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SOVIET COLONIALISM IN THE BALTIC STATES


Special Issue of the Journal of Baltic Studies – under preparation
Editor: Dr. Epp Annus (Estonian Literary Museum, Research Group of Cultural and Literary Theory)


This special issue addresses the Soviet era in the Baltic States from a postcolonial perspective. Our aim is to present an interdisciplinary perspective, with writings ranging from politics and economy to culture and everyday life.

Recent decades have witnessed a steady growth of interest in postcolonial studies. Postcolonial critiques developed into a major critical movement in the 1980s in the North American academy. By now, the field has developed into a comparative research area that includes scholars from all over the world. As David Moore has written, “The colonial encounters of the past two hundred years—from Dakar to Calcutta, Samarkand to Jamaica, Skopje to Tallinn, or Vladivostok to Seattle by the long route were so global and widespread, in unstandardizable diversity, that every human being and every literature on the planet today stands in relation to them: as neo-, endo- and ex-, as post- and non-.”

Interest in postcolonial approaches to the Soviet empire started to develop in the early 1990s. By now, twenty years later, scholars working with the Soviet era have generally accepted the notion of a Soviet empire. Indeed, the colonial nature of the Soviet regime is often taken for granted and many scholars from the Eastern bloc have found postcolonial categories useful in their work.

In the specific field of Baltic studies, the postcolonial turn has developed more slowly. The collection Baltic Postcolonialism (2006, ed by Violeta Kelertas) was the first volume addressing the topic. Many articles on the topic have been published in the vernacular languages, yet these are not accessible to a wider readership.


Contributors:

Introduction
Epp Annus, Estonian Literary Museum

Comparing Colonial Differences: Baltic Literatures as Agencies of Europe’s Internal Others
Benedikts Kalnaès, University of Latvia
Abstract

Transculturation and Lettered Cities: The Case of Soviet Lithuania
Violeta Davoliute, Lithuanian Institute of Literature and Ethnography

Postcolonialist Perspective on the History of Estonian Art
Jaak Kangilaski, Estonian Academy of Arts
Abstract

Soviet Modernity? The Ideology of Contemporaneity in Estonian Art of the Thaw Period
Liisa Kaljula, Tallinn University
Abstract

Fighting Against Bourgeois Nationalism in Postwar Estonia: The Case Study of Hans Kruus
Jüri Kivimäe, University of Toronto

Soviet Man‘s Burden and Bourgeoisie as Internal Orient: Analysis of “Roses are Red” by Alfonsas Bieliauskas, 1959
Rasa Balockaite, Vytautas Magnus University

Travelogues by Latvian Writers of the Soviet Period in a Postcolonial Perspective
Maija Burima, Daugavpils University
Abstract

Estonian and Baltic Nationalisms through Postcolonial Lens
Piret Peiker, Tallinn University
Abstract

„The War is not Over…”? Rethinking Latvian Politics of the Past in Post-Colonial Discourse
Deniss Hanovs, Riga Stradins University
Abstract


NB!
This website offers a bibliography of relevant published articles about Baltic, Estonian and Soviet (post)colonialism.



The Journal of Baltic Studies is a peer-reviewed journal devoted to studying the Baltic region from a variety of disciplines, including history, sociology, economics, political science, anthropology and area studies. Visit the web page of the journal: http://depts.washington.edu/aabs/publications-journal.html