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This paper examines the means by which Estonian national identity was preserved during 50 years of Soviet occupation. The study upon which it is based explored such factors as family environments; memories, in the form of oral narratives; and life experiences. This research was informed by the sociocultural approach to mediated action, and it employed both quantitative and qualitative research methods. In 1993, a quota-sampling technique was used to interview a cross section of Estonian society (N = 930). Descriptive statistics, and factor and multiple regression analyses were performed. Fifteen qualitative interviews were also conducted. When woven together, these personal histories create a fabric that is representative of the greater Estonian history during the occupation. The implications of these findings may reach beyond the Estonian context to further inform our understanding of the complexities and the vicissitudes of human action. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the seventeenth century, Duke Jakob Kettler of Courland embraced the mercantile theories of his age and engaged in overseas colonialism. After several aborted attempts, the Courlanders managed to establish a settlement on Tobago in 1654 only to lose it to the Dutch five years later. European competitors and indigenous resistance frustrated the Duke’s attempts to regain control over the colony. Despite its limited scope and success, the Couronian colonization of Tobago left a strong impact on the historical imagination. This paper aims to document the traces and remembrances of Duke Jakob’s Caribbean endeavor on Tobago as well as in Latvia. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This paper analyzes representations of national identity in three museums dedicated to commemorating twentieth-century occupations in the Baltic States. Narratives presented in those museums can reproduce dominant forms of nationalism (the Estonian case), provide alternative models of discourse while paying respect to established identities (the Latvian case) or deconstruct the victim/oppressor binary altogether while contributing to other aspects of nationalist discourse at the same time (the Lithuanian case). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This exhibition review discusses the past exhibition Difficult Pasts. Connected Worlds (2022) at the National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, Lithuania. The project tried to shed light on the shared impact that long-silenced traumas and counter-memories have on the Baltic region, especially from a transnational perspective. A special focus lies on the oscillations between individual memory and public history as the exhibition participants engage in the creation of so-called 'artistic historiographies' based on unexplored and unknown memories by minorities and women. The displayed artworks are experimentally trying to provoke a process of 'unlearning inherited histories' by developing multifocal viewpoints and interpretations, an ongoing process the text accompanies. Navigating through the exhibitions' conceptual threads, artistic manifestations, and ways of storytelling, the review introduces a generation of artists that is bonded to difficult and therefore challenging historical events from the 20th century, from the Holodomor in Soviet Ukraine to the Dąbroszczacy soldiers and autofictional lesbian literature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main objective of the article is to analyze the interactions between national and local memory cultures through a case study of multicultural Vilnius region (Vilnija) in Lithuania. It suggests that, on a national level, some memory policies implemented by the Lithuanian state can be seen as hegemonizing. Ethnic and ethno-regional categories constitute the content of these policies. They are reinforced by historical stereotypes about the region and its inhabitants, the majority of whom are Lithuanian Poles. During this process, local memories are being ignored, thus turned into counter-memories that emphasize the multi-layered identification formulas of the local inhabitants. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this article analyzes the place of the region in the Lithuanian historical metanarrative that developed over the last century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines two Estonian parody music videos that were broadcast in an annual sketch program Tujurikkuja (Mood Spoiler) on Estonian Public Broadcasting. The videos target narratives of exceptionalism and racism in contemporary Estonia. I discuss the role that public broadcasting has in the formation of national cultural memory and argue that the mode of parody music videos has a complex potential to make visible the multi-imaged and multi-voiced discourses present in otherwise homogenous remediations of national cultural memory. Furthermore, the parody, satire, and carnival of the videos is extended as they are made available on YouTube. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article looks at the life stories and the obscured past of the Latvian Roma with a focus on narratives of persecution during World War II. These narratives, while preserved in family circles and communicative memory, lack wider attention as the commemoration of victims of genocide is not well developed in Latvia. This research attempts to understand what prevents memories from entering the public sphere. For that, the author turns to Romani memory culture and other social factors that can influence the perpetuation of the collective memory of genocide. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Eastern Europe is the scene of multiple memory conflicts, especially between the Russian Federation and other regional states. Typically, analyses of these conflicts examine contradictions between opposed accounts, critique distortions of the historical record, and attempt to establish corrected narratives. Instead, the present article examines how seemingly incommensurate accounts may be elements of larger structures of entangled mutual reinforcement. Analysis is directed toward Latvian and Russian documentary film accounts of World War II, and reveals how alternate regimes of truth may operate not to destabilize one another, but rather to reinforce opposition and to support symmetrical occlusions in memory discourse. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article explores the discursive strategies of representation of potentially stigmatized Soviet era experience and its integration into a coherent construct of positiveselfas shaped in contemporary discursive contexts of Lithuanian memory culture. The critical moral reflection of potentially stigmatized Soviet era experience in the life stories of Lithuanian former Soviet officials is explored as a different strategy to the ‘pragmatic’ normalizations strategy of representation of this experience and integration of it into positive image of present self. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

