The Commission for the Standardization of Geographical Names outside the Republic of Poland recommended using the Polish name Królewiec and not Kaliningrad, the Commission announced in a statement on Tuesday.
“Only the Polish name Królewiec is recommended”
The Committee for Standardization of Geographical Names Outside the Republic of Poland, working under the Chief National Surveyor, decided at its 125th meeting on April 12, 2023 that for a city with a Russian name ???????????? (Kaliningrad) only the Polish name Królewiec is recommended and it is not recommended to use the name Kaliningrad in Polish
the Commission said in a statement on Tuesday.
At the same time, she added that for the administrative unit in which this city is located, the Polish name Kaliningrad Oblast is recommended and it is not recommended to use the name Kaliningrad Oblast in Polish. The Commission has announced that the amendment will enter into force on the day of the announcement, ie 9 May 2023.
“The current Russian name of the city is an artificial baptism”
The communication indicated that the Commission had taken into account that the city currently bearing the Russian name Kaliningrad is known in Poland by its traditional name Königsberg and that “the current Russian name of this city is an artificial baptism with no connection with the city or region”. The Commission also found that naming a town close to the Polish border after MI Kalinin, a criminal co-responsible for, among other things, issuing the decree “on the mass murder of Poland (the Katyn massacre) has an emotional, negative character in Poland “.
The communiqué also stated that the events related to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the imposition of the so-called Ruski miru, Russia’s waging of the information war, forces us to look at the issue of imposed names, which caused great controversy, which was not accepted in Poland.
(…) every country has the right to use in its language traditional names that constitute its cultural heritage, but it cannot be forced to use names in its language that are unacceptable to the country
stated in the communiqué.
aja/PAP
Source: wPolityce