Editorial Foreword

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, 2017

This article is a case study on the role of media during the Cold War era. The aim is to present the effects of the ventures of Swedish journalists in Poland during the strike of summer 1980 and in its aftermath when the Polish authorities decided to accept the creation of a new trade union independent from the communist regime. How these events were interpreted and what kind of the future was predicted? The article will demonstrate that the creation and development of ”Solidarity” Trade Union was received with a great interest in Sweden as well as in other western countries. Besides, it proves that this interest was a result of the course and the meaning of internal changes in Poland. Their scale and the non-violent means by which they were reached surprised and impressed numerous foreign observers.

[in:] J. Harvard, P. Stadius (red.), Communicating the North. Media Structures and Images in the Making of the Nordic Region. Ashgate, 2013, 289-318. ISBN: 978-1-4094-4948-5

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, Vol. 9, issue 1, 2017

Volume 9, issue no. 1 (2017) of Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice / The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies (RRSBN) is divided into three main parts. The first part deals with the Swedish perception of East-Central European 20th Century developments. The article bearing the signature of Paweł Jaworski of the University of Wrocław tackles the first two months Solidarność as seen from the perspective of the Swedish press. A very innovative article it details the imagology of the set up and evolution of the syndicate and investigates how the relations between this emerging independent civil society and the Communist Party evolved. The article corroborates press analysis with international relations and bilateral relations between Poland and Sweden and shows their impact on the rather privileged status enjoyed by Swedish journalists in the Communist country. The second article by Alin-Marian Dudoi focuses on Gustav Bolinder and Arvid Fredborg’s accounts of Transylvania at the end of World War II. Although the original Swedish books and their significance have already been investigated by some authors, the article looks at their perspectives in relation to the Romanian national credo and adopts the stand of the former which supported the claim that Transylvania should belong to Romania mostly based on ethnography. The second section of the journal is devoted to Norwegian and Baltic studies in Romania. Crina Leon, lecturer of Norwegian at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi deals with the study of this language at the university starting with the academic year 2005-2006 when it was included in a Master’s program “German Culture in a European Context” and when it began to be taught at the Centre of Foreign Languages of the oldest academic institution in extra-Carpathian Romania. The article follows the genealogy and evolution of Norwegian studies at “Alexandru Ioan Cuza” University of Iaşi pinpointing at the landmark events which raised their status within her alma mater. Silviu Miloiu discusses the sources, beginnings and perspectives of Baltic studies in Romania, focusing in the latter part of his article on the academic courses of Baltic and Nordic studies introduced at Valahia University of Târgoviște in the academic year 2000/2001 and their developments afterwards. It also explores the activity of the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies as an organization expressly devoted to these fields of studies in Romania. The organization acts as an institute of Baltic and Nordic studies in itself but also as an umbrella for these researches in Romania and beyond. The scholarly, educational, editorial, dissemination of its activities constitute the core of the last part of the article. The third section of the journal integrates the insightful analysis of Alexandru Ciocîltan of the Catholic communities in Valahia at the beginning of the Modern Age. The transformations suffered by these minority communities, including their discrimination, vanishing, resurrection and renewal stand at the center of this contribution. Finally, this issue brings to the fore a Norwegian journalist and author, with a profound knowledge of Romania, Svanhild Naterstad, in a fascinating interview taken by Crina Leon. How she discovered Romania, her contribution to the Norwegian-Romanian relations and the cultural exchanges between the two states are very well mirrored in this interview.

