Features

Features offer in-depth accounts of issues related to the region without prior peer-review process.

IN 1989, THERE WAS A WALL AND A WAY

Two months prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, on August 23, 1989, far behind the Iron Curtain, two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands on the highways that linked their countries in a massive demonstration for national independence. They called it the Baltic Way.

By Ojars Eriks Kalnins February 25, 2020

The Ideal Cosmopolitan Classroom is the Stage On applied theatre interventions for perpetuating peace in Kosovo

Perpetuating peace will be a lifelong commitment in Kosovo and many other regions of the world. But for five weeks in historic Pristina, a group of former strangers became friends, collaborators, and confidants, telling stories of our truths, discussing our histories, and spinning worlds from words. Peace, for a while, persists.

By Emily Russell December 30, 2019

The Concerns of Historians

De Baets and his Network of Concerned Historians do an admirable job of raising awareness of the risks that professional historians face, and the political misuse of history. As the annual reports reveal, these dangers to academics are increasing and spreading in lockstep with the growth of authoritarian and populist politics.

By David Gaunt December 30, 2019

App speeds up anchoring on busy islands

The ideas of two Media Technology students added value to the project Archipelago Business Development.

By Ninna Mörner June 18, 2019

The Archipelago Business Development project gave new insights

Tiina Thörnroos was one of the participators of the project Archipelago Business Development. The project aims at developing new business models in the archipelago by forming partnerships between entrepreneurs and start-up companies in Finland (including Aland Islands) and Sweden.

By Annemari Andersén June 18, 2019

3 islands — 3 entrepreneurs Jacks-of-all-trades keep the Stockholm Archipelago alive

For a few hectic weeks each summer, sparsely inhabited islands in the Stockholm Archipelago are transformed into coveted destinations for vacationers. For permanent residents who make their livelihood here, running a businesses in the seaside environment entails great challenges. We have met three entrepreneurs on three different islands, with diverse conditions but a common vision — keeping the archipelago alive.

By Susanna Lidström June 18, 2019

In the footsteps of the Holocaust. Death in Pidhaitsi

After a pogrom in Berlin in 1923, Alfred Döblin, an assimilated Jew, decided to travel to more originally Jewish settings, spending time amongst the people and environments that barely two decades later were as good as completely wiped out. Döblin’s book Reise in Polen [Journey to Poland] will be published in Swedish translation in autumn 2019. The Swedish translator of Döblin’s book, Peter Handberg travelled to Poland and Ukraine himself in 2018, or to put it more accurately, followed in the footsteps of the Holocaust.

By Peter Handberg June 17, 2019

LITHUANIAN AUTHOR GRIGORY KANOVICH, SURVIVOR OF THE SHTETLS: “I HAVE TRIED TO CREATE A WRITTEN MONUMENT TO THE LITHUANIAN JEWS”

He is the last Lithuanian Jewish author with first-hand experience of the shtetls, the small Jewish towns that vanished from the face of the earth in 1941. ”I have tried to create a written monument to the Lithuanian Jews”, says Grigory Kanovich in an interview with Baltic Worlds.

By Påhl Ruin June 17, 2019

Kaliningrad’s problematic exclave status

The distinguishing feature of the Kaliningrad region is the fact that it is an exclave, part of but separated from Russia by two countries, Poland/Belarus or Lithuania/Latvia, though with access across the Baltic Sea (thus strictly speaking a semi-exclave). It is Russia’s only exclave and is the biggest in Europe. Seen from inside it is an enclave (or a semi-enclave).

By Ingmar Oldberg March 26, 2019

The disappearance of social anthropology

The Constitution for Science aims to flatten the structure of Polish science. This can result in easier management, both in economic as well as in political terms, but what is actually at stake is a restriction of academic freedom.

By Agnieszka Halemba and Magdalena Radkowska-Walkowicz March 6, 2019