Cloth: 978-90-485-7044-7

eISBN: 978-90-485-7509-1 (ePub)

eISBN: 978-90-485-7045-4 (PDF)

This collected volume offers an original perspective on the Baltic region by examining the intricate relationships between its diverse ethnic groups from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. Rather than focusing solely on national narratives or comparisons of historical development, the book analyzes ethnic relations through the lenses of identity, governance, empire, and violence. The nearly constant redrawing of geographic borders and boundaries among communities during this period destabilized fixed identities, generating novel, hybrid ways of self-identification along with a hardening of oppositions. Innovative forms of coexistence came with violent, sometimes genocidal conflicts. The contributors explore topics such as evolving senses of belonging, the impact of imperial and Soviet rule, instances of cooperation and conflict, and the legacies of historical trauma. By incorporating new sources and interdisciplinary approaches, they update traditional understandings of nations and nationalism in the Baltic region and provide insights relevant to similar regions.

Bradley D. Woodworth is Professor of History at the University of New Haven and Baltic Studies Program Manager at Yale University. His primary research interest is the multiethnic lands of the Baltic Sea region.Violeta Davoliute is Senior Researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History and Project Leader of Facing the Past: Public History for a Stronger Europe (Horizon Europe, WIDERA program, 2022–2025). She has published extensively on the topics of memory, historical trauma, population displacement, identity, and nationalism.Darius Staliunas is Chief Researcher at the Lithuanian Institute of History and teaches at Vilnius University. He has published extensively on Russia’s nationality policy in the so-called Northwestern Region (Lithuania and Belarus), ethnic conflicts, problems of historiography, and places of memory in Lithuania.

This path-breaking and well-researched collection of essays, by leading experts in the field, seeks to understand the history of the Baltic states—Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia—through an investigation of the relations between the peoples of this region over the past century and a half. It thus concentrates on the implication for these groups of their relations with the hegemonic imperial power, the Tsarist Empire and then the Soviet Union rather than on the emergence of the modern Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian nations. This provides a novel and innovative way of examining the history of the area, which is compared in the volume to the related, but in some ways dissimilar, developments in the South Caucasus. It is essential reading for all interested in the history of the Tsarist Empire and the Soviet Union, the nature of empire and the development of modern nationalism. . Antony Polonsky, Emeritus Professor of Holocaust Studies, Brandeis University. Chief Historian, Global Education Outreach Project, Museum of Polish Jews in Warsaw This study offers a fascinating new perspective on the dynamics of interethnic collaboration, conflict, and violence in the Baltic region. It sheds new light on the lived experiences of its peoples from the nineteenth century to the present day. . Ulrike von Hirschhausen, Director, German Historical Institute, Washington, D.C. A timely and insightful re-evaluation of ethnic relations across a region notable for its complexity and diversity. Bringing together internationally leading scholars from a range of disciplines, this volume foregrounds the relational and contingent nature of identity, its links to governance, and the impacts it has carried for Baltic societies over the past two centuries. David J Smith, Alec Nove Chair of East European Studies, University of Glasgow.

Crisis, Conflict and Security in Central and Eastern Europe , Political Ideologies, 20th Century, Modern, Europe, Political Science, History

License: OA CC BY-NC-ND