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies Vol. 2, issue 2,, 2010

This issue of Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice [The Romanian Journal of Baltic and Nordic Studies, RRSBN] crowns a year of steady progress in terms of number and quality of the programs and actions run by The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies (ARSBN). The highlights of this year have been the first international conference for Baltic and Nordic Studies in Romania entitled Romania and Lithuania in the Interwar International Relations: Bonds, Intersections and Encounters, the opening of the exhibition dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Romanian-Finnish diplomatic relations (exhibition which has travelled since its first opening about 850 miles) and of the first Lithuanian exhibition displayed in a Romanian art gallery and the awarding of the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of Valahia University to Dr. Vladimir Jarmolenko, the Ambassador of Lithuania to Bucharest and Honorary Chairman of our Association. Besides, the members of the Association have been involved in research whose results have been disseminated in books, international and national conferences, thus contributing to the spreading of knowledge and the encouragement of debates on subjects close to its aims. The second issue of RRSBN also brings a novelty in the meaning that 2010 is the first year when the journal is published biannually as it will appear henceforth. Having been projected at the end of 2008, its first volume was published in November 2009. The articles published in this issue bring forth new documentary evidences and fresh interpretations upon a variety of topics regarding the history, the history of international relations or the history of commercial bonds of Baltic and Nordic European nations, in some cases in connection to the developments in the Black Sea area. In spite of the array of topics, some sections can be however distinguished. The first one encompasses the two articles signed by Costel Coroban and Veniamin Ciobanu regarding the role of Sweden in the international relations at the beginning of the 18th and of the 19th centuries when this power had to cope with its declining role in the international relations. After its defeat in the Battle of Poltava, Sweden gradually came to be regarded as the minor actor in the international diplomatic game in comparison with its more powerful neighbors of Britain, Russia or Napoleon’s France. The first article describes how Sweden tried to rise again to the status of Great Power with the financial support of the Jacobites and what were the international implications of the plot in which Swedish emissaries have allowed themselves to be engaged in Britain. Integrating a number of nine important archival documents, the second article proves the wide interest of Sweden regarding the international circumstances leading to the downfall of Imperial France in its attempt to adopt a wise foreign policy to compensate through the annexation of Norway for the loss of Finland to Tsarist Russia in 1809. Thus, Sweden was also looking to the developments of the Eastern Question and to the policies of Britain, France and Russia with regard to the Ottoman Empire. If the Napoleonic Wars caused havoc in Europe and finally ended in the defeat of France and in the setting up of a new European order, the First World War had an even bigger impact on the European states system. Big empires vanished overnight and new states emerged or were re-established. The consequences have been momentous and the researchers are still discussing them today. As a regenerated state in Central Europe, the Polish elites wanted to wipe out the history of more than a century when it was divided between the neighboring Great Powers and to regain its place among Europe’s major actors. The memory of Polish drive towards the Black Sea was not forgotten. Taking into account also its 1921 alliance with Romania and the attempts to widen out the outlets of its merchandises, Poland pondered about the possibilities to ease its access to the Black Sea area. In the end, these projects had to be abandoned, as Florin Anghel proves, mainly due to the similarity of the export merchandises of Poland and Romania and to the low living standard of the Poles and Romanians which restricted their purchasing power. It must not be overlooked the Soviet threat which was deeply felt by the two countries. At their eastern borders tens of millions of people were engaged in one of the most gigantic restructuring of a country’s geography, economy and mentality that the history has ever witnessed: “the construction of Socialism” in an agrarian backward empire. The life experiences of one of the most intriguing groups of people engaged in this challenging strive, the 6,000 Finns emigrating from North America to Soviet Union, is described in