trophy territory’ [1], where the priority lay in its strategic location and the extraction of resources, rather than in creating conditions for life. This approach indirectly confirms that resettlers could rely to a large extent on their own resources and informal practices. One of researches [2] details the mechanisms of resettlement and statistics on the number of settlers who arrived and those who remained, their social composition, and the distribution of settlers across territories. His research provides a good quantitative understanding of how the Soviet state organized migration to the former East Prussia. However, his focus remains primarily on “top-down” processes. A couple of scholars (e.g., Pocytė, S., 2017, Baranova, E., 2022, Kostyashov, Y., 2002) are studying daily life and the adaptation process, drawing on residents’ memories and interviews, and highlighting the challenges faced by the resettlers: a shortage of housing, poor infrastructure, and an unfamiliar environment. These studies provide the necessary context but does not offer a focused critical assessment of the efforts undertaken by the government and the public separately, nor of their effectiveness. In particular, there is virtually no analysis of the extent to which improvements in living conditions resulted from individual and collective initiatives as opposed to government support. This issue is particularly important, where resettles found themselves in a devastated and unfamiliar environment, often with limited institutional support in the early years.

Comparative Analysis.

To strengthen the argument and move beyond the local context, a comparative analysis with other post-war contexts is required to determine whether similar patterns of self-organization and informal adaptation were observed in other countries. For example, Europe’s reconstruction was achieved not only through government programs such as the Marshall Plan, but also through local initiative and the everyday resilience of society [3]. Similarly, studies of post-World War II Japan [4], demonstrate that the population’s survival was ensured through “black markets”, self-help initiatives and the informal economy. Dower argues that reconstruction depended heavily on everyday actions by ordinary people. These works reflect a broader historiographical shift towards recognizing ‘bottom-up initiatives’ in post-war reconstruction processes. Theoretical approaches also support this view [5]. In his concept of the ‘moral economy’, James C. Scott argues that in times of crisis, people rely on informal norms, mutual aid and adaptive strategies, rather than solely on formal institutions.

3. Methodology

This study employs a conceptual model of ‘continuity and change’, based on an analysis of everyday survival strategies, such as mutual aid, resource reuse and self-help, which remain constant, thereby highlighting their resilience regardless of changing institutional conditions.

3.1 Categorizing evidence, finding patterns, establishing varying interpretations

Historical factors can be analytically grouped through the lens of the contrast between structure and agency, as well as formal and informal mechanisms, which allows for a more nuanced analysis of the relative influence of state intervention and individual initiative in areas such as ‘Housing and its restoration’ (e.g. Boluchevsky, V., 2020), ‘Use of previous tenants’ belongings, establishing a household’ (Pocytė, S., 2017), ‘Food and gardening’ (e.g., Council of Ministers of the USSR, 1946 and Kostyashov, Y., 2002), ‘Cultural life, theatre’ (e.g., Baranova, E., 2022), and has enabled us to answer the main research question in the key areas of the resettlers’ daily lives.

3.2 Data Collection

Primary sources . An examination of primary sources with the aim of answering the question: How were the lives of the inhabitants organized, what difficulties did they face, and who helped them to resolve these issues, and how? The research relies on using primary (photos, interviews, official documents) and secondary sources (other historian interpretation) to find accounts of state policies and individual survival strategies.

Secondary sources. Academic articles on migration, Soviet policy and everyday life theoretical works on the informal economy and social adaptation have shed light on the state mechanisms for the restoration of territories.

The methodology of these sources’ analysis is to compare primary and secondary sources. The agreement between the sources would make the data more reliable. The differences would reveal potential biases and provide varying perspectives, allowing to construct a more objective picture of reality.

3.3 Limitations

The limited amount of archived-based historical data on informal practices, the difficulty of assessing the effectiveness of government policy and civic initiatives, and the lack of quantitative data to compare the scale of the measures taken.

4. Findings

In 1945, Kaliningrad oblast was placed under Soviet Administration. As well as other cities destroyed by bombings, it required reconstruction and reestablishment of normal living conditions for the population: the center of the main city was 90 % in ruins, the suburbs — 60 % in ruins, in Sovietsk, it was 60 % and Isterburg — 90 % [6]. The distinctive feature of this reconstructive process in Kaliningrad was that the territory lacked social networks, continuity of the prewar institutions’ and infrastructure operation and required creation of a new social, political, and spatial order.

