Upcoming Events

2026

  • March 4-5: Workshop "Reconstructing the Impact of Land Reform Across the Ruptures of 1918, 1944/45 and 1991", Tallinn University
  • April 10-12: Conference "BASEES Annual Conference 2026", University of Birmingham
  • May 28-30: Conference "The 30th Biennal AABS Conference - Diasporas: Buikding Bridges Across Nations", University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
  • September 1: Online presentation with Dr. Kestutis Kilinskas, who will present his research project: "The Implementation of the ‘Blood and Soil’ ideal in interwar Lithuania and its tradition in the post-1990 era as the way to create social group of the ‘founding fathers of the state’". More information can be found here.
  • October 2026: Workshop "Relationships of Societies and State in the Baltics, Including Lessons for Contemporary Politics", Kaunas

2027

  • Closing Workshop "Setting up the Archive of Landowning Subjectivities and Ensuring a Sustained Dialogue between University of Birmingham, Martin-Opitz-Library, and Herder Institute", Marburg

 

Past Events

2025

  • April 24-26: The 16th Conference on Baltic Studies in Europe (CBSE), University of Cambridge (UK)
    SOL Panel: Remembering Land Reform: The Impact of Land Reform on Identity in the Baltics
    Participants: Heidi Hein-Kircher, Klaus Richter, Raili Nugin, Anu Printsmann, Davis Pumpurins, Paris Pin-Yu Chen

The SOL panels examines how post1918 and post-1991 reform intersected with memory and identity, offering insights into the link between land ownership and the formation of historical subjectivities in the 20th-century Baltics. Land reform can serve as a key instrument of democratisation, state legitimacy, and social interaction.

  • July 21-25: XI World Congress of the International Council for Central and East European Studies (ICCEES), University College London (UK)
    SOL Panel: Remembering Land Reforms: Land Reform as Social and Economical Disruption and Their Impact on Identity in the Baltics and Beyond
    Participants: Davis Pumpurins, Paris Pin-Yu Chen, Heidi Hein-Kircher, Karolis Dambraukas

Over the 20th-century, land reforms in the Baltic states and East-Central Europe reshaped land ownership but affected people unevenly, intersecting with factors such as ethnicity, class, gender, and geography. This interdisciplinary panel examins the experiences of those who oned, lost, or claimed land during these reforms, focusing on how land ownership shaped their identities and relationships with communities, the environment, and the state, while highlighting the disproportionate impact on maginalised minorities and peripheral regions.

  • October 20-21: Workshop "Writing a History of Subjectivities in the Baltics", Daugavpils (Latvia)

The workshop discusses how to analyse 'subjectivities' in the Baltic states from a historical perspective. The discussion unites methodological considerations with empirical findings and case studies. Relying on the collection of the Oral History Center of the University of Daugavpils, the workshop examines the methodological problems of oral history, including the time-bound nature of the interviews, the language of the interviews and more.

2024

  • June 13-16: The 29th Biennial AABS Conference, Yale University and University of New Haven (Connecticut, USA)
    SOL Panel: Land Reform and Historical Memory in the Baltics
    Participants: Irēna Saleniece, Marta Starostina, Elke Bauer, Klaus Richter, Heidi Hein-Kircher, Andres Kasekamp

In the Baltic states, major land redistribution efforts after 1918 and 1991 payed a key role in shaping society and national identity by linking property reform to broader historical and moran narratives. The panel explored how these reforms intersect with memory, subjectivity, and prior agrarian policies, offering a more connected view of 20th-century Baltic history.

  • May 23-24: Kick-off Workshop, University of Birmingham (UK)

The workshop presented the SOL project to the experts in the field of the Baltic Studies, research on the subjectivity and land reform. Participants discussed the main concepts and engaged in a conversation about key methodological challenges that the project needs to address.