Book launch: Shifting Lines, Entangled Borderlands. Mobilities and Migration on the Royal Prussian Eastern Railway

Presentation: Jan Musekamp (University of Pittsburgh)
Moderation: Prof. Dr Klaus Weber

Historically speaking, the former Eastern Railway is an integral part of the Oder region and it is therefore hardly surprising that there has been a fierce debate about its revitalisation on both the German and Polish sides in recent years. In his book, Jan Musekamp takes a look at the historical background of the railway line, focusing in particular on the cross-border aspects. The Eastern Railway and its branch lines were of great importance not only for eastern Prussia and the western provinces of the Russian Empire, but also for European east-west transport as a whole. In terms of diverse mobilities, the Eastern Railway served international tourism and technology transfer, smugglers at the borders, grain traffic between Königsberg and the Ukraine and migrants from present-day Lithuania, Poland and Belarus. The author traces the paths of a wide variety of players on the railway and follows its development up to the 1930s.

Research Factory B/ORDERS IN MOTION