Kitty Lam’s article. Skilled workers initially welcomed as the vanguard of proletariat in the newly established Karelian Autonomous Republic, they will soon find themselves condemned as enemies of the people. Basing her analysis on the letters and memoirs of those living through these experiences, the author discusses the extent to which the immigrants have integrated in a new ideological setting and how their rapidly deteriorating status has affected their life experiences and their identity. Olaf Mertelsmann also brings forth a research topic regarding a largely obscured subject when one thinks of Stalinism: the leisure in Estonian SSR. Following his archival, oral history and life stories research, the author argues that leisure was however “an important aspect of everyday life in Estonia under Stalin’s reign”. He identifies traits of continuity with the interwar patterns and concludes that the Leviathan’s attempts to control leisure and re-educate the population have failed to bear the expected fruits. Another section of the journal covers international developments circumscribed to World War II. Silviu Miloiu studies the relations between Romania and Finland in the aftermath of the launching of the Barbarossa Campaign. In 1940 both states had been subjected to Soviet military or political aggression and lost territories in the east in favor of Soviet Union. Subsequently, Moscow continued to be regarded as menacing and therefore they were happy to use the opportunity of the German attack in order to recapture the lost territories and to remove the Russian threat. This new situation occasioned a steady progress in the Romanian-Finnish relations which grew as a result of a combination of balance of power and joint action. The main promoter of this progress was Romania, a country which was searching for more influence on the international arena in expectance of the peace conference to be open in the aftermath of the predictable Soviet debacle. Despite its huge losses, the Red Army survived to the German Blitzkrieg in 1941 and Stalin continued to hope that the spheres of influence that Hitler had recognized him in 1939 will be also acceded to by the Western Allies. Yet, the British-Soviet treaty of May 1942 contains no clause to this end and the discussions on this issue will linger on for two years. As Emanuel Plopeanu proves in his article, Germany was however interested in spreading the rumors through some Swedish newspapers that such a secret agreement was incorporated in the treaty, thus hoping to influence not only the public opinion in the neutral countries, but perhaps also to give its smaller allies new incentives to continue sending troops and resources to the eastern front. Ironically, the German propaganda half-lies seemed to be confirmed by the post-war realities when the Baltic States, for instance, were re-annexed to Soviet Union. When they regained their independence in the early 1990s, the Baltic nations oriented themselves towards the West in which many of them saw a shield against the menacing eastern neighbor and a path towards prosperity. Lithuania is a case in point. Elena Dragomir’s article approaches Lithuania’s EU membership by comparing the “return to Europe” speech of the politicians with the views of the public opinion as they resulted from a series of opinion polls. The conclusion of the author is that when compared, the two images almost overlap so that it can be said that the Lithuanian drive towards the EU integration has enjoyed the support of the public opinion. The last section of the journal is dedicated to the awarding of the title of Doctor Honoris Causa to the Ambassador of Lithuania, one of signatories of the Act of Restoration of Independence of his country on March 11, 1990, has constituted not only a solemn recognition of a politician, diplomat and researcher’s outstanding qualities, but has also marked a new step in the progress of the cultural relations between Romanian and Lithuanian higher education and research institutions. Consequently, we have chosen to integrate in this issue the speeches of the Rector of Valahia University of Targoviste, the laudatio and the other speeches of the commission established in order to grant the title and the reception speech of Dr. Vladimir Jarmolenko. It is our hope that this issue of RRSBN will generate new academic debates with regard to the topics approached herein. It is also our aim to target not only the community of scholars with an interest in these topics in the light of their research interest, but also to answer the public interest not only in Romania but also abroad. In order to achieve these goals and to spread this journal throughout Romanian, European and North American libraries and institutions, an essential support came from the Romanian National Cultural Fund Administration [Administraţia Fondului Cultural Naţional] to which we extend our gratitude.

