A scholarly journal from the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES) Södertörn University, Stockholm.
Issue 2026, 1: Download.
Author, selected as one of the British Council’s 20 best young British novelists in 2004. Has published the novels The Last Girl (2003), Amber (2014) and The Song of the Stork (2016)
The city of Kaliningrad itself with its 450,000 inhabitants has acquired a European face. New buildings and shops have appeared all over the center, and the modern shopping malls are packed with both imported and Russian products, marked and sold with electronic bar codes.
The authors here argues that the total picture of the Scandinavian can only be established when the “Rosenholz”-files are generally available. The Rosenholz files consist of three different kinds of records, originally created by the HVA. The major part of the files is 293,000 filing cards of the person index of the HVA. The part of Rosenholz which today is kept in the Stasi files lists 133,000 West Germans, 24,000 West Berliners, 112,000 East Germans, and 121 citizens of other states.
In the short term it seems reasonable to assume that Putin wants to win the presidential elections in early March by an absolute majority in the first round. The election campaign will be a first pointer to where Russia is heading.
At a meeting on the topic of the Northern Dimension partnerships on October 17 at the Finnish embassy in Stockholm, the many ambassadors and other dignitaries present in the audience proved to be inspired partners in dialogue, providing both critical questions and analytical overviews of policy and funding instruments in the northern part of Europe.
Baltic Worlds was one of the organizers of the seminar on the breakup of the Soviet Union during the “Global Week” at the University of Gothenburg in November. Here a report from the seminar 2Armageddon Averted: Insiders’ Reports from the Dissolution of the Soviet Union".
This Sunday, on December 4, parliamentary elections are held in Russia as the first step in the country’s electoral cycle that will end with the presidential elections in early March 2012.
On 23 October 2011 a presidential election was held in Bulgaria, together with the country’s municipal elections, with a run-off on 30 October 2011. This comment explore the way that these elections were conducted, the political platforms of the three main contestants, and finally assess their outcome for the future politics of Bulgaria.
From a party-political perspective, the election has seen at least a partial consolidation of the pattern of competition. Although the spectacular arrival of a new party, the pro-market and libertarian Palikot Movement (Ruch Palikota, RP) represents a new locus of ideological identification in this structure, the surprise of its emergence should not lead to the rash drawing of conclusions as to its present relevance or future prospects. When the novelty of Palikot's triumph has worn off, the governing liberal-conservative Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) - and Tusk in particular - will remain the real winners of this election.
This fall, it was Helsinki’s turn to host this year's Yuri Lotman Symposium, whose theme was “The Writer and Power.” About forty Slavists from seven countries – Finland, Estonia, Russia, Sweden, Germany, the United States, and Israel – met over the space of three days to discuss this utterly inexhaustible topic. A number of fascinating cross-pollinations were among the most interesting outcomes.
Next Sunday's Polish parliamentary election is, on current evidence, too close to call. This is somewhat unexpected – in contrast with the majority of its predecessors in the post-communist era, the coalition government of the liberal-conservative Civic Platform (Platforma Obywatelska, PO) and the Polish Peasant Party (Polskie Stronnictwo Ludowe, PSL) has enjoyed higher levels of public approval than disapproval, and for much of its tenure looked set to become the first government in post-communist Poland to win a second term.