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.
The author has analyzed the coverage of the 30th anniversary of the Roundtable Agreement and June elections in Polish newspapers of all political hues. Additionally several official speeches held in connection with the commemorations have been scrutinized. The goal has been to examine the uses of memory of 1989 in Polish politics of 2019 and highlight the strategic choices and constraints faced by mnemonic actors in this context. Thus, the study presented may be seen as a follow-up to Bernhard’s and Kubik’s investigation conducted ten years ago. However, this analysis expands the focus of Bernhard’s and Kubik’s work by paying special attention to cultural constraints on politics of memory. Thus, the aim is both to give insight into contemporary politics of memory in Poland in relation to the recent past and contribute to the more general understanding of how culture works in politics of memory.
By
Barbara Törnquist-Plewa
April 21, 2021
The narrative in this article is based on a reconstruction of my personal curatorial experience while working on the exhibition “A Difficult Age: Vilnius, 1939–1949”. The exhibition’s chronological framework – 1939 to 1949 – was established with a focus on historical realities and aimed to frame the narrative of the guest exhibition. The public knowledge of the history of multi-national Vilnius is full of conscious and unconscious omissions, in large part caused by oblivion, but no less by the unwillingness to remember, ignorance, and the refusal to know or even fear of finding out. The narrative based on the history of visual art and artists’ lives is a way to bring up controversial topics and open new perspectives.
By
Giedre Jankeviciute
February 15, 2021
This article addresses the problem of the underrepresentation of the traumatic past in the example of the official commemoration of the Holocaust in Belarus. The silenced memories hinder the process of reconciliation and have real consequences for urban planning and cultural life. Thus, in order to address the tragedy that has been excluded from the official commemoration in Belarus, artists and journalists have created projects to fill the void in remembrance. The article describes how art and media projects have resolved the problem of the underrepresentation of certain events in the official culture and make vernacular memory available to many people.
By
Elisabeth Kovtiak
February 15, 2021
This article focuses on the site-specific exhibition “Displaced Time: 10 Photographs from Restricted Collections” as a model of remembrance and an act against oblivion. The article analyses “Displaced Time” as part of ongoing memory work that aims to explain and understand the mechanisms of the Soviet period and its influence on contempora ry society. In order to analyze the power relations between photographs and archives, this article also explores the power relations between the photographer and the subject – the photographic gaze – as well as the power relations between the photograph and the reader – the agency of images.
By
Annika Toots
February 12, 2021
This article theoretically overviews the disputes related to two heritage sites located in Vilnius, Lithuania – the Green Bridge statues and a monument to Petras Cvirka. The change in the culture of memory – from a Soviet to an independent Lithuania – has created the appropriate conditions for certain objects of such heritage to reveal dissonance. Common actions applied to mitigating the disputes that occur in relation to the Soviet-era legacy include the removal of such statues or monuments and/or their relocation. Meanwhile, alternative solutions such as memorial/information plaques and artistic interventions aimed at reinterpreting and decontextualizing the object in question are less widely endorsed.
By
Rasa Goštautaitė
February 12, 2021
Ukrainian Greek-Catholic Church (UGCC) is only one of several Eastern-Christian communities which actively take part in the Ukrainian social life. Moreover, statistical data and results of the social surveys show that the members of UGCC are not numerous and that structures of this church are strongly geographically limited. However, during the events related to the Euromaidan, it turned out that UGCC was able to make an important influence on the social developments referred to as the all-Ukrainian social level. This was possible due to the relevant social and symbolic capital which UGCC has on its disposal. This article aims to characterize the elements of the social and symbolic capital that enabled UGCC to become such important agent in the contemporary social transformations in Ukraine.
By
Michał Wawrzonek
October 8, 2020
In this article, I focus on the mainstream media coverage of the background of Volodymyr Zelensky, candidate for the position of President of Ukraine and, subsequently, the sixth President of Ukraine. The elections provoked a splash of international interest in Ukraine because of the unexpected candidate, a comedy actor with no prior political experience. This research shows that not only the professional, but also the ethnic background of Volodymyr Zelensky became an important topic in the international media during the presidential campaign and the elections of the President of Ukraine in 2019. Mentions of Zelensky’s Jewish background were supported by references to certain stereotypical views about the history of Ukraine, and his elections were covered as an unexpected breakthrough – either from the Soviet or from the anti-Semitic past.
By
Alla Marachenko
October 8, 2020
To what extent did Poroshenko’s efforts in creating an independent and canonical Orthodox church translate into national electoral support? A survey conducted before the first round of elections and a dataset of parish transitions to the Orthodox Church of Ukraine (OCU) are employed to address this question. The data suggest that the Tomos did increase support for Poroshenko. However, this effect was small. Drawing on the literature in micro-to-macro transition, I propose the hypothesis that actual transitions of parishes at the level of precincts were a necessary condition to ensure a link from the general support for the Tomos to electoral support for Poroshenko.
By
Tymofii Brik
October 8, 2020
In 1949–1950, the Yugoslavian Chamber of Commerce commissioned architects Vjenceslav Richter (1917–2002) and Zvonimir Radić (1921–85) together with artists Ivan Picelj (1924–2011) and Alexandar Srnec (1924–2010) to shape several pavilions at various international trade fairs; in Stockholm twice. This text departs from a rich photographic documentation of the 1950 fair, discussing how and why Yugoslavia turned to modernism, why the artists shaped the pavilion the way they did, how it was received in Sweden. It also places the pavilion in a political context. As Yugoslavia was expelled from the Eastern Bloc in 1948, it had to find new alliances. The turn to modernism could be seen as a sign of this, but such reading also risks diminishing the role of modernism, leaving it as something that belongs to the liberal democracies in the West. The text argues against such narrow reading. It also discusses the role art history has played in forming a quite stereotype image of modernism and finally, it uses Roland Barthes “myth” as a way of looking at modernism from a multiple perspective.
By
Håkan Nilsson
October 8, 2020
How can the loss of connection with history be experienced and expressed? The relationship with the past is difficult to capture and describe, although at some historic moments the emotional connection with the past becomes pivotal. This article introduces the debates on loss and cultivating the sense of losing the past in modernizing Russia in the late 19th – early 20th century. It contributes to the history of emotions, analyzing the discourse on the disappearance of Russian cultural history cultivated by intellectual and artistic circles around the journals Mir Iskusstva, Starye Gody and Iskusstvo in the late Russian Empire, and tracing distinct voices that problematized the relation to earlier times in Russia and promoted the preservation of Russian cultural and historical monuments. The article concludes that the discourse of losing the connection with Russia’s own past played an important role in forming the discourse and practices of Russian heritage preservation.
By
Anna Kharkina
October 8, 2020
Issue 2025, 2: 
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.