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, vol. 3, issue 1, 2011

This issue of Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice [The Romanian Journal of Baltic and Nordic Studies, RRSBN] carries selected papers presented in approximately half of the panels of the second international conference for Baltic and Nordic Studies in Romania entitled Black Sea and Baltic Sea Regions: Confluences, influences and crosscurrents in the modern and contemporary ages. The general aim of this conference was to investigate the encounters between the Baltic and the Black Sea regions’ societies since the Middle Ages. The goal was to unearth the complexity of these bonds not only at state level (political, diplomatic, military, trade relations), but also the encounters, forms of syncretism or networks of a commercial, social, cultural, religious nature which are beyond or beneath the state relations and are presumably not only richer, but more interesting and challenging for a researcher as well. Additionally, parallels between the two regions as two buffer zones situated in-between the great empires or great powers of modernity were also assessed. Papers dealing with the effects of world wars, totalitarianism and the Cold War either as comparative approach or in terms of relations, confluences and influences were also invited. Furthermore, the conference also welcomed research results dealing with diasporas, émigré communities or individual destinies in the frame of the general theme of the conference. As such, this conference constituted a real change of research paradigm, relatively little having been previously achieved in this respect. The results of the conference as the two issues of our review will prove were notable. A number of twenty-eight speakers belonging to twenty-three institutions from nine European countries approached these issues from various angles, the largest number of participants being constituted of historians, alongside whom stood specialists in international relations, minority studies, political sciences, etc. In the editing of this issue, we have focused on the panels dealing with “Settlements, transfers, encounters and clashes in the Modern Age” and “Baltic, Nordic and Black Sea regions in the international relations: intersections, meetings, crosscurrents” to which the papers signed by Stefan Donecker, Klaus Richter, Mihaela Mehedinţi, Costel Coroban, Veniamin Ciobanu and Claudiu-Lucian Topor belonged. Let us take a closer look at each of these papers individually. Stefan Donecker and Klaus Richter’s papers approached their subjects from the perspective of histoire croisée, the former researcher studying the humanist hypothesis of a Wallachian origin of Lithuanians and Latvians, while the latter considering the cultural transfers and the role of rumors as manifesting between Kišinyev and Lithuania in a charged climate marked by the wave of anti-Jewish pogroms occurring in the Russian Empire at the beginning of the 20th century. The scholarly fantasy circulated by University of Wittenberg’s scholars regarding a Wallachian migration to the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea endured for about one century and half. This prompts Donecker conclude that on the mental maps of Central European scholars, “Dacia respectively Wallachia were not too civilized […], but still civilized enough to provide a reputable and very prestigious ancestry. A Wallachian origin was, indeed, an honorable genealogy.“ The outbreak of a pogrom in 1903 in the Russian guberniya of Bessarabia spread the fear among Jews within the Russian Empire. The expression to be treated “as in Kišinev” was tantamount to pogroms and was enough reason to create panic among the members of this community. The implications were manifold, not the less important of which was the determination of the Jews to defend themselves if such attacks happened or were supposed to take place. Richter also compares the disruptions caused by anti-Semitism in two very different areas of the Russian Empire, the growing industrial city of Kišinev, on the one hand, and the still rural northern part of Lithuania “in order to contextualize anti-Jewish violence in Lithuania on the larger scale of the Russian pogroms.” Mihaela Mehedinţi approaches in her contribution the relations between Transylvania and the Nordic countries (Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland) in the 19th century as seen in Romanian periodicals from Transylvania, especially in Foaie pentru minte, inimă şi literatură, Familia and Gazeta de Transilvania. The article challenge the assumptions that because of distance the Nordic states were perceived as remote areas and little was known about them. Mehedinţi concludes that “in the 19th century, Transylvanians’ image of the Nordic countries is well shaped and has mainly positive connotations” and “the amount of information they had at their disposal was rather large and capable of preserving their representations of Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland”. The papers of the panel “Baltic, Nordic and Black Sea regions in the international relations: intersections, meetings, crosscurrents” provide interesting insights into three important events unfolded in the Black and Baltic seas rim areas: Swedish King Charles XII’s Stay in the Ottoman Empire, the outbreak of the Lithuanian insurrection (25 March 1831), and the discussion regarding a Romanian-Swedish pro-German alliance going on in the first part of World War I. The first topic is assessed in the light of British documents, the second from the perspective of Swedish documents and the third is based on Romanian diplomatic documents. Costel Coroban investigates the mixture of superhero and tyrant British perception of King Charles XII. The balance was however tilted towards the negative image which spread into Britain mostly as a result of his largely overestimated cooperation with the Jacobites, the archenemies of the Royal House of Hanover, which led to the arrest of Count Gyllenborg, the Swedish envoy in London. Veniamin Ciobanu approaches the Swedish outlook of the Lithuanian insurrection of March 1831 in the light of the anxiety manifesting in the Stockholm political and diplomatic circles that the severance of the ties between Lithuania and Russia may influence the attitude of the Norwegians who were likewise unhappy with the Swedish rule upon their country imposed at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. No wonder that the Swedish paid increased attention to the events unfolding at the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea and that they unreservedly condemned the Lithuanian aspirations. Finally, Claudiu-Lucian Topor brings new evidence to a topic which still reserves many new avenues of interpretation to the interested researcher: the Romanian foreign policy in the first two years of World War I. Masterminded in Berlin in summer 1915 among the interested military circles and promoted by the pro-German Romanian envoy to Germany, the project of a Romanian-Swedish alliance to act under the umbrella of German strategic policy, aimed at winning the final victory on the Eastern Front and possibly on the Western Front, too. Utopian as it may seem today, the plan enjoyed the support of certain circles, but finally died out because of the Swedish clinging to their neutrality and of the Bratianu Government understanding of national interest. Two articles have been selected for this issue from two other panels of the conference. The first article signed by Ioana-Ecaterina Cazacu discusses the role of the Nansen Commission and the Romanian Prisoners of War’s repatriation from the Russian territories, a topic on which the author has already achieved two other notable recent contributions. In order to understand the stakes ahead this Commission, one may recall that the Nansen Commission was capable of repatriating no less than 427,885 POWs, 19,188 of whom, as Cazacu provides evidence of, were Romanians. Ēriks Jēkabsons of the University of Latvia studies the relations between Romania and Latvia at the beginning of World War II when a permanent Latvian Legation was set up in Bucharest under envoy Ludvigs Ēķis.