4.1 Urban reconstruction and the social life of the population in first 5 post-war years

One significant aspect of the quality of living conditions are the housing conditions, which deteriorated after the war. It may be assumed that the state could have helped citizens with projects of professionalised restoration. Indeed, it was manifested by a Decree No. 9209 of 26 June 1945, which established the ‘Königsberg-Energo’ energy system and the Resolution of the Council № 458 from 18 July, 1946 year, «On measures to restore housing and public utilities and organize a network of public education and cultural and educational institutions in the Kaliningrad Region» [6]. These projects were intended to repair houses and electricity and heat supply systems, thus improving housing conditions in the long run. However, in the beginning of the restoration process, in 1946–47, the official restoration campaigns could not immediately encompass and fully ameliorate all areas, so settlers themselves had to repair their houses. As for utilities, first settlers say that they “built a smokehouse» to light the room and “had to wash their clothes in the river” as “there [were] no laundry” [2].

Changes in the food supply system show that as state institutions developed, responsibility shifted toward centralized provision of infrastructure and services. In the immediate postwar years (1945–1947), the Soviet administration tried to take direct control of food distribution through rationing. The Military Commandant’s Office supplied settlers in both towns and villages with fixed rations; for example, in 1946, residents of Ushakovo received 400 grams of flour per day for an able-bodied family member and 200 grams for dependents [7]. This suggests a clear attempt by the state to centralize food provision and prevent widespread hunger. However, shortages of food resources in 1946–1947 revealed the limits of this system and showed that the state had limited capacity for providing a universal consistent supply. As a result, responsibility was partly shifted back to citizens, who were encouraged to grow their own food. This is reflected in policies that allocated household plots of up to 0.3 hectares for individual cultivation, paid farmers “a non-refundable lump sum benefit in the amount of two months' salary at the previous place of employment, but not less than 1,500 rubles,” which was an effort to facilitate and incentivise the independent production of food in challenging living conditions. [8]. This measure signals the state’s attempt to compensate for its own limitations by mobilizing private initiative. Furthermore, the government 's uncoordinated allocation of settlers to different villages led to problems with living space: “In the entire village, only three or four houses were left standing, but 25 families arrived.” [9]. Therefore, the disorganised state policy could have even worsened the housing conditions.

This demonstrates that, despite formal state control, the provision of basic infrastructure remained ineffective, forcing citizens to rely on improvised solutions.

The further assessment of the living conditions of Kaliningrad residents is based on photographs from that period (Foto-archive/Russia in Photographs, [18]) to verify the historical accuracy of descriptions of properties and restored premises cited in the works of other researchers.

Photographs of the buildings taken immediately after the war show them in a state of ruin. Studying memoirs [7] in order to gain an understanding of real-life experiences and everyday customs that are not reflected in official documents.

Fig. 1

Analysis of a telephone report [17] dated 24 November 1946 from the head of the temporary resettlement center stating showed that:

— it was unable to issue bread against ration cards, that the workers “had not received their wages, and that 50 % of the workers on the 12th section had been given slippers and galoshes instead of proper footwear, track inspectors have no workwear or footwear at all; they walk in tattered galoshes, wrapped in rags and wire.

— none of the track workers have received loans for the purchase of livestock or the improvement of their living quarters”.

While the immediate life in Kaliningrad was dominated by the urgent need for food and shelter, the organization of leisure and cultural life was also crucial in sustaining a good quality of life. In the absence of fully developed state institutions, the provision of such activities in the late 1940s was largely driven by a creative collective initiative which invited amateur participation rather than professionalised and institutionalised activities. Contemporary accounts note that “young people attended willingly” amateur artistic circles, which were organized informally by residents themselves, indicating a reliance on bottom-up cultural organization [7]. The everyday practices of children further illustrate the limited institutionalization of social life: leisure time was often structured around relatively autonomous activities, including unregulated scavenging and the search for valuables in abandoned urban spaces [7]. Taken together, these examples demonstrate that cultural and leisure activities were shaped and initiated by people for their own community rather than being integrated into state structures, reflecting a broader pattern in which citizens assumed primary responsibility for organizing everyday life.

First five postwar years, the state was politically and economically weak, so citizens had to replace the functions of the state out of necessity, as demonstrated by their independent food provision, organisation of cultural life in 1945–49.

4.2 Urban reconstruction and the social life of the population after 5 post-war years

Later, in the 1950s, however, the state increasingly standardized and improved housing conditions. Before, power lines primarily supplied factories, leaving residential buildings without electricity and making citizens make stoves. In 1950–54 three additional boilers and two turbine generators of the GRES-2 Power Station were put into operation, which suggests that the supply of residential areas broadened and covered a much more significant area of the city [14]. Moreover, in another city, Primorsk, the 1950s featured the construction of two-storey residential buildings [19]. As compared to simple repair of buildings that individuals are capable of, the construction of new buildings requires a more sophisticated operation of construction teams, higher budget and resources, which could only be provided by the state in the conditions of scarcity. Therefore, it shows increasing government capability to launch complex projects and mechanisms and, subsequently, the increase of its public support in the period 1950–55.

