Radical right parties (RRPs) have been extensively studied throughout the past two decades. One neglected aspect is the youth organizations (YOs) of RRPs and their transnational networks. This article analyzes the transnational links between the YOs of RRPs in Estonia and Latvia. The article contributes to the literature by arguing for four findings relating to the transnational links between the YOs of RRPs, which provide a window into the future of the parties being analyzed.
By
Pēteris F Timofejevs and Louis John Wierenga
August 23, 2023
This Special Issue include eight articles that endeavor to analyze more deeply different aspects of the influence of transnational “soft power” aimed at coopting youth in authoritarian and hybrid regimes through radical and nationalist youth organizations, patriotic education, and youth wings of ruling parties. By means of such activities, governments try to distract the youth from countercultural movements and opposition politics as well as to educate an obedient and loyal generation. The purpose is to “vaccinate” such generations with illiberal or authoritarian values in order to eliminate potential threats to regimes’ stability.
Essay by
Oleg Antonov and Olena Podolian
August 23, 2023
Bakom och bortom järnridån. De sovjetiska åren och frigörelsen i Baltikum och Ukraina [Behind the Iron Curtain and Beyond. The Soviet Years and the Emancipation in the Baltics and Ukraine]. Li Bennich Björkman. Stockholm: Appell förlag. 465 pages
By
Kristian Gerner
June 20, 2023
This article considers the spread of ideas on vegetarianism in Estonia from the turn of the 19th century until 1940. The study builds on analyzing archival sources, media texts and educational work conducted by nutrition experts, schools and organizations. Propaganda about the consumption of vegetarian food was associated with the general modernization of domestic culture and the discourse on healthy food as the basis for the nation’s vitality. The article highlights the leading role of women’s movement in home economics, including attempts to implement food culture informed by nutritional science, especially teaching the people to eat more fruits and vegetables. The spread of vegetarian ideas in Estonia also illustrates how the previously dominating German cultural influences were gradually replaced by an orientation towards the Nordic countries, and demonstrates how these ideas were adapted to an Estonian context.
By
Ester Bardone and Anu Kannike
June 22, 2022
This article focuses on the site-specific exhibition “Displaced Time: 10 Photographs from Restricted Collections” as a model of remembrance and an act against oblivion. The article analyses “Displaced Time” as part of ongoing memory work that aims to explain and understand the mechanisms of the Soviet period and its influence on contempora ry society. In order to analyze the power relations between photographs and archives, this article also explores the power relations between the photographer and the subject – the photographic gaze – as well as the power relations between the photograph and the reader – the agency of images.
By
Annika Toots
February 12, 2021
Two months prior to the collapse of the Berlin Wall, on August 23, 1989, far behind the Iron Curtain, two million Latvians, Lithuanians and Estonians joined hands on the highways that linked their countries in a massive demonstration for national independence. They called it the Baltic Way.
By
Ojars Eriks Kalnins
February 25, 2020
Immediate reactions to the election results focused largely on the triumph of EKRE which nearly tripled its number of mandates. EKRE holding nearly a fifth of the Riigikogu seats ushers in a new era in Estonian politics where the populist far-right is a force to be reckoned with.
By
Piret Ehin
March 26, 2019
Usually, this triennial takes place in Lithuania, as it has since its foundation in the year 1979. But now, due to the celebration of the centennial of the restored three Baltic states, Kestutis Kuizinas, the leader of the Contemporary Art Centre, decided to suggest that they work collaboratively. Thematically, the 13th Baltic Triennial’s three-part format also shaped the way it was realized.
By
Charlotte Bydler
March 7, 2019
This paper traces the emergence of various digital technology-driven policy ideas in Estonia during the last two decades. The article is specifically concerned with the idea of e-Estonia, a signifier that is widely used as shorthand to denote Estonia’s success in developing digital solutions in government, public management, business, education, etc. The paper analyzes the idea of e-Estonia to disclose, contextualize, and critically explain the particular discursive practices that constitute the e-Estonia discourse. It offers a discourse-theoretical reading of e-Estonia in terms of different types of discursive ‘logics’. Finally, the paper argues for the importance of recognizing what is at stake in the act of naming e-Estonia.
By
Rene Mäe
June 19, 2017
The article discusses the writing of architectural history in Soviet Estonia in the late socialist period as a particular form of historiographic practice in which the contact between “history” and “reality” is pursued through avant-gardist practices of merging art and life. The case is built on the “historical depictions” or the short texts on the history of Estonian modern architecture written by Leonhard Lapin.
By
Epp Lankots
January 30, 2017
Special Issue 2023, 3 Youth and authoritarian
Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.