A scholarly journal from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Issue 2026, 1: Download.
PhD student in philosophy at Södertörn University. He is writing a dissertation on the political thought of Jan Patočka with the provisional title “Abyssal Politics – the political thought of Jan Patočka”. His main areas of study are phenomenology and political philosophy.
The diverse mosaic of urban experiences in Prague, Riga, Belgrade, and Tirana is related to major drivers of change in the economic, social, and institutional environment. In mapping an analytical terrain for this comparative study, the “socialist city” is taken as the primary point of departure. One set of influences represents the outcomes associated with the transition to markets, democracy, and decentralized government.
For the celebrations of the First of May, 1917, all the buildings on the Palace Square, including the Winter Palace, were decorated for the first time with white drapes with red edgings and revolutionary slogans. Under the Bolsheviks, avant-garde artists assumed the right to develop art for the newly formed communist state, and the commission to decorate Petrograd for May Day 1918, was awarded to futurists.
Grass’s Flounder contributes to our work of locating, dislocating, and relocating literature in the Baltic Sea region by challenging us to give attention to the lost or hidden stories that are ignored or played off against each other in the official versions of history that would fix our position in space. While Grass counters the seduction of the big story — universal history — he also reveals himself by getting caught in the contradiction of his own storytelling.
Linnaeus’s ideas and the acts of his apostles coincide with a general definition of economy as the doctrine of wise stewardship of scarce resources, which could be applied to both nature and human society. But beyond this, the philosophical, economic, and scientific thinking of Linnaeus and his contemporaries was historically distinguished by the belief that resources, as for example the number of species, could normally increase in one place simply by shrinking in another.
Soviet Design 1950–1980 was shown for two busy winter months and enjoyed great public success. Even if Soviet design was often — but far from always — based on originals borrowed from the West, the individual objects exude a personal charm, variation, and quirkiness that makes them well worth preserving, exhibiting, and discussing.
In Albania, its cultural heritage is threatened by tourism. Fairytale castle are being converted to hotels with no respect for their history. Albanians politicians believe that they cannot afford to preserve the past for the future, says reporter Axel Kronblom.
What was buried by Balts who were exiled to Siberia, before they were taken away? These finds are now being digged up as examples of modern archaeology. Helga Nõu remembers when, aged nine, she was told where a secret was buried and how she was sworn to never ever tell.
Perspectives on the past are charged, not least in Romania. Vladimir Tismaneanu, former chair for the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Investigation of Communist Crimes and the Memory of the Romanian Exile (IICCMER) is here interviewed about the links between history and politics in Romania.
Anna Kharkina visits an exhibition about childhood and sees artifacts from the Romanian countryside. The exhibition opens doors to an individual and a shared past for those with common memories of childhood in a country that no longer exists.
There is a great deal that we do not yet know about Vasily Grossman’s life. The widely held belief that Grossman lived out his last years in poverty and isolation is probably mistaken.