A scholarly journal from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Issue 2025, 1: Download.
Essays are selected scholarly articles published without prior peer-review process.
A close reading of Zinoviev and his view of the dissolution of the Soviet Union as a tragedy. Zinoviev helps us to understand how it feels to have your world dismantled and how that experience forms many of the attitudes that lie behind Putin’s policies.
Factors such as widespread ennui and resignation should also be seen as part of the explanation for the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The increasing tristesse, combined with a diminishing fear of reprisals, contributed to the collapse of the system, it is here claimed.
On the changes in suicide rates in Eastern Europe after the transformations of 1990. Here, a large number of individual studies are summarized, and the results are compared with previous research on transitional societies undergoing rapid change.
In the Soviet Union, maps of reality as it should be were published, and with no information about sensitive data. The manipulation of maps did not, however, disappear with the fall of Communism.
In Hungary, there were several active women fascists. In the People’s Tribunals after World War II, however, few of the women were convicted. There was an unwillingness to think of women as capable of such evil deeds.
Political development in the three Baltic countries has not been equal. The development of democracy and the degree of corruption depends, among other things – it is argued here – on how the resistance against the Soviet Union was organized.
World leaders discussed things behind the scenes. Thatcher but also Mitterrand were against German reunification. An analysis of documents shows how Kohl managed to get the EU’s acceptance.
The geopolitical situation shaped life on the islands of Gotland, Rügen, and Saaremaa. They became garrison islands and the presence of the military transformed daily life. After the Cold War, the military left the islands.
An analysis of the film The Reader, based on the book of the same name. The film’s perspective on individuals’ behavior during the Holocaust makes coming to terms with acts of the past impossible – which itself invalidates the entire film.
In the 1960s Hungarian intellectuals listened to jazz as a protest against the system. Symbols united them in the fight. In 1989 they returned to lead the revolution.
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.