There are many things Vladimir Putin can be faulted for, but lacking a geopolitical vision is not one. A “new world system” is to come, he declared in a programmatic speech at the Valdai Club in Moscow in October 2023. The world will be divided up between “civilization-states” with an age-old identity, “large spaces, communities identifying as such”, for example Russia, China and India. Based on equality and diversity, this new world system will replace the “soulless universalism of a new globalization” that the West has been trying to impose through “dictatorship and violence”. Then “a multipolar world will be established”, a “synergy of civilization-states”, leading to “lasting peace” that will benefit all, he proclaimed in his speech. This was not the first time Putin has promoted this vision of multipolarity. Nor is it only his vision.
By
Edward Kanterian
April 16, 2025
The thematic bookstalls, on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Italian city of Turin, January 2025, show a range of covers, some only rather vaguely connected with the traumatic past in the context that they are displayed in. The Storyteller of Auschwitz is just one of many in the same vein, blending real events with fictionalized narratives. The Italian version sold at Milan airport as an on-the-plane read has a title that literally translates as “a girl who wrote love stories in Auschwitz”, and the cover shows the image of a malnourished child in bedraggled clothes with the eerie Birkenau gate contour as background. This leads to reflections on the many layers of Holocaust portrayal, 80 years after the end of WWII, and its implications.
By
Olga Bubich
April 16, 2025
History is not fixed and unchanging, and the way we think about the concept of nation can affect the way we talk about the past. This also applies to the history of music. Let me give you an example. In volume 2 of his seminal book on music history, The Oxford History of Western Music, the late Richard Taruskin talks about the circle of fifths, a diagram that helps you visually organize Western music theory’s 12 chromatic pitches for learning purposes. He mentions that the circle of fifths first appeared in a Russian music theory book published in Moscow in 1679, decades before Western music theorists began to talk about it. However, the book itself was not originally Russian, but was translated from Polish. Moreover, the author was a Ukrainian clergyman and singing teacher who was born in Kyiv, at that time part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth with Krakow as its capital.
When Taruskin published his book in 2004, the background for the first appearance of the circle of fifths was just an interesting anecdote referring to the ethnic and linguistic diversity of Eastern Europe in the 17th century. But how can — or should — one speak of it after February 24, 2022, Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine? How do you even pronounce the name of the Ukrainian cleric? Nikolai Diletsky, following the Russian form as published in the first edition, or Mykola Diletsky, in the Ukrainian form, as he was born in Kyiv and is considered part of Ukrainian music history?
By
Gergely Fazekas
September 18, 2024
This year, HELCOM celebrates its 50th anniversary. Rüdiger Strempel, the Executive Secretary of HELCOM, is here presenting the close cooperation and alignment between HELCOM and the European Union in working against a backdrop of increasing environmental threats due to the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution on the one hand and geopolitical instability on the other hand.
By
Rüdiger Strempel
September 18, 2024
I decided to teach free of charge a short online course on gender, intersectionality and Soviet history for students of the Russian Free University5 (Rossiiskii Svobodni Universitet). Since April 2023, the NGO-driven university has the status of an undesirable organization in Russia. More than 80 people registered for my course; however, from the beginning there was a lot of uncertainty on both sides due to fear that students could be accused by the Russian authorities of collaboration with an “undesirable organization”. In order not to be detected while participating in the online course, many students did not use their real names; some never spoke, merely writing down some comments. Indeed, the university introduced a new security protocol that allowed the students not to disclose their identity to other course participants if they did not want to.
By
Yulia Gradskova
September 18, 2024
Since January 1, 2024, same-sex marriage is legal in Estonia, making it the first ex-Soviet, second post-socialist (after Slovenia) and 20th overall country in Europe to establish marriage equality. According to the law, marriages are contracted by two adults, including same-sex couples, who also have a right to jointly adopt children.
The law is an outcome of two decades of public controversy and political divide.
By
Alar Kilp
April 23, 2024
The 30th anniversary celebration of the Council of the Baltic Sea States is an opportunity to strengthen the long-term priority […]
By
Zane Šime
January 18, 2023
After the years of Covid closure, when the world was making socializing a possibility once more, Putin attacked Ukraine in February 2022. This meant controversies about how Russians are seen in all industries, including in fashion. So, what has happened to the Russian Fashion Mafia?
By
Karin Winroth
January 18, 2023
Even though it is not uncommon for first ladies of various countries to be pictured on the cover of Vogue, this time it stirred some concern. There have been heated discussions on social media. Why does the most prestigious fashion magazine in the world offer their front cover to a first lady defending her country, a country unknown for its design and fashion? And why does she accept? There were considerable discussions on the matter and Zelenska has been both criticized and praised for taking this opportunity.
By
Karin Winroth
January 18, 2023
The concept presented by Bloodlands includes a particular state of being at the mercy of the cultural landscape, which has a complex imprint — of history, politics, socialization. I saw the task of my generation to be the “liberation” of this landscape, a performative healing of my country, where the process of coming to terms with the bloody past would have coexist with the development of solidary and non-violent cohabitation. Today’s war of annihilation has torn not only my generation, but also the older and younger generations from their previous lives and brought them down to the bloody ground.
By
Kateryna Mishchenko
January 18, 2023
Issue 2025, 1: 
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.