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
By
Ekaterina Kalinina et al
September 18, 2024
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.
By
Joakim Ekman
November 15, 2023
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.
By
Andrea Petö
June 20, 2023
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.
Essay by
Dmitry V. Dubrovskiy
June 22, 2022
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.
By
Ninna Mörner
January 24, 2022
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.
By
Per A. Rudling & Erkki Tuomioja
July 6, 2020
The authors argue that the current situation of neoliberal capitalism, nationalism, anti-feminism, and racism poses similar (but not identical) threats in different parts of the world, which in turn structures parallel but locally performed resistance. Efforts to create feminist unity in the name of gender studies across different sets of borders also inevitably unveils the cracks and differences dividing feminist communities.
By
Katarina Giritli-Nygren and Angelika Sjöstedt Landén
May 26, 2020
De Baets and his Network of Concerned Historians do an admirable job of raising awareness of the risks that professional historians face, and the political misuse of history. As the annual reports reveal, these dangers to academics are increasing and spreading in lockstep with the growth of authoritarian and populist politics.
By
David Gaunt
December 30, 2019
Ayse Gul Altinay statements at the court is here published. She signed the "We will not be party of this Crime"-petition in Turkey .
By
Ayşe Gül Altınay
June 2, 2019
On the 6th of May this year, Baltic Worlds arranged a seminar at CBEES on the topic of the shrinking space for academic freedom. Updated reports from Poland and Hungary was followed by a presentation of the autocratic learning process in Eurasia. Finally there were suggestions on how protect academic freedom and work for international scholarly solidarity.
By
Ninna Mörner
May 9, 2019
Issue 2024, 3: 
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.