32306 - Memories and Politics. Mapping the Baltic and Black Sea Regions

Learning outcomes

Student is expected to learn how to examine the impact of history and memories in the wide area between the Baltic and the Black seas taking into consideration the role played by Lithuania as well as by Russia, Poland and Germany in the 19th-20th centuries. Therefore, Student is expected increase their awareness of historical literature relevant to the development of the Baltic region in the European context.

Course contents

Is there anything between the Baltic and the Black Sea that could be called a region? What defines belonging to it? Ten years before we could probably answer this question positively but with some doubts about Russia Federation western gubernias. Year 2014 made that even more complex. Up to now we explored the cultural process of changing identities in this area. But after Russia’s annexation of the Crimea and hybrid war in Eastern Ukraine the state borders were moved, political regimes and interests became the decisive factors which define the vector of this regional transformation. Most of East-Central Europe and the Baltic countries claimed to be “returning to Europe”, from where they were “stolen” by the Russian Empire or the USSR. In this respect people of the region still identify themselves according traumatic memories of Russian aggression. Alongside, the process of national self-identification is unfolding, which creates some controversies with European integration.

The Baltic-Black Sea region is a region under construction, where the linking economic, energetic, and transport infrastructure is well developed as an inheritance of the Soviet Union. On the other hand, there is the traumatised post-soviet memory of the Baltic nations, Poland, Belorus, and the Ukraine. There are weakly developed institutions of political cooperation and socio-cultural interaction. Some traditions of political cooperation are still based on a mistrust of Russian foreign policy, especially after the Georgian war and even more during the unfinished intervention in East Ukraine and the Crimea. Instead of trans-border cooperation the new wall between Russia and the Ukraine was constructed, military conflict still sees no end. EU again had to take much seriously its eastern borders.

The shift of borders re-awaked politics of memory, involved state institutions in what was left for academic historians. Traditionally, e.g., in the Baltic Sea region, Russia has faced a problem of its regions’ (including Kaliningrad district) participation in the projects of trans-border regionalization due to the suspicious attitude of the federal center to their external affairs and the lack of readiness of the regions themselves to be equal partners in such projects. It means that the future of the Baltic-Black Sea Region depends on which rationales - material profit or traumatized memory and national emotions - will be given priority.

The contemporary conflict in The Ukraine revived active return of the nationalist politic to the field of historical knowledge. It seems like we jump back in time before Francis Fukuyama conclusion about the end of history with all uses and abuses of that. During the course the emphasis will be put on an analysis of memories, politics of memories, and the construction of new identities in the Baltic-Black Sea Region. We will stress specifically the new EU “frontier countries”- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which together with Poland act in creating democratic bridges with the Ukraine and the Caucasian region.

Readings/Bibliography

Lecture 1:

“Functional” and “Homogeneous” characteristics of the region;

Economic and emotional motives in the identification of the common regional vision;

Could the space between Baltic and Black seas be entitled as separate region?

Sources:

The Baltic-Black Sea Area: History, Identity and Interests. Background Materials. (in Russian). Handout.

The Construction of National Narratives and Politics of memory in the Central and Eastern European Region After 1989. Kaunas-Vilnius: Vytautas Magnus University press – Versus Aureus publ., 2014;

Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of the Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus. 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2003;

Lecture 2: From the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to Russian empire: The Ukraine and Belarus between the Orthodox and Catholic influencies; Sources:

Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of the Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belorus. 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2003;

Philip Longworth. Russia’s Empires. Their rise and fall from prehistory to Putin. London, John Murray Publ., 2006;

Lecture 3:

From Livonian Order to Russian Empire: Latvian, Estonian and Finnish story;

Sources:

John Hiden and Martyn Housden. Neighbbours or Enemies? Germans, the Baltic and Beyond. Amsterdam- New York, Rodopi, 2008;

Jukka Rislakki. The Case for Latvia. Disinformation Campaigns Against a Small Nation. Amsterdam- New York, Rodopi, 2008;

Jean-Jacques Subrenat (edit.) Estonia. Identity and Independence. Amsterdam- New York, Rodopi, 2004;

Lecture 4:

Falls and Springs of Nations in the Baltic-Black sea region;

Sources:

Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of the Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus. 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2003;

The Construction of National Narratives and Politics of memory in the Central and Eastern European Region After 1989. Kaunas-Vilnius: Vytautas Magnus University press – Versus Aureus publ., 2014;

Lecture 5:

Communism and Soviet occupation: engineering of the new identities;

Sources:

Philip Longworth. Russia’s Empires. Their rise and fall from prehistory to Putin. London, John Murray Publ., 2006;

Robert Conquest (edit.). The Last Empire. Nationality and the Soviet Future. Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1986;

Anatol Lieven. Baltic Revolution. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the path to Independence. Yale University Press, 1994;

.

