Solomon Israilewitsch Ginsburg

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Solomon Ginsburg (2012)

Solomon Israilewitsch Ginsburg (also: Solomon Ginzburg , Russian Соломон Израилевич Гинзбург ; born September 25, 1959 in Jēkabpils , Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic , Soviet Union ) is a Russian politician and historian. As a former member of the Kaliningrad Regional Duma and in various state and civil society positions, he is a spokesman for that part of the regional elite who advocate a stronger orientation of the Russian exclave towards Western Europe. Ginsburg joined in 2012 the Civic Platform of Mikhail Prokhorov and stepped with this from the party in March 2015. In the 2018 election campaign , he supports the growth party's presidential candidate , Boris Titov .

Family, education and work

After school in his Latvian hometown, Ginsburg studied at the Kaliningrad State University (today's Immanuel Kant University ) and graduated in history in 1983. After a job as a teacher, he obtained his doctorate in 1992 at the St. Petersburg University with a thesis on ancient democracy ( The ostracism as a means of political debate in the 5th century BC ).

Ginsburg has a daughter and a son with his wife Jelena, a historian.

Political career

Regional Policy and Area Duma

Ginsburg has been politically active since 1990 and was then a member of the (Soviet) regional council. Since then, he has been visible to the regional public in various state and civil society positions. Appointed advisor to the regional head of administration in 1991, he was promoted to chief advisor in 1993 and headed the regional administration in the area of ​​information analysis from 1994 to 1996. Ginsburg has been the director of the regionalism branch of the Baltic Institute of Economics and Finance since 1997 and founded the civil society foundation Regional Policy in 1998 , which he has headed ever since.

Even if Ginsburg is associated with various parties and initiatives with a liberal or regional orientation, he often moved into the Kaliningrad regional parliament as an independent member of the parliament, since his parties usually fail because of the 7 percent threshold in elections. In 1996 he founded the “Democratic Bloc Amber Region” in parliament, whose Ginsburg parliamentary group presided until the end of the 2004 legislative period. Most recently, he won constituency 1 in 2011 (as one of the four independents who each won one of the 20 constituencies, see the 2011 election results ). Most recently, Ginsburg was deputy chairman of the regional Duma committees for international and interregional relations as well as for domestic policy and is a member of the local policy committee. He was the only Jewish member of parliament. After the regional election in September 2016, Ginsburg resigned from the Kaliningrad Regional Duma and unsuccessfully defended his defeat in court.

Russia-wide engagement

Ginsburg supported the liberal politician Mikhail Prokhorov in the run-up to the Russian Duma elections in 2011 and in the 2012 presidential election, and in 2012 he was a member of a committee for the nationwide re-establishment of a liberal party in the Prokhorov area. On October 27, 2012, Ginsburg was elected to the board of the then newly founded Civic Platform Party at national level , where he was responsible for relations with the European Union. As chairman of the party's Kaliningrad regional association, he proposed a specific timetable in February 2013 to rename Kaliningrad to Koenigsberg by 2024. In October 2013 he campaigned for Mikhail Khodorkovsky to be accepted into the party after his foreseeable release from prison. When the Civic Platform joined the Russian nationalist “anti- Maidan movement” in early 2015 , which has been campaigning for a tough line in the war in Ukraine since 2014 , Mikhail Prokorov resigned from the party in March; on March 20, Ginsburg declared the dissolution of the Kaliningrad regional section of the Civic Platform and has been non-party since then.

Together with other previous members of the Civic Platform, Ginsburg founded the Western Russia parliamentary group in the regional parliament in mid-April 2015 , which, according to its own information, about 500 supporters in the oblast joined. In response to the increased military activity of the Russian government in the oblast since the country's confrontation with Ukraine in 2014/15, he declared after the victory celebrations to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in May 2015 that it was just one “Imitation of military might” to promote domestic popularity; he ruled out an actual attack on the West as a scenario. However, due to the aggressive policies of the Russian government, which had led to Western sanctions , Kaliningrad had become a "hostage to our country's geopolitical ambitions", and in particular counter- sanctions caused Western trade relations between regional companies to collapse. When Putin's United Russia party did not get a seat in a local election in Kaliningrad's Baltiysk district at the end of May 2015, Ginsburg described this result as an “alarm signal” for the still popular president, as dissatisfaction with the deteriorating living conditions in the country has often resulted from unrest in recent years went out in Kaliningrad. Ginsburg helped organize these protests in 2009/10.

Before the Russian presidential election in 2018 , it became known that Ginsburg was on the list of supporters for the liberal-economic candidate Boris Titov.

Positions

Ginsburg is considered to be one of the leaders of the political opposition in the region and has repeatedly emerged as a sharp critic of Vladimir Putin . His main concern is the development of the region, the preservation of its economic and the establishment of a special political status. In 2010 Ginsburg described the “Kaliningrad Dream” as “a firm wish of the progressive part of the regional elite to ensure a high standard of living on the basis of cultural and individual freedom”. He is committed to ensuring that the date the Federal District Northwest Russia belonging Region applicable to an independent Federal District and the visa requirements from the surrounding EU countries will be canceled. In 2017, he told L'Express that Kaliningrad should become a kind of Strasbourg - as a sign of reconciliation between East and West.

The German-speaking Ginsburg is a frequent interlocutor for western journalists, officials and scientists who deal with the present and future of Kaliningrad.

Awards

Since 2002 Ginsburg has been a Knight of the Order of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas, appointed by the President of Lithuania.

