The Convergence of Two Worlds: Historians and Emerging Histories in the Baltic States (original) (raw)
Related papers
Displaced History? A New “Regime of Historicity” among the Baltic Historians in Exile (1940s-1960s)
In this article I submit, first, a theoretical argument about the specific nature of history writing in exile, and second, try to test the validity of this argument on the work of Baltic exile historians from 1940s to 1960s, with a particular focus on Estonian exile historiography. The argument consists of the claim that in the situation of exile time becomes one of the main devices of intelligibility and orientation. More specifically, I argue that in exile a new "regime of historicity", a new way of articulating the relationship between the categories of past, present and future, is likely to emerge. To prove this thesis, I discuss three key topics in Baltic exile historiography: first, the writing of general national and Baltic histories for both internal and external consumption, second, the rise of contemporary history and attempts to make sense of the fate of the Baltic States in World War II, and third, new interpretations of Baltic prehistory.
National or Multicultural? A Common Narrative about History in the Baltic States after 1991
Social Sciences
In this article, I describe common narratives of history in postcommunist Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia and explore the intersection between multiculturalism and memory politics. I argue that dealing with history is a challenge in these countries and can be seen as part of a broader issue of memory politics in societies that have experienced trauma during the Nazi and Soviet eras. The hypothesis that I developed, based on my empirical analysis, is that it makes visible how a difficult process of negotiating competing memories can, under certain circumstances, lead to dialogical remembrance. The article also pays attention to unexpected events, such as the Russian invasion of Ukraine, which gives a new dynamic to this process. The original contribution of this article is an analysis of historical narratives in three national museums, with a special focus on how these museums deal with the injustices and traumas experienced by different ethnic groups in the Baltic states. The final s...
Lithuanian Historical Studies
eds.), Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018. 307 p. ISBN 978-1-61811-620-8
Baltic yearbook of international law, 2001
This is an important book in which scholars from a number of disciplines and a number of countries examine and comment upon the political, social, economic, and legal problems of the Baltic States on the threshold of the 215" century. The very copious volume was published simultaneously in English and in Latvian. It is dedicated both to the memory of Senator August Loeber and the occasion of the 75`" Ih birthday of his son, Dietrich Andre Loeber, and the book is prefaced by three articles which essentially look at the work and times of both father and son. Senator Loeber was of Baltic German extraction although he devoted the whole of his working life to the independent State of Latvia. He was a Justice of the Senate (Supreme Court) of Latvia, as well as a professor of law at the University of Latvia. He is best remembered for his contribution to the harmonisation of the laws on bills of exchange and cheques between the Baltic States and his contribution to the drafting of the 1937 Latvian Civil Code. He died in 1948 in Germany, having been part of the Baltic German exodus from the Baltic States during 1939-1940. His son, D. A. Loeber, was born in Riga in 1923 and due to the same fateful circumstances was educated in Germany and became a professor of international law. His untiring dedication to the restoration of the independence of the Baltic States in the postwar years earned him the esteem of colleagues throughout the world. Since 1990, D. A. Loeber has been a foreign member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences. He was awarded the Latvian Order of the Three Stars in 1995. The body of the book is divided into six thematic sections: the integration of the Baltic States into current European and World structures; the legal reforms in the Baltic States in the context of European integration; the cooperation between the Baltic States today; the prewar cooperation between the Baltic States; the relations between Russia and the Baltic States, and the Baltic States in world academic literature and archives. The 41 authors from 1 I countries cover a wide spectrum of academic disciplines, although not all are academics. The editor has also included articles with differing points of view on the same topic (at times almost polemical tracts) which could be seen as a positive virtue. The volume not only includes articles by 'western' authors, but also four articles by Russian academics on Russian-Baltic State relations and Russian-Scandinavian relations. The first theme, integration into current European and World structures, is represented by 6 authors (2 from Latvia, 2 from Lithuania, one each from the The United States and the UK). George ViksniJ;tš's article examines the economic performance of the so-called `Asian tigers' (including Japan) as a possible role model for the Baltic States. He emphasises that underlying any successful attempt at export expansion and output growth is the institutional framework within a country, as well as investment in human development to counteract the negative effects of 50 years of Russian occupation. Eduards Deksnis, who works for the European Union (Euratom), has presented an EU 'politically correct' view of the preconditions for the accession of the Baltic States to the European Union. His final conclusions are optimistic and he has no doubt that the Baltic States will become members of the EU
Historians, Public History and Transitional Justice: Baltic Experiences
International Public History, 2020
How does public history correlate with issues of transitional justice and democratization? What are the roles and functions of professional historians during revolutionary moments and in the building of democratic culture and the pursuit of accountability and justice? On the basis of examples from three former Soviet republics, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania during the past three decades, the essay reflects on these and other questions. It stresses the need for de-centralizing public engagement with the past and cautions against trends across the Central and Eastern European region to link processes of historical knowledge production with claims for justice and redress.
Lithuanian Historical Studies, 2013
Born in Canada, a University of Toronto graduate who completed a history PhD in London, Andres Kasekamp, who is currently working at the University of Tartu, faced the daunting task of preparing in the English language a short review of the past of three countries situated on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Modern Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia are the after effects of the geopolitical changes and of three different national self-determinations in the early 20th century, having had most similarities in the 20th century. In the earlier period, the term 'Baltic States' was hardly applicable in general. Up to now, there have been many cultural differences in the societies of the three states. In addition, Lithuania had statehood in the 13th-18th centuries, while Latvia and Estonia became political actors only after the First World War. Considering all this, one could say that the book published in the 'Palgrave Essential Histories' series will further strengthen in the English-speaking environment the partially incorrect approach towards the three states on the Baltic Sea as a single historical region, the 'Baltic States'. This is an approach characteristic of large countries, whatever they may be, the US, germany or Russia, and every historian satisfied with such a perspective of the mental map, and undertaking the task of writing the history of the 'Baltic States', has again and again to resolve the various dilemmas of what constitutes this construct in different historical epochs. For example, in the interwar period, Finland was also usually attributed to this region. The Kasekamp book, published in 2010, was also translated into the Polish language in 2013 1. So in this review, one has to ask the question, what will not only an English-speaking, but also a Polish-speaking audience learn about the 'Baltic states' from this book? In the introduction, the author writes that 'This book provides a concise survey of developments, on the territory comprising the present-day countries of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania from the end of the last ice age to the present' (p. viii). Indeed, the book consists of eight chapters, arranged in chronological order; however, half of them (the greater part of the volume of the book) are devoted to the period after 1917. As the author is a researcher of 20th-century issues, such a structure of the publication is not surprising. In addition, the great attention devoted to the last century, it seems, will also likely be associated
Journal of Baltic Studies, 2022
This article examines how the invisible emotional and psychological shadow of an ancestor's complicity in war crimes is passed on to descendants and expressed as postmemory writing in two rite of return memoirs: A Guest at the Shooters' Banquet by Rita Gabis and Siberian Exile by Julija Šukys. Both writers transform informal family knowledge about a grandfather's complicity in Nazi war crimes during the Nazi occupation of Lithuania, archival research, and travel into a long-term process of working through the inter-generational transfer of trauma. Writing serves as a memory space for their own unhealed historical and familial trauma.