A scholarly journal from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Issue 2025, 3: Download.
Graduated with a BA in Russian and English Literature from Leeds University. His co-translations of Andrey Platonov have won prizes both in the UK and in the US. His translation of Hamid Ismailov’s The Railway won the AATSEEL prize for 2007 and received a special commendation from the judges of the 2007 Rossica Translation Prize. Recently he translated The Armenian Sketchbook by Vasily Grossman, to be published in July 2013.
Minsk, the capital of Belarus, has always astonished foreigners with its peculiar eerie atmosphere. Broad, empty, impeccably clean avenues adorned with WW2 obelisks and pompous statues of Soviet heroes attracted untrained gazes reminding the guests of the city of the utopian settings by Orwell and Huxley. But to me, a born Minsker, they reminded more of a hospital — with the ghosts of the collective memory sanitizers leaders safeguarding imaginary peace and order
The events in Ukraine prompted the countries of East-Central Europe to review their approach to the monuments and collective memory signs that have remained from the Soviet era. Although the region regards the dismantling of Soviet monuments in relation to de-Sovietization that started around 1990, the removal of the remaining Soviet artefacts from public spaces was also related to the international situation in 2013–2014 and 2022, almost thirty years after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As the dominant research of de-Sovietization focus on the elimination of Soviet monuments, i.e. by nature, a negative aspect of de-Sovietization based on the removal and dismantling of monuments, the article presents the concept of positive de-Sovietization based on the case analysis of Lithuanian monuments. The de-Sovietization process is considered dual: the removal of Soviet monuments is accompanied by the construction of the new ones establishing a new historical narrative and state’s identity. It can be defined as a positive aspect of de-Sovietization that makes its implementation complete.
The article is devoted to how Uzbekistan’s constructivist foreign policy contributed to fundamental changes in the Central Asian region. The main purpose of the article is to examine the transition from realpolitik to a constructivist approach in Uzbekistan, as well as in Central Asia in general. The author seeks to outline potential scenarios for future developments in the changing political landscape in the region. In the work, he reveals the significance of the school of constructivism, comparing it with other theories of international relations. According to him, this theory is the most suitable for explaining the current political status quo in the region. The key concepts in the article are identity, perception, ideology, culture and national interest.
Sadly, Markus Huss, member of the Scholarly Advisory Board and former Chair of the board, is no longer with us. Markus Huss was a muchappreciated scholar, beloved friend and colleague and is deeply missed.
On the Digital Frontline: Far-Right Memory Work in the Baltic, Central and East European Online Spaces Andrej Kotljarchuk and Francesco Zavatti (eds.), (Visby: Eddy, 2023) Opuscula Historia Upsalensia 62 , 197 pages.
Conference name: Stocktaking of Research on Energy Security, Justice and Sustainability in The Baltic Sea Region and Eastern Europe: What Is Missing? Date and location: October 24–25, 2024, Södertörn University. Organizer: The Energy and Climate Hub at Södertörn University . Funding: Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University.
On March 11, 2025, Lithuania commemorated the 35th anniversary of the restoration of its independence. On that historic day, it became the first republic to break away from the Soviet Union. Already in 1990, it pledged commitment to democracy, international law and human rights. In 1992, these principles were enshrined in its Constitution. An important indicator of a country’s commitment to democratic values is its respect for minority rights, including the rights of sexual and gender minorities. In 2016, I published an essay in this journal on the occasion of the third Baltic Pride held in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius. The aim of the essay was to discuss developments in the area of LGBTQ+ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, queer/questioning and others) rights after Lithuania’s accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004. Yet, as this article demonstrates, despite some progress, the reality for LGBTQ+ people in Lithuania remains complex and not quite rainbow-like.
RUTA is an association formed by epistemic communities and solidarity networks in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. RUTA promotes and supports Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern European, Baltic, Caucasus, Central and Northern Asia Studies in the global conversation. Tereza Hendl is one of the founding members. In conversation with Elisa Satjukow she discusses the need to reclaim the debate, and emphasizes the decolonial forces set in motion to protect academia in the region from Russia’s violence and epistemological domination.
The repression in Belarus is targeting academia. Olga Shparaga is one of the co-founders of the European College of Liberal Arts in Minsk (ECLAB), and former lecturer at the European Humanities University (EHU), that was forcibly closed 2004 and moved into exile in Vilnius. In a conversation with Friedrich Cain, she describes how the Belarusian exile Academia, although persecuted even abroad, still works to educate Belarusian students and support teachers inside Belarus as well as in exile through various networks and strategies.
This article argues for the relevance of new materialist theories and onto-epistemologies in understanding the workings of political status. The issue of political status is interrogated at the confluence of the university’s status, the status of the Russian state through references to its “glorious” and “rich” history, and the materialities of the imperial cityscape of St. Petersburg. More specifically, I analyze how the spatio-temporal position of universities within the imperial cityscape of St. Petersburg plays out as a status-enhancing or undermining mechanism. The analysis in this article traverses three sites: St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg State Institute of Culture, and European University in St. Petersburg. The universities appear to be embedded within the imperial cityscape of St. Petersburg, which speaks to both the universities’ status and, more importantly, the idea of the state that lives in and through them, through the effects of beauty, glory, and rich history. However, while material durability allows the past to be actualized in the present, materialities are also subject to decay over time, leading to physical processes of deterioration and downgrading. This decay acts as a status undermining mechanism.