Web links

selected Writings

  • Solomon Ginsburg: Остракизм как средство политической борьбы в Афинах в V в. до н.э. (= The ostracism as a means of political conflict in the 5th century BC). Saint Petersburg 1991 (dissertation, University of Saint Petersburg, 1991, online at the Russian National Library ).
  • Solomon Ginzburg: The interests of the Kaliningraders are the interests of Russia. In: Eastern Europe . Volume 53, 2003, pp. 387-393.
  • Solomon Ginzburg: The Kaliningrad Dream. From imitation to implementation. International Aspect. In: Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review. Volume 24, 2010, pp. 119–126 (PDF; 157 kB) ( Memento from July 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ).

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ An online edition of the work (PDF) can be found at the Russian National Library (Russian).
  2. ↑ For the institution, see the following description .
  3. ↑ See the interview with Konstantin Ameliushkin: The Mission of Kaliningrad is in European Presence of Russia. In: European Dialogue , 2011 (English).
  4. ↑ a b Соломон Гинзбург стал доверенным лицом кандидата в президенты. In: NewKaliningrad.ru , January 24, 2018 (Russian).
  5. ^ A b Susanne Spahn: Five minutes with… Salomon Ginsburg on the Duma elections and Jewish politicians. In: Jüdische Allgemeine , December 8, 2011.
  6. ↑ Uwe Niemeier: Kaliningrad opposition unites against the governor. In: Kaliningrad domicile. January 2, 2017; Соломон Гинзбург стал доверенным лицом кандидата в президенты. In: NewKaliningrad.ru , January 24, 2018 (Russian).
  7. ↑ On this YouTube video Ginsburg reports on the committee's organizational meeting on June 4, 2012 (in Russian).
  8. ↑ Какая партия, такие и лидеры: Соломон Гинзбург пытался составить конкуренцию Михаилу Прохорову ( Memento of 28 February 2014 Internet Archive ). Article on 39.ru , October 27, 2012 (Russian).
  9. ^ Uwe Niemeier: Ginsburg - Herald and taster? In: Kaliningrad domicile. February 15, 2013.
  10. ^ Pro-Business Party to Talk Cooperation with Khodorkovsky - Report. In: Russia Today , October 22, 2013 (English).
  11. ^ "Citizens' Platform" was dissolved in Kaliningrad. In: Kaliningrad-Domizil.ru , March 20, 2015.
  12. ↑ Max Ivanov: “The West of Russia” Replaced “A Civil Platform” in Duma of Kaliningrad. ( Memento from July 22, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) In: RusPolitics.com , April 16, 2015 (English).
  13. ^ Leonid Ragozin: Putin's Tanks Draw Cheers in Russian City Jammed Between NATO Nations. In: Bloomberg Business , May 11, 2015.
  14. ^ Brian Whitmore: Rumblings Of Dissent In Russia's West. In: Radio Free Europe , May 27, 2015 (English); Matthew Luxmore: Russian Exclave Sandwiched Between Moscow and the West. In: Al Jazeera , July 12, 2015 (English).
  15. ^ Philip P. Pan: Russian exclave of Kaliningrad at forefront of a nationwide protest movement. In: The Washington Post , March 20, 2010 (English); Jadwiga Rogoża, Agata Wierzbowska-Miazga, Iwona Wiśniewska: A Captive Island. Kaliningrad Between Moscow and the EU (= OSW Studies. Volume 41). Center for Eastern Studies, Warsaw 2012, ISBN 978-83-62936-13-7 . PDF in: AEI.Pitt.edu , p. 31.
  16. ↑ See for example Luke Harding : Colleagues Urge Investigation into Russian Journalist's Death. In: The Guardian , December 1, 2009 (English); Nora Thorp Bjørnstad, Harald HendenogBirk Tjeldflaat Helle: Russian protesters from the makthaverne in the Kremlin: - Villige til å gjøre hva som helst. In: VG.no , December 17, 2016 (Norwegian).
  17. ↑ In the original: "a devout wish of the progressive part of the regional elite to ensure high standard of living, based on the freedom of the individual and culture". Solomon Ginzburg: The Kaliningrad Dream. From imitation to implementation. International Aspect (PDF; 157 kB) ( Memento from July 22, 2011 in the Internet Archive ). In: Lithuanian Foreign Policy Review. Volume 24, 2010, pp. 119–126, here p. 120.
  18. ↑ Jadwiga Rogoza, Agata Wierzbowska-Miazga, Iwona Wiśniewska: A Captive Iceland. Kaliningrad Between Moscow and the EU (= OSW Studies. Volume 41). Center for Eastern Studies, Warsaw 2012, ISBN 978-83-62936-13-7 (PDF), p. 30 f. and 54.
  19. ↑ Romain Rosso, Alla Chevelkina, Dmitri Beliakov (images): Kaliningrad, tête de pont russe en Europe. In: L'Express , April 20, 2017 (French).
  20. ↑ ZB Olaf Ihlau, Christian Neef: Moscow's unloved booty. In: Der Spiegel , June 27, 2005, pp. 100-107, here p. 104.
  21. ↑ "The Reformation is an important root of the Enlightenment!" EKD Ambassador Margot Käßmann visited Kaliningrad. Press release. In: EKD.de , April 17, 2015.
  22. ↑ For example Leonid Karabeshkin, Christian Wellmann: The Russian Domestic Debate on Kaliningrad. Integrity, Identity and Economy (= Kieler Schriften zur Friedenswissenschaft. Volume 11). Münster 2004, p. 32.
  23. ↑ See Decree No. 1806 of the President of Lithuania of June 14, 2002 (Lithuanian).
personal data
SURNAME Ginsburg, Solomon Israilewitsch
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Ginsburg, Solomon; Ginzburg, Solomon Israilevich; Ginzburg, Solomon Israilewitsch; Гинзбург, Соломон Израилевич (Russian)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Russian politician
DATE OF BIRTH September 25, 1959
PLACE OF BIRTH Jēkabpils , Soviet Union