Identity and Foreign Policy Berg, Eiki; Ehin, Piret
2009, 20160513, 2009-02-01, 2016-05-13, 2016-05-16, 20090101
eBook
Baltic-Russian relations have been complicated and tense since the collapse of the USSR and the restoration of Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian independence. Although Baltic accession to the European ...Union (EU) has created a new international context for interstate relations in the region, enlargement did not bring about the much hoped for improvement in Baltic-Russian relations. This case-study-rich volume examines links between identity, memory politics and foreign policy. It analyzes and explains developments in Baltic-Russian relations after both NATO and EU enlargement, focusing on the incompatibility of Baltic and Russian post-Soviet national identity constructions and the manifestations of this underlying antagonism in bilateral relations and on the broader European and international arena. Built on the constructivist perspective in international relations, this volume provides a coherent and illuminating account of the dynamics of Baltic-Russian relations after NATO and EU enlargement. Combining policy-relevant analysis with theoretical insights, it will meet the needs of academics and students of foreign policy, EU external relations and international relations more generally.
This volume provides a transnational study of the impact of
musical cultures in the Eastern Baltics-Lithuania, Latvia, Poland,
and Russia-at the end of the Cold War and in the early
post-Communist ...period. Throughout the book, the contributors
explore and conceptualize transnational musical collaboration and
the diffusion of information, people, and ideas focusing on musical
activity which shaped the moral and artistic outlook of several
generations. The volume sheds light on the transformative power of
politically and socially engaged music and offers a deeper
understanding of the artistic potential of societies and its impact
on social and political change.
The Soviet Counterinsurgency in the Western Borderlands investigates the Soviet response to nationalist insurgencies that occurred between 1944 and 1953 in the regions the Soviet Union annexed after ...the Nazi-Soviet pact: Eastern Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. Based on new archival data, Alexander Statiev presents the first comprehensive study of Soviet counterinsurgency that ties together the security tools and populist policies intended to attract the local populations. The book traces the origins of the Soviet pacification doctrine and then presents a comparative analysis of the rural societies in Eastern Poland and the Baltic States on the eve of the Soviet invasion. This analysis is followed by a description of the anti-communist resistance movements. Subsequently, the author shows how ideology affected the Soviet pacification doctrine and examines the major means to enforce the doctrine: agrarian reforms, deportations, amnesties, informant networks, covert operations, and local militias.
The Baltic North, Michael; Kronenberg, Kenneth
2015
eBook
From the Vikings to the EU the Baltic has been a Nordic Mediterranean, a shared maritime zone with distinct patterns of trade, cultural exchange, and conflict. Covering a thousand years in a part of ...the globe where seas are more connective than land, Michael North's overview transforms the way we think about one of the world's great waterways.
The essays in The Baltic Security Puzzle, contributed by respected international experts, assess the components of this Baltic security puzzle. They place the security and political interests of the ...three Baltic States of Latvia, Estonia, and Lithuania within the historical, economic, and political narratives of the greater Baltic region.
The years from 1918 to 1945 remain central to European History. It was a breath-taking time during which the very best and very worst attributes of Mankind were on display. In the euphoria of peace ...which followed the end of the First World War, the Baltic States emerged as independent forces on the world stage, participating in thrilling experiments in national and transnational governance. Later, following economic collapse and in the face of rising totalitarianism among even Europe's most cultured nations, Baltic communities succumbed to nationalism too. During wartime, Baltic peoples became both victims and, sometimes, victimisers. Ultimately their victimhood lasted until the end of the Cold War, yielding consequences still discernible at the start of the twenty first century. Taking the period 1918 to 1945 as pivotal, this collection of essays examines some of the key themes in Baltic History as they are emerging today. These include appreciations of identity, autonomy and the rights of national minorities; the everyday and social foundations of international security; and the importance of historical memory to popular and political identities.
