The concerns of historians
Network of Concerned Historians Annual Report 2025, contains news about the domain where history and human rights intersect, in particular about the censorship of history and the persecution of historians.
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Issue 2026, 1: Download.
Academic freedom
29 articles tagged with academic freedom were found.
Mirrors and shards HOW THE BELARUSIAN POLITICAL COMMUNITY IS CHANGING AFTER 2020
This essay analyzes the transformation of the Belarusian political community following the 2020 protests through an examination of eight articles published within the Fifth Republic project. The analysis identifies four dominant narratives: repression as a catalyst for political action, the legitimacy crisis as a political opportunity, the role of diaspora and political exiles as new political actors, and "Caring Democracy" as an alternative political model. Each narrative demonstrates distinct mobilization potentials and limitations. The study reveals that while the Belarusian political community exists in a fragmented state—resembling a "shattered mirror"—it maintains remarkable resilience through adaptive practices of solidarity. The research suggests that integrating these diverse narratives could provide a framework for overcoming current political fragmentation while recognizing the value of multiple voices and experiences within the democratic movement.
Olga Shparaga on Belarusian Academia in exile: “It is clear that something is happening in the field of education within and around Belarus”
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.
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.
Moral dilemmas Russian researchers between Scylla and Charybdis
This publication shares with the reader autobiographical reflections of five scholars who still live and work in different regions of Russia. These social scientists have not left Russia for various reasons, which they themselves explain in their reflections. After having met at an informal meeting in early 2024, they have decided to voice their concerns about their troubled professional ethos caused by censorship, ideological pressure and repressive legislature. These concerns they conceptualize as moral dilemmas challenging their professional activities. We have decided to publish these texts and to preserve their voices in order to let them tell their own stories to the reader. However, for the sake of security, all authors have decided to be pseudonymized
Standing Up for Democracy and Academic Freedom
Current research tell us that we are presently facing a global wave of autocratization. Gradual declines of democratic attributes characaterize political regimes worldwide. Technology opens up for democratic interaction, but also makes it easy to spread fake news. Freedom of expression is in peril. Universities all around the world encounter repression of academic freedom. To discuss these and other challenges, Linnaeus University (in Växjö) organized a digital conference on A Questioned Democracy, on November 15, 2023.
“Better stories” in higher education Cunning strategies for gender studies: What can you do when nothing can be done? Can the hangman be an ally of gender studies?
This paper is based on two arguments: First, “grim storytelling” only gives access to part of the story and therefore needs to be supplemented with “better stories” — stories that generate an understanding of human potentiality, creativity, resilience, interconnectedness and shared “vulnerability”. Second, the tendency towards “grim storytelling” in critical social sciences constitutes a major limitation for the possibilities of imagining and enacting the very transformations that Europe most urgently needs in order to enhance the European project.
War and the academic community in Russia
The outbreak of the war on February 24, 2022, was a real shock for the Russian science and higher education, and completely turned the situation upside down, even in comparison with the negative trends of the previous years.
Freedom & Resistance 2021
There are several recent reports highlighting a worrying trend towards what one could call attacks on democratic values such as independent media and academic freedom.
The Nordic Belarusian History Dialogue: A forum for networking and discussions between academics
The Nordic Belarusian History Dialogue took place in Lund, Sweden, in January 2020. The gathering brought together colleagues from Tromsø on the northern coast of Norway to Polesia in southern Belarus with the aim of engaging Nordic and Belarusian historians in dialogue.
- Cover of BW 2026:2
Issue 2026, 2: Download. -
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.
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