Lecture 6:

Traumas of the Ukrainian memories: Holodomor , deportations and repressions; Victims and Perpetrators: Nazis and Polish-Ukrainian conflict in the years of II World war;

Sources:

Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of the Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belorus. 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2003;

Timothy Snyder. Bloodlands. Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010;

Lecture 7:

Belarus: the unfinished self-determination;

Sources:

Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of the Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus. 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2003;

The Construction of National Narratives and Politics of memory in the Central and Eastern European Region After 1989. Kaunas-Vilnius: Vytautas Magnus University press – Versus Aureus publ., 2014;

Lecture 8:

“Unfinished” II World War; Collaboration and Resistance: Lithuanian story 1940-1953;

Sources:

Egidijus Aleksandravičius. Lithuanian Collaboration with the Nazis and the Soviets. In: “Kollaboration” in Nordosteuropa. Herausgegeben von Joachim Tauber. Wiesbaden, Harrassowitz Verlag, 2006, p.174-192 (handout)

Anatol Lieven. Baltic Revolution. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the path to Independence. Yale University Press, 1994;

Lecture 9:

From singing barracks of the Soviet Union to Singing Revolutions in the Baltic states;

Common destiny and lost solidarity: Baltic people on the way “back to Europe”;

Sources:

Egidijus Aleksandravičius. Post-Communist Transition: The case of Two Lithuanian Capital

Cities. International Review of Sociology, vol.16, Number 2, July 2006, p.347-361;

Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of the Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belarus. 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2003;

Anatol Lieven. Baltic Revolution. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence. Yale University Press, 1994;

Lecture 10:

From the USSR to Russian Federation: “Back to Empire”?

The Ukrainian war, traumatized memories, pipelines and the new European frontiers: mapping the new old region.

Sources:

Philip Longworth. Russia’s Empires. Their rise and fall from prehistory to Putin. London, John Murray Publ., 2006;

Edward Lukas. The New Cold War. How the Kremlin Menaces Both Russia and the West. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008

The Baltic-Black Sea Area: History, Identity and Interests. Background Materials. (in Russian).

Handout.

Selected reading

(Egidijus Aleksandravičius, editor) The Construction of National Narratives and Politics of memory in the Central and Eastern European Region After 1989. Kaunas-Vilnius: Vytautas Magnus University press – Versus Aureus publ., 2014;

Philip Longworth. Russia’s Empires. Their rise and fall from prehistory to Putin. London, John Murray Publ., 2006;

Robert Conquest (edit.). The Last Empire. Nationality and the Soviet Future. Stanford, Hoover Institution Press, 1986;

Timothy Snyder. The Reconstruction of the Nations: Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania, Belorus. 1569-1999. Yale University Press, 2003;

Tymothy Snyder. Bloodlands. Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books, 2010;

Tymothy Snyder. Black Earth. The Holocaust as History and Warning.2015;

Edward Lukas. The New Cold War. How the Kremlin Menaces Both Russia and the West. Bloomsbury Publishing, 2008

Anatol Lieven. Baltic Revolution. Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and the Path to Independence. Yale University Press, 1994;

Violeta Kelertas (edit.) Baltic Postcolonialism. Amsterdam-New York, Rodopi, 2006;

John Hiden and Martyn Housden. Neighbours or Enemies? Germans, the Baltic and Beyond. Amsterdam- New York, Rodopi, 2008;

Jukka Rislakki. The Case for Latvia. Disinformation Campaigns Against a Small Nation. Amsterdam- New York, Rodopi, 2008;

Jean-Jacques Subrenat (edit.) Estonia. Identity and Independence. Amsterdam- New York, Rodopi, 2004;

The Baltic-Black Sea Area: History, Identity and Interests. Background Materials. (in Russian).

Handout.

Teaching methods

The course will be delivered in the form of lectures, analysis of handouts, and discussions. Every lecture will contain an element of seminar.

Assessment methods

Regular attendance: 20%. Final Exam: 50%. Participation in discussion and evidence of timely reading of assigned materials will also be evaluated: 30%.

Final exam

Final paper.

The outcome of the module will be averaged to that of the other module composing the integrated course in order to determine the final grade.

Office hours

See the website of Egidjus Aleksandravicius