Interviews

Olli-Pekka Martikainen: Music education for new needs

Olli-Pekka Martikainen is the Secretery General of the Association of Finnish Music Schools, an umbrella organization that includes 97 schools. He has a doctorate in music and he previously worked as the vice dean of the Sibelius Academy, University of the Arts Helsinki. Apart from leadership in higher music education Martikainen has worked as an orchestral and chamber musician and as a teacher at the Sibelius Academy. Martikainen holds the first artistic Doctoral degree in the field of percussion music in Finland. Ann Werner asked him questions about higher music education in the Baltic region with her own research on nation and gender in higher music education as background.

By Ann Werner September 18, 2024

Valentina Izmirlieva:“The Church has promoted specific ‘martial’ strategies of scriptural exegesis to justify military aggression”

The projection of imperial power through overtly religious pageantry, symbols and narratives has been a key element of Russia’s identity politics under Putin, informing the Kremlin’s aggressive international policies, but also shaping the domestic perceptions of Russia’s global role.  In a conversation with Irina Sandomirskaja, Valentina Izmirlieva explores the utility of the Russian Orthodox Church in this process, and the significant transformations within the Orthodox sphere that facilitate the radical militarization of Russian society. She also discusses the role and future of multidisciplinary area studies as such, and in particular Slavic Studies.

By Irina Sandomirskaja September 18, 2024

“We face a lot of catastrophic forest fires during war”

The following interview was conducted during the Pyrogeography course — the study of fires — at Wageningen University, the Netherlands. We talked with the Ukrainian scientist about forest fires in war and the challenge of conducting research in the field.

By Elena Palenova April 23, 2024

Alexandra Talaver, coordinator of Feminist Anti-War Resistance: “War represents a culmination in the continuum of patriarchal violence” A conversation based on an e-mail interview with Alexandra Talaver conducted by Yulia Gradskova

Alexandra Talaver is one of the coordinators of the Feminist Anti-War Resistance (FAR), that was promptly launched on February 25, 2022, with a manifesto that was later translated into dozens of languages. The manifesto called for peaceful resistance to the war and Putin’s regime, support for Ukraine, and solidarity with feminists in Russia resisting the invasion (see next page). Together with the manifesto, social media accounts were launched on Telegram, Instagram, and Twitter as the main means of mobilization. FAR immediately gained dozens of thousands of subscribers due to the number of feminist media activists joining FAR, and due to a strong and clear anti-war stance, while many political forces and organizations in Russia failed to articulate it that fast.

By Alexandra Talaver and Yulia Gradskova June 20, 2023

“Vegetarianism was part of social reformism”

Corinna Treitel, Department Chair and Professor of History at Washington University in St. Louis, in conversation with Julia Malitska on dreams about and attempts at dietary reform in the 19th and 20th centuries, and on German life reformers and their long lasting, but forgotten, impacts on the ways we think today about eating naturally and environmentally consciously.

By Julia Malitska June 22, 2022

The post-communist legacy in the shadow of the Empire

Professor Andrzej Leder, psychoanalyst and professor of philosophy, in a conversation with Aleksandra Reczuch about the history and social transformations in the region, the threat of Russia, and the historical memory embodied in buildings, symbols, commemorations, and family albums.

By Aleksandra Reczuch June 22, 2022

“I was fascinated by the extent of occulture in a communist country like Yugoslavia of the 1970s”

A conversation with Nemanja Radulović on esotericism and New Age in communist Yugoslavia, and alternative and occult expressions and thinking.

By Anna Tessmann January 24, 2022

“My goal is to break the narrative that Lithuania had nothing to do with the Holocaust”

Silvia Kučėnaitė Foti it the author of the book The Nazi’s Granddaughter: How I discovered my Grandfather was a War Criminal. After going through major trauma when discovering her grandfather was not the war hero she heard about but a Nazi collaborator, she started to investigate her grandfather’s past. Considering Jewish sources along with the Lithuanian sources Foti questions the Lithuanian official narrative denying any involvement in the Holocaust.

By Martina Urbinati October 25, 2021

Nuclear Superpowers Art, culture, and heritage in the Nuclear Age

Eglė Rindzevičiūtė talks to Ele Carpenter about the strong correlation between the experience of imperialism and colonial power, high technology and cultural responsibility.

By Egle Rindzevičiūtė April 22, 2021

A language to heal

The documentary film Liebe Oma, Guten Tag! What we leave behind (2017) by sisters Jūratė and Vilma Samulionytė tackles persistent silences within one family in Lithuania in a telling way for how sensitive the past is in the Baltic and East European context.

By Margaret Tali February 12, 2021