Researchers from all disciplines and stages in their careers are invited to send in paper abstracts of a maximum of 500 words as well as panel, workshop and roundtable abstracts of a maximum of 1000 words (including information on prospective presenters and papers).

Proposals indicating the respective section should be sent to the conference office balticstudies2013@tlu.ee by 1 February 2013.

Download the full CBSE_2013_call.pdf.

More information is available on the conference website.

The Joseph P. Kazickas Post-Doctoral Fellowship at Yale for citizens of Lithuania provides for one individual from Lithuania to study at Yale for a period of four to nine months. Applications will be accepted from individuals in the following fields: law, economics, business and finance, environmental policy, political science, international relations, and history. Full details are found here: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/2001

The Gita Padegs Fellowship at Yale for citizens of Estonia or Latvia provides for one individual from either Latvia or Estonia to conduct research at Yale in any field in the humanities or social sciences for a period of four to nine months. For this fellowship applicants can be either a Ph.D. candidate or a post-doctoral researcher. Full details are found here: https://academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/1999

Australasian section president, Delaney Skerrett addressed the question of whether an association that advances Baltic Studies is still relevant. "Yes, we are still relevant. Although we are no longer struggling to free ourselves from the Soviet Union and the post-communist transition is for all intents and purposes over, the transformation is not....The transition, Prof Marju Lauristin said, was a boat ride down the river. You get in and you know where you are going. And you know when you have reached the end. The transformation is a little more involved, however. You take the boat out into the ocean, and no one is really sure where the end is or when we might reach it. And that is why we are still relevant. Years on, although we are members of NATO and the EU, in Estonia's case the Eurozone, and hosts of the European Capital of Culture, we are still grappling with issues of great importance and great relevance."

Abstracts from the Australasian conference are available in the conference program AABS 16th Australasian Conference program.pdf

Read Delaney Skerrett's conference address All quiet on the Baltic front.pdf

Lively discussion at the Australasian Conference; photo by Gunars Nagels.

It was fitting that the University of Bradford and University of Glasgow, should collaborate to produce a co-edited Festschrift (Forgotten Pages in Baltic History) in honour of John's career, which was presented at the Latvian Embassy in London in October 2011. It meant a great deal to John that his wife Juliet and children Hugo and Jessica as well as other family members were able to join him on this occasion, alongside many other friends and colleagues from down the years. He will be missed enormously by everyone who knew him and had the privilege of working with him.

David Smith
University of Uppsala and University of Glasgow

(Read the full text: Hiden In Memoriam.pdf)

"Making Use of the Past: The Role of Historians in Baltic Sea Region Building" by Marta Grezchnik

"'The highest flights of circumlocutory art': Britain, Latvia and Recognizing the Soviet Annexation of 1940" by Geoffrey Swain

"How Normal is Normalization? The Discourses Shaping Finnish and Russian Speakers' Attitudes Toward Estonian Language Policy" by Delaney Michael Skerrett

"Explaining Electoral Reforms in Lithuania" by Žilvinas Martinaitis

"Performative Translation Options Under The Soviet Regime" by Anne Lange

You can download a conference info sheet australasia-2012-conference-info.pdf and a registration form australasia-2012conf-registration.doc. For further information, please contact Delaney Skerrett at d.skerrett@uq.edu.au.

AABS gratefully acknowledges the sponsorship of the School of Languages and Linguistics of the University of Melbourne for the Australasian Conference.

Dr. Murray presents a variety of evidence from narrative and documentary sources to demonstrate that the Western European term "Saracen" - originally applied to Arab invaders of the Byzantine Empire and by the fourteenth century a generic term for pagans - became a convenient tool which Western crusaders used to raise the prestige of their campaigns in the Baltic by comparing them to campaigns in the Holy Land, and also a label for denigrating their Lithuanian opponents even after the Lithuanians had abandoned paganism.

Liina Lukas is honored for her article "Estonian Folklore as a Source of Baltic-German Poetry," which appeared in the December 2011 issue of the JBS.

There has been an assumption that in the centuries during which Estonians and Latvians shared the southern Baltic littoral with Baltic Germans, cultural transfer went in one direction only: from the Baltic Germans to the Undeutsche (non-Germans). Dr. Lukas, however, argues that in the nineteenth century Estonians and Latvians through their oral traditions were themselves Kulturträger to Baltic Germans. In her article she shows how motifs and themes from Estonian folktales were used in Baltic-German ballads. She writes: "The knowledge about Estonian and Latvian heritage was a part of Heimatsinn, or a sense of home. . . Cultural communication in Baltic countries did not flow in only one direction (from Germans to Estonians [and to Latvians] but both ways."

These two books were selected because they represent the best overviews of Baltic history published since Reinhard Wittram's seminal work Baltische Geschichte (1954), extending their analysis to Lithuania along with Estonia and Latvia. Translations of both books into languages spoken throughout the Baltic region have been published or are in the publication process.

Other featured speakers included Vjačeslavs Dombrovskis, Member of Latvia's Parliament, who spoke on the Latvian economy, and Dick Durbin, U.S. Senator from the State of Illinois, who spoke on the U.S.-Baltic relationship. In addition to looking ahead to the next 20 years, keynote speaker: Pietro U. Dini, Linguist and translator, Università di Pisa provided a look back at the Baltic languages and nations in Renaissance Europe. Fifty-six panels addressed various aspects of the history, literature, culture, economy, politics and society of the Baltic region. The conference also included a session with Baltic writers and two evening musical performances. The conference was capped off with a banquet in Chicago's Greek Town and an entertaining performance by Solo performance by author, director and actor, Kęstutis Nakas, of his play "One Lithuanian Guy."

Incoming AABS President Ain Haas shares his vision of the future of Baltic Studies.

Interviews were conducted with various key ethnic Estonian and Russian-speaking figures in the field of LPP, including representatives from the Ministry of Education, the Language Inspectorate, the Integration and Migration Foundation, and the Centre for Human Rights. The objective was to investigate the discourses framing these individuals' views on LPP in Estonia and how these discourses relate to current as well potential future linguistic practices in the country.

Results indicate that Estonian enjoys "normalised" interethnic usage in the capital, Tallinn, but that Russian retains a relatively strong status in smaller towns in the capital region. There is also often little communication at all in interethnic transactions in public places. Integration and normalisation policies need to create social contexts that are conducive to practices of inclusion (i.e., mutual tolerance and meaningful interaction) between ethnic Estonians and Russian-speakers. This can be achieved through a rapprochement of discourses, by promoting a greater understanding of the attitudes, worldviews, and shared histories of the other group. At present, the discourses of many officials, ethnic Estonian and Russian-speaking alike, promote practices of exclusion (e.g., maintained separation of ethnic groups and lack of communication) rather than inclusion (e.g., integration and common language use).

Based on the sources that he analyzed at the Latvian State Historical Archive (Latvijas Valsts vēstures arhīvs), the Latvia State Archive of Audiovisual Documents (Latvijas Valsts kinofotofonodokumentu arhīvs), and the National Library of Latvia (Latvijas Nacionālā bibliotēka), Jordan has presented his work at the First Congress of Latvian Historians (Latvijas vēsturnieku pirmais congress) and will also give a talk at the upcoming 23rd AABS conference in Chicago.

Jordan is a PhD candidate in Modern European History at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. He has also received an IIE-U.S. Department of State Fulbright Fellowship, a U.S. Department of Education Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) Fellowship, and was selected for the UTK Chancellor's Award for Extraordinary Professional Promise.