A scholarly journal from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Issue 2025, 1: Download.
Peer-reviewed articles have all been through a peer-review process. We practice double-blind peer-review. All material is reviewed by two independent specialists at least at post-doc level. A prerequisite for publishing scientific articles in Baltic Worlds is that the article has not already been published in English elsewhere. If an article is simultaneously being considered by another publication, this should be indicated when submitting.
Two distinct cases of kin-state relations are examined: that of Russians living in states neighboring Russia and that of Magyars living in states around Hungary. The question of kin-state relations is put at the forefront of European minority issues.
During the war von Otter worked at the Swedish legation in Berlin. In 1942 he met an SS officer, Kurt Gerstein, who had witnessed killings by gas at the Bełżec extermination camp. Gerstein joined the SS to oppose the Nazi regime from within and he asked von Otter to report to his government on the atrocities. At that time the official policy in Sweden was to not anger Nazi Germany by publishing reports on war crimes. There is much obscurity about von Otter’s report.
The main reason why we have not seen more severe conflicts between majorities and minorities in the new EU member states is, in the authors view, the EU’s success as a normative power. The pressure that the EU put on the candidates for membership to adapt to norms on minority protection and to solve their potential border conflicts had a positive effect.
The “feminization of migration” in the EU is spurred by a growing demand for labor in the low-paid sectors of the economy, including domestic work, personal services, care for the elderly and children, and the hotel and restaurant industries. One factor that encourages Central and Eastern European women to migrate to the West is the erosion of their own social and economic situation at home, which cements the asymmetry in economic prosperity between “East” and “West” and perpetuates inequalities between the “old” and “new” EU member states.
The post-communist countries did not see the Holocaust narrative and its relation to the history of the EU as part of their own narrative. Since entering the EU, a number of Eastern European countries have challenged the EU’s master narrative and tried to gain acceptance for — and draw attention to — their memory of Soviet Communism.
By analyzing the usage of the word “market” (rynok) in the Russian press since 1990, the author shows how the keyword takes on new meanings, reflecting and relates to the different social and political roles of the press outlets in an evolving, modernizing environment.
The author argues that the equation of culture and natural resources has become a fundamental metaphor of the official patriotic discourse of identity in contemporary Russia. This conceptualization of the past frames nation building and state construction, the “nostalgic modernization”.
In an attempt to bring Russian articulations of Russian religiosity into a dialogue with the American sociologist Robert N. Bellah’s theory on secularization the author argues for a Russian model of civil religion.
Focusing on the role of the Soviet legacy the author conducts a detailed analysis of the restoration work, as well as the official discourse surrounding it. The aim is to uncovering the ideological ambiguities of Russia’s most recent top-down modernization, a modernization based on values claimed to be “conservative”.
Like many other modern states, both the Soviet Union, with its authoritian socialism, and Sweden, with its social democracy, strived to shape their citizens' lives for the better. Both states considered it their duty actively to plan, organize and control housing.
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.