In an innovative effort to situate Baltic testimonies to the Gulag in the broader international context of research on displacement and memory, scholars from the Baltic States, Western Europe, ...Canada, and the United States seek answers to the following questions: Do different groups of deportees experience deportation differently? How do the accounts of women, children and men differ in their representation? Do various ethnic groups remember the past differently: how do they use historical and cultural paradigms to structure their experience in unique ways? The scholars researched the archives, read testimonies, interviewed former deportees, and examined artifacts of memory produced since the late 1980s, applying crossdisciplinary approaches used at the study of the Holocaust testimonies; the testimonies of women have received a particular emphasis. The essays in the book also examine the issues of transmittance, commemoration and public uses of the memory of deportations in contemporary social, cultural and political contexts of Baltic societies, including the reflection of Gulag legacy in literature, the cinema and museums.
Russia's European Agenda and the Baltic States Sleivyte, Janina
Russia's European Agenda and the Baltic States,
2010, 20091216, 2009, 2009-12-07, 2009-12-16, 20100101, Letnik:
19
eBook, Book
Odprti dostop
Russian foreign policy has become an increasing concern in 21 st century, together with Russia’s relations with its former Soviet neighbours - but its relations with the Baltic States are ...particularly sensitive, given the Baltic membership of NATO and the EU and Russia’s increasingly fractious relations with those institutions. This book discusses the development of Russia’s approach to the new security architecture in Europe and assesses the prospects for a more active engagement of Russia in the Baltic Sea region and Europe as a whole. The book considers the full range of issues affecting security, including energy, economic relations; the special position of Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave; and Russia’s special interest in the Russian minorities in the former Soviet Baltic states. The evolution of Russian-Baltic relations from 1990-2008 is set in the more general context of Russia’s European agenda, looking into the role and place of the Baltic States in this agenda. It provides a comparative analysis of the European agenda in of Russia’s foreign policy under Boris Yeltsin, Vladimir Putin and Dmitry Medvedev, and concludes that, despite the replacement of the former Cold War stand-off with a more positive climate and a complicated array of bilateral and multilateral contacts much more still needs to be done to engage Russia fully with the new Europe
1. Introduction 2. Russia’s Foreign Policy under Yeltsin: Domestic and International Context 3. Evolution of Russia’s Foreign Policy under Putin and Medvedev (2000-2008) 4. Russia and Europe 5. The Russian Factor in Baltic Security 6. Lithuania’s Relations with Russia: A Case Study 7. Russo-Baltic Relations: Summary and Perspectives
Janina Šleivyte is Senior Advisor to the Lithuanian Ministry of Defence. She was formerly a member of the Defence Policy and Planning Division of the NATO International Staff.
This book examines how the military orders and the ideology of crusading gave rise to a new sacred landscape in the medieval Baltic region, an outpost of Latin Christianity. Drawing on a wide variety ...of sources and international scholarship, the book discusses the paganism of the landscape in written sources pre-dating the crusades, in addition to the narrative, legal, and visual evidence of the crusade period. It draws out the key sacralizing elements as expressed in those sources, which structure the definition of sacred landscape, particularly martyrdom, the manifestation of the sacred, and use of relics in battle. By analyzing these aspects with Geographical Information Systems (GIS), a map of the Baltic campaigns emerges that provides a fresh approach to studying contemporary views of holy war in a region with no initial links to the loca sancta of Jerusalem or Europe.
The root question this book addresses is how the new Germany will use its re-found status as a great power. Does Germany - as in the past - aim to dominate Europe? Or has it renounced its imperial ...ambitions following the trauma of division during the Cold War? In seeking answers to these questions, Kristina Spohr Readman scrutinises the development of Germany's new Ostpolitik (eastern policy) in the period 1989-2000. Against the background of recent European history, she analyses the re-establishment of a special relationship between Bonn/Berlin and Moscow. In particular, she assesses the peculiar geopolitical situation of the Baltic states: caught between a turbulent Russia in the east and a unified Germany in the west. The Baltic case reveals the complexities of a post-Cold War European security architecture in the making.
Kristina Spohr is Junior Research Fellow at Christs' College Cambridge, where she also teaches twentieth century European history. She has published several articles on German unification and NATO's eastern enlargement.
1. Germany and the Baltics in the Cold War Endgame, 1989-1991 2. German Questions Past and Present 3. Unified Germany's West(europa)politik in a 'Time Which As Yet Has No Name' 4. Germany and Russia Reborn: Back to the future? 5. The Baltic States: A gauge of Germany's new Ostpolitik and European security 6. Conclusion
