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.
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
This study offers the first analysis of anti-Roma propaganda in the District of Galicia (Distrikt Galizien, the DG), a part of the General Government (Das Generalgouvernement, the GG), by studying the dailies and several periodicals published in the District. It constitutes the first step in studying anti-Roma propaganda in the GG. While the wartime anti-Roma propaganda employed the pre-war images of Roma, those were manipulated, distorted and radicalized in accordance to the needs of the Nazi regime in the DG. The radicalization in the press paralleled introduction of regulations with anti-Roma edge and scaling up of Roma persecution in the GG. By 1943, the propaganda pieces alluded to solving “the Gypsy question” in the way that “the Jewish question” had been solved.
By
Piotr Wawrzeniuk
October 7, 2020
Unlike British or American vegetarian movements which arose during the 19th century, organized vegetarianism did not emerge in the Russian empire until the turn of the century. By the 1910s, a network of vegetarian circles flourished across the empire. Odessa presents a fascinating case study for examining dietary reform and vegetarianism. Using diverse sources, the article explores the evolution and implementation of grassroot vegetarian activism in the city of Odessa by focusing on its institutionalization and infrastructure, as well as on ideas, practices and activists. It scrutinizes the motives that guided actions, unfolds alliances and challenges that arose, and how these played out in practice, and identifies popularization strategies for vegetarian ideas, and forms of vegetarian consumption. The study sheds light on an unknown page of the history of Odessa and the Black Sea Region, as well as enriching existing knowledge of the histories of imperial and European borderlands.
By
Julia Malitska
October 5, 2020
This article explores recent developments in Turkey in the light of the newly emerging literature on anti-gender movements in Europe, with the ultimate aim of assessing the prospects of the emergence of a feminist politics strong enough to challenge the threat. Today, Turkey is one of the leading countries where an authoritarian regime combined with a blatantly anti-gender equality agenda has recently been on the ascendant. The Turkish case displays many characteristics shared by right-wing populisms and strongly illiberal regimes, yet it also represents a particular instance where we don’t see “anti-gender movements” as such.
By
Alev Özkazanç
May 25, 2020
The author argues that stigmatization of “gender” as ideology has become a central element of political discourse in Hungary since 2010 — resulting in the ban of the MA in Gender Studies in the Official Gazette on October 12, 2018. For a critical reading, the author situates the strategic attack in relation to three junctures of meaning-making of “feminism” and “gender” since the system change in 1989 that have eventually crystalized into the commonsense discourses of “gender ideology” and “gender-craze” of right-wing populism.
By
Erzsébet Barát
May 24, 2020
Issue 2025, 1: 
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.