In this talk, we examine the political effects of the breakup of East Prussia into what is today Poland, Russia and Lithuania. We explore the dissolution of imperial regions into the boundaries of modern states, adding new insights to research on imperial legacies. We expect that East Prussian legacies of nationalist and conservative political preferences persist in the respective territories of Poland, Russia and Lithuania. There is no pattern of persistence in the Polish partition of former East Prussia, whereas East Prussian persistence appears to be robust in the Lithuanian and Russian partitions. Higher literacy levels of incoming settlers in the Polish and Russian partitions predict higher levels of support for conservative and nationalist political parties. Furthermore, drawing evidence from West German electoral data in the aftermath of World War II, we find that the presence of East Prussian refugees is conducive to higher conservative and nationalist vote shares. Hence, East Prussian legacies relate primarily to settler literacy and migrating agents.