By the late 1940s and early 1950s, the provisioning trajectories of urban and rural localities began to diverge, thereby exposing an emergent spatial stratification in the distribution of material resources. In rural settlements, oral testimonies indicate that food commodities remained scarce in state retail outlets until 1950, compelling the rural population to rely upon domestic horticulture and informal reciprocal networks—practices embedded in localized knowledge systems and structures of social solidarity. Conversely, urban centres witnessed a comparatively accelerated improvement: by 1948–1949, basic foodstuffs, including sausages and dairy products, became increasingly available through regular deliveries from adjacent collective farms [7]. This disparity signalled the incipient reconstruction of a more stable supply apparatus, wherein the state gradually integrated agricultural production into urban consumption circuits. Yet the maintenance of such a system necessitated enhanced administrative coordination, centralized oversight, and bureaucratic regulation, indicative of the state's expanding institutional capacity. Urban and rural spaces began to live in different temporal regimes, and this very divergence became a significant dimension of the postwar social space being reconstructed across the region.

At the same time, structuring leisure of citizens was an important objective for the state which aimed to prevent crime and blackmarket activities, foster social cohesion, create shared routines and identities as well as broader social stability. For example, in 1947–1948, 17 district Houses of Culture began to operate, offering lectures, amateur art groups, concerts, and theatrical performances for citizens. [12]. Although these activities still allowed for a degree of creativity and personal choice, they were now centralized within state institutions and supported by officially assigned staff. Each activity was accompanied by ideologically or politically affiliated materials like lectures about international relations which illustrates the broader context of the state using the leisure time of residents as means to foster their citizen’s identity and consolidate its power [7]. These institutions also played a significant role in structuring children’s behavior: participation in events such as New Year celebrations at the House of Pioneers was described as “the greatest joy”, which shows that it was prestigious and children’s free time became more organised as compared to the initial uncontrolled scavenging. Another significant form of participation in cultural life was cinema, which was first organised through mobile cinema projectors and then the construction of cinemas in Kaliningrad and other towns. The crowded cinema entrance and the newspaper stand beside it actively engaged with this structured forms of leisure as suggested by the photographical evidence from May 1955 (figure 2): crowded cinema entrance shows that it had a stable spectators’ attendance and the kiosk beside it presents it as a high-footfall location [20].

Fig. 2. From a family archive of L. V. Pavlova, cinema building «Rodina» in Kaliningrad, May 1955, photograph

Finally, the state launched the development of libraries, museums, stadiums, and parks [9]. Overall, this shows the relocation of cultural life to government institutions which reflects the state’s expanding role not only in regulating behavior but also in shaping everyday social life.

To conclude, in the immediate postwar period, in the food and shelter sectors, there was a shift from citizen survival strategies to government-run provision. Although there were attempts to launch projects, the plans of the reconstruction do not align with the accounts of first settlers. This highlights the initial weakness of the government and shows that survival did not depend on functioning institutions. As state institutions developed, responsibility shifted toward centralized provision of infrastructure and services, with citizen participation remaining important for villages. Things are different for cultural life, since the state institutions became successful earlier, around 1948, and co-existed with informal practices like reading books, informal gatherings and craft workshops.

5. Conclusion

Using the case of postwar Kaliningrad (1945–1955), this study examines changes in the dynamic between reliance on local survival strategies and state systems and argues that the distribution of responsibility for sustaining and improving living conditions was gradually reconfigured: initial reliance on individual and collective survival strategies with limited government control gave way to an increasingly dominant state role in reconstruction.

Anthropologically, the Kaliningrad case offers a sobering yet hopeful insight: even under extreme duress, social agency does not disappear. The displaced residents of postwar Kaliningrad did not simply endure their circumstances, they actively shaped them through improvised practices of survival and cooperation. This suggests that effective post-conflict recovery depends not only on institutional frameworks, but on the often invisible tissue of social relations that sustains communities from within. To overlook this is to misunderstand how societies actually heal.

Thus, the experience of post-war Kaliningrad may be generalized to a broader conclusion: the effective reconstruction of territories following conflicts requires a balance between institutional support and grassroots initiative, whereby the state and organizations act not only as providers of resources, but also as facilitators of conditions that enable the population to take independent action and adapt.

The state and international organizations may set the framework (funding, infrastructure, legal regulation), but real change occurs where this framework is complemented by the activity of the local population and their participation. The analysis shows that a potent and unique resource possessed only by the population is social capital, particularly in the postwar periodnetworks of trust, neighbors’ mutual aid, and sustainable everyday practices. Even in conditions of limited resources and destroyed infrastructure, these informal restoration practices may substitute the lack of support from government and drive restoration through self-repair of housing, reuse of available materials, resource exchange and mutual aid. That means that the government should not be suppress these practices but rather encourage them and redirect the motivation of local communities into organized forms of cooperative restoration.

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