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Articles by Dominika V. Polanska and Grzegorz Piotrowski

1. THE WARSAW UPRISING OF 1944 IN THE EYES OF CONTEMPORARY SWEDISH INTELLECTUALS

   The revolt that lasted 63 days was a desperate attempt to push back the German enemy before the Red Army crossed the Vistula River. Once it was quashed, the Poles counted their losses in hundreds of thousands: It is estimated that roughly 15 000 Polish soldiers who followed orders from the government-in-exile in London perished, hundreds of whom had already fought during the April 1943 uprising of the Warsaw ghetto. 150 000—170 000 civilians lost their lives, 65 000 of them in organized massacres. A contemporary Swedish reaction to the Warsaw uprising was published in September 1944 in Warszawa! [Warsaw!]. The editor of the anti-Nazi newspaper Trots allt! [In spite of everything!] and left-wing politician Ture Nerman wrote: "In the history of this time and age, Warsaw stands as one of the most heroic in humanity’s struggle for freedom."

2. MEMORY FOR SALE: ETHICAL DILEMMAS AND THE COMMODIFICATION OF THE HOLOCAUST

   The thematic bookstalls, on the eve of International Holocaust Remembrance Day in the Italian city of Turin, January 2025, show a range of covers, some only rather vaguely connected with the traumatic past in the context that they are displayed in. The Storyteller of Auschwitz is just one of many in the same vein, blending real events with fictionalized narratives. The Italian version sold at Milan airport as an on-the-plane read has a title that literally translates as “a girl who wrote love stories in Auschwitz”, and the cover shows the image of a malnourished child in bedraggled clothes with the eerie Birkenau gate contour as background. This leads to reflections on the many layers of Holocaust portrayal, 80 years after the end of WWII, and its implications.

3. “‘Historical consciousness’ imposed from above is always dangerous”

   In a conversation with Irina Sandomirskaja, Luba Jurgenson explores how the epoch-making event of Russia’s war in Ukraine has led to changes in the research field Slavic Studies, particularly memory studies and the studies of camp literature. They discuss how ideas of repetition and the return of history have a new resonance, and how increasing concerns are impacting a historical consciousness that demands epistemic justice.

4. dark tourism in Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo A SPECIFIC MEMORY OF WARS IN THE 1990s

   The societies in Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH) and Kosovo utilize dark (war) tourism to preserve and visualize memories of the 1990s conflicts and war crimes against civilians. Both countriesnhave developed numerous sites, mapped them, and integrated them into excursions and tourist programs. In BiH, dark tourism reflects collective trauma and a need to share experiences with others. Kosovan Albanians focus on reflecting upon the war and its consequences while constructing narratives about national history. A shared issue in both BiH and Kosovo is the dominance of a single perspective on the events of the 1990s, with Bosniaks and Kosovan Albanians promoting their versions of history while excluding the perspectives of other ethnic groups.

5. THE TIME & TEMPORALITIES OF NUCLEAR WASTE

   This paper focuses on the notions of “time” and “temporality” of nuclear waste, as well as the different time horizons implied by practitioners of nuclear waste storage. In doing so, the paper develops understandings of a key problem defining nuclear waste storage in C21: namely, how to communicate information and memory over the 100,000 years that highly radioactive nuclear matter remains a threat to organic life. This question is notable not least because it involves the proposition of communicating with “deep time” future scenarios in which contemporary representational systems are ineffectual, and even the existence of the “human” is in doubt.

6. Call for Applications  Transnational Perspectives on Eastern Europe and the Baltic Sea Region: Past and Present 

   CBEES Summerschool 2025, August 18-23 is now open for application. Apply before March 21.

7. Markus Huss in Memory

   With deep sadness, we have learnt of the sudden death of our colleague and friend Markus Huss. 2009, we all […]

8. The Future of Work from a Macro-Regional Perspective Paper prepared for the InGRID-2 Winter School

   This paper takes the 2018 InGRID input note as the point of departure for an elaboration on an additional layer of governance less known among some domain-specific scholarly circles but no less relevant for their overall exploratory work of the diversity of steering and consultation mechanisms put in place by the European Union (EU) to promote integrationist dynamics and certain goals enshrined in the EU policies.

9. Global Goals 2020: International SDG Research Symposium Baltic 2030: Glocalised Sustainable Development Goals

   Youth initiatives supported by the Council of the Baltic Sea States should contribute to the growing body of literature on youth engagement in the implementation of the Sustainable Development Goals. ReGeneration 2030 and the Baltic Sea Youth Platform are presented to highlight future avenues for the development of these initiatives and what research approaches would help to acquire a more structured insight not only about the hypothetical potential of these initiatives but also the delivered value-added. These findings would help the United Nations to keep apace with the mindsets of younger generations which are underrepresented among the organisation’s staff. Likewise, youth deserves to be heard due to the socio-economic challenges it faces not only in the Global South but also in the Global North.

10. Decolonization of memory in the former Soviet spaces Introduction. Theme Section.

    The section is an invitation to think further on the possibilities of implementing decolonial theory in the memory field of the countries that were dominated by the Soviet Union.

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