June 24-25, 2025

A Title VIII Research Training Workshop at the Summer Research Laboratory at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.

The full workshop program can be found here.

Moderators:

Dr. Violeta Davoliūtė (Vilnius University, Institute of International Relations and Political Science)
Dr. Dovilė Budrytė (Georgia Gwinnett College, Department of Political Science, Criminal Justice and International Studies, and Vytautas Kavolis Transdisciplinary Research Institute, Vytautas Magnus University)

Workshop agenda

This workshop will focus on how scholars can understand the changes in identities and mnemonic policies of the Baltic states and countries in Eastern Europe, as they grapple with the many consequences of the Russia-Ukraine war.  There is a growing understanding that for the states in the region this war became a “decolonizing moment of sorts” (Mälksoo 2022), a critical point which resulted in major identity changes and new discourses, arguably even changing the previous perception of the region as a weak “in-between space,” as the states asserted their agencies and found their voices in championing the Ukrainian case in various international forums. Within the states, we are witnessing attempts at de-sovietization and/or russification, waves of dismantling and renaming monuments to events relating to the Second World War, and intensification of mnemonic conflicts over the Soviet past and other painful memories like collaboration, and local participation in the Holocaust and other atrocities.

This workshop will address the following questions: How can theoretical perspectives on securitization of memory and decolonization help us to interpret this critical moment in the history of the region?  Are we witnessing democratic processes of decolonizing memory—an emancipatory move in the region to get rid of the Soviet heritage, or is this a move towards illiberal politics of memory?  Has the war been a truly transformative event, or is this the continuation of previous memory regimes and identity formation processes?  How do the changes in identities and mnemonic policies of the Baltic states and other countries in the region compare with the reactions to the war in the other parts of the world?

This Research Training Workshop will take place as part of the Summer Research Laboratory on Russia, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia hosted annually at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The Summer Research Laboratory program at Illinois is funded by the U.S. Department of State, through its Program for Research and Training on Eastern Europe and the Independent States of the Former Soviet Union (Title VIII).  It is co-hosted each year by the Russian East European and Eurasian Center (REEEC) and the Slavic Reference Service (SRS) at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.  REEEC and SRS also receive funding from the U.S. Department of Education through its Title VI program, for which REEEC serves as a designated National Resource Center.

All sessions and panels hosted by the Summer Research Laboratory are open to the public. Any interested SRL Associates are invited to attend if they are on campus.