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Articles by Irina Korgun

1. The depiction of hippies in Soviet Latvia IN MIERVALDIS BIRZE’S Rozā  ZILONIS [THE PINK ELEPHANT]

   The article discusses the portrayal of hippies in The Pink Elephant (Rozā zilonis, 1976), a story by the Latvian SSR writer and physician, Miervaldis Birze (1921–2000). The author’s attitude towards this counterculture is mostly critical, even patronizing; however, it is through the portrayal of the hippies, Broņislavs and Baiba, that the author indulges in a conversation about young adulthood, revives the story, and even trifles with the questionable or inadmissible aspects of life. The Pink Elephant, when read through the lens of renewed interest about Soviet hippies, reveals their living conditions, attitude towards power, their parents, and themselves. As opposed to their Western counterparts, the impoverished Soviet hippies (who had experienced the system of blats and the shadow economy) did not condemn consumerism; in fact, they sought out material goods, especially those originating from the other side of the ocean.

2. Nostalgia or nightmare? Recollections of urban childhood in Eastern Germany

   If the grand narrative of German reunification in the autumn of 1989 in media discourse used to be a more or less coherent story of successful reconciliation, recent political developments have made it necessary to question some of the nuances of this seemingly flawless narrative. One way of doing this is to present personal memories in narrative form for consideration as more or less autobiographical accounts from the inside, so to speak. A growing number of writers who were children and young people 35 years ago, at the time of reunification, are now starting to write about their childhood and memories of the reunification process. These stories display more or less biographical features, albeit composite and contrived. In this paper, two novels, both dealing with the past, are compared: Grit Lemke’s affirmative oral history Kinder von Hoy (2021) and David Blum’s more critical Dantesque underworld narrative Kollektorgang (2023). Lemke’s depiction of a happy childhood is rather nostalgic, if not downright ostalgic (“East-nostalgic”), while Blum’s is much more discerning. Generational considerations may explain this difference in approach. What they have in common is that they ascribe significance to the big city with its high-rise buildings as a symbol of a collapsed system, based on their own memories of reunification.

3. THE LURE OF MAPS. A SYMPOSIUM ON THE IMAGING OF SPATIAL REALITIES UNDER OCCUPATION AND WAR

   On April 22, 2024, professor Steven Seegel, University of Texas at Austin, was awarded the Vega medal from the hands of the King of Sweden in the Royal Palace in Stockholm, “for his scientific contributions to Human Geography.”

4. Roundtable. Academic journals Noticing the editors

   At this year’s CBEES Annual Conference (November 28–29, 2024, at S.dertörn University), Ninna Mörner (Baltic Worlds) and Joakim Ekman (CBEES) organized a roundtable discussion on academic journals with a focus on the Baltic Sea region and Eastern Europe.

5. CBEES Annual Conference: “Shaping Futures: The Baltics and Eastern Europe in the World” November 28-29, 2024

   The 10th CBEES Annual Conference offers a time of retrospection and a time of new imaginings – a time to […]

6. Catching the Specter: Stepan Bandera between Myth, Meme, Death, and Memory in War-Turn Ukraine

   In this essay, the author is engaging with the transforming presence of Stepan Bandera (1909-1959) in the Ukrainian social media space between 2014 and 2024. Building along and against the mainstream discussions on collective memory, The author argues that with the presence of war, the Ukrainian social media users memefied Bandera, making him a useful tool for politically-driven activities and an emptied signifier to be used in ironic contexts. The author also shows that in war-torn Ukraine, the meme and the myth of Bandera are intertwined with the commemorations of those who died on the frontline, which requires a nuanced understanding of the country’s changing memory landscape.

7. Ruins, Museums, Reconstruction and the End (?) of Future

   This essay is an attempt to describe my thoughts from the CBEES summer school in Sigtuna. The author attempts to articulate the complexities of working with memory and heritage through his topic related to the heritage of the Soviet Gulag, as well as the more general problems of the industry of preserving and reinterpreting the past.

8. Who gets to speak about the past?

   This essay reflects on the issues of the past, memory practices, decolonisation, and reconciliation, as discussed during the 2024 CBEES Summer School. The author applies these reflections to think of her own research on LGBTQ+ Ukrainians’ wartime embodied relationalities, and how the discussed issues might manifest for her studied group. She further reflects on importance of positionality in discussions on postwar memory.

9. How Are We Going to Remember? Envisioning Postwar Memory and Commemoration in Ukraine

   This essay explores the intersection of personal reflection and Ukraine’s collective journey towards reconciliation amid the ongoing war with Russia. Set against the peaceful backdrop of a CBEES Summer School, the author delves into the challenges of memory construction, highlighting Ukraine’s historical complexities and the importance of inclusive memorialization in shaping a unified postwar identity. The essay draws comparisons with Eastern Europe’s post-communist memory work, emphasizing reconciliation and social cohesion.

10. Margareta Tillberg in memorial

    Margareta Tillberg has died, at the age of 63 years. Margareta Tillberg had a great commitment to what she did, and she still would have had a lot to give of her knowledge.

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