This article creates a conceptual and methodological framework for reading case studies. First, it conceptualizes life story and oral history as medium of memory of the twentieth century. Second, it demonstrates how individual, social, and political formats and dimensions of memory intersect in remembering the Baltic socialism. Third, it shows how in a common attempt to remember the socialist past, groups and individuals encounter considerable differences of temporal horizon as well as differences in attributing importance to experiences and events. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

In the context of pluralization, globalization, and developments in pedagogy and academic history, ideas about the functions and objectives of history teaching (HT) have significantly diversified. Though traditional conceptions still prevail among the broader public, in professional circles traditional ideas about HT are accompanied by deconstructionist and multi-perspective approaches, deriving from the notion that history should not be regarded as true and unambiguous. The objective of this study is to discern the variety of representations of HT in Estonia, as reflected in an Estonian teachers’ weekly newspaper, an “interface” between the broader public and narrower professional spheres and discussions. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The article discusses Estonians' collective memory in postcommunist Estonia of the period during which the country was under the rule of the Soviet Union from 1960 through 1980, which is referred to as mature socialism. The article discusses narratives within autobiographies and biographies, including the portrayal of everyday life, so as to examine collective memory in Estonia. An overview of the relationship between Estonian personal and collective memory, including the impact of Estonian nationalism on memory, is provided.

The author offers opinions on how collective memory and interpretation of a country's history can affect its ability to be a democracy, focusing on Estonia. The traumatic nature of that country's history in the 20th century, particularly World War II and its incorporation into the Soviet Union, is acknowledged. IT is argued, however, that identity politics based on ethnic or national trauma creates both a distortion of history itself and a political culture where democracy and the values of an open society are more difficult to maintain. The hope is expressed that both Estonians and the country's Russian-speaking minority can embrace the pluralism the author sees as the foundation of an open society.

The article examines the role of collective memory in politics and government and international relations in the Baltic States. The ethnic and political conflicts created by different interpretations of those countries' history and their impact on the democracies that have existed in the Baltic States since the fall of the Soviet Union are considered. Examples of how collective memory has affected the political and social conditions of the Baltic States are cited from articles published elsewhere in this issue.

The article presents an examination into the divergences manifested between the collective memory of Lithuanian history under the control of the Soviet Union and in its academic scholarship on socialism and its history. Additional analysis is given connecting the question of historical memory with issues of ethnic identity and its implications on citizenship and national belonging. Case examples are provided exploring the depiction of work and money in the Soviet history curricula of Lithuanian schools, highlighting the co-existence of the two contradicting narratives regarding the "good times" and "bad times" of the nation's communist past.

The article presents an examination into the role of women as loci of social memory regarding historical trauma in post-Communist Lithuania. Introductory comments are given discussing the social interconnectedness of gender, meta-narrative and nationalism within Balkan states such as Lithuania. Case examples are listed of personal accounts of women experiencing deportation and politically resisting the actions in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Details are given analyzing both the circumstances of the accounts as well as the social-historical role the women played within them.

The article presents an examination into the social and institutional role of historians within the process of standardizing and canonizing past narratives in Estonia. Comparisons are made regarding the tensions surrounding control of the established historical narrative of the country during its Soviet period and in its post-Communist period. Particular attention is given to the relationships shared between professional historians and the political systems of their times. Additional issues addressed include the dichotomies of self-identification, broader collective memory, and practical political realities.

This study of post-World War II political refugees from Latvia in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s uses data from American and Latvian periodicals, printed materials and archival records to uncover the complexities in small immigrant groups' collective memory, political position and relations with the dominant group. When a number of Latvians were accused by the Office of Special Investigations of having lied on their immigration forms about their collaboration with the Nazis, this story gained political undertones and propelled the emigre community into an intra-group debate over its history and public image. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essay presents an exploration into the nationalistic constructions of Estonian history, the distinctions between cultural memory and history, and the combined concept of mnemohistory. Additional topics discussed include the power of narrative as an influential shaper of cultural memory, the three principal phases in the cultural memory formation of Estonia, and the primary paradigm of "the Great Battle for Freedom" which interprets Estonian history from the Middle Ages to the 20th-century.

The article discusses some scholarly aspects related to collective memory in the Baltic Sea region and beyond. The distinction between memory and history as well as communicative and cultural memory are discussed. It also highlights the national and transnational perspectives that shape public debates concerning collective memory.

The article discusses various reports published within the issue including an outline of the scholarly discussions on collective memory and places of memory, as well as the Estonian memory templates, and analysis of Soviet memory politics in Vilnius, Lithuania.