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, vol. 1, issue 1, 2009

Having been set up on November 27, 2008, the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies (ARSBN) has established as its fundamental goals the promotion of research activities in the field of Baltic and Nordic studies, the encouragement of knowledge in public benefit regarding this geographical area, including by the means of education, especially of higher education, the cooperation with similar institutions and associations from Romania and abroad, the promotion of the dialogue and cooperation on the axis the Baltic Sea – the Black Sea. In this regard, the establishing of a scientific publication to further our knowledge of Baltic and Nordic societies and to spread information about the Romanian society to Baltic and Northern Europe was essential. The magazine was also regarded as a springboard for the mutual acknowledgment of the bonds and relations between Romanians and the Baltic and Nordic peoples throughout their history and in contemporary times. It was our understanding and hope that the magazine will become a multidisciplinary publication hosting articles in fields such as history, history of international relations, international relations, literature and philology, economics and business, and various other sciences. When established, the editorial college also considered that it will be in the advantage of the magazine to include also book and article reviews, assessments of scientific conferences or notes of doctoral studies in the fields covered by the publication which will promote the dialogue between the two peripheries of the European continent. A year after the project was decided upon, the first issue of Revista Română de Studii Baltice şi Nordice (RRSBN) comes out bringing forth articles published by scientists from Estonia, Finland, Lithuania and Romania. Although as it was expected to happen the articles included in the first issue are mostly dealing with historical developments, it must be pointed out that the themes and the approaches differ significantly. Chronologically, the articles cover the interwar period, the Cold War, and larger time periods as it happens with Alexandru Popescu’s notes. Thematically, two articles focus on processes taking place in one particular country, but with larger regional or international connotations. Thus, at a time when the scholarly research focuses on the transition to market economy, Olaf Mertelsmann goes back in time and shows how the opposite process happened. The large scale of changes in the structure of property and the gradual loss of private entrepreneurial skills as well as the human and economic costs should be remembered when dealing with post-1989 transition. In terms of outcomes, Mertelsmann concludes that “transition to command economy was something like the worst possible scenario”. Instead, Elena Dragomir approaches the Cold War from a different perspective. With the Soviet Union collapsing and the self-censure gradually being renounced at, the recent past started to be reinterpreted in order to fit the new Finnish foreign and domestic policy aims. The debate over the legacy of Finlandization was passionate, but the mainstream political opinion tended to practice a sort of “protochronism” by inventing roots and traits to developments that have emanated in the post-Cold War environment. This kind of ideology rapidly acquired some sort of legitimacy and pass through to younger generation which could not be judged as pursuing a hidden political agenda. Two articles carried in this issue of RRSBN approach, based on new archival findings, the intersections between the populations from Romania and those in Baltic area and Scandinavia. Cezar Stanciu’s article focuses on the state relations between a Communist totalitarian regime and the democratic states of Northern Europe at a time when a rapprochement was contemplated. Desirous to reconnect to the words trade flow and acquire a more autonomous profile in the international relations, Romania was nevertheless wavering in the relations with Scandinavia and was more astute in relation to Finland, a country trusted in Moscow to a larger extent. On contrary, Vasile Ciobanu has approached the “transnational” approach between German minorities in Transylvania and the Baltic states. By sharing numerous common concerns and facing common challenges and nurturing common projects, the communities of Sibiu Saxons and Estonia and Latvia’s Balts have developed networks and contacts of mutual benefit. Ciobanu’s discoveries thus add to the recent publications by John Hiden and Martyn Housden on this topic. The role of perceptions and the Danish travelers mindsets about Romanians are approached in Oana Lăculiceanu’s contribution. Although the article may be fitted into the same category of transnational history, it brings forth no new conceptual interpretations, but contributes with interesting and sometimes hilarious facts to the encounters between Romanians and Danes. Citizens of Denmark, a developed agrarian country according to the European standards, were sometimes shocked when they encountered the Romanian realities, especially as they looked in some rural or town periphery areas. Their descriptions of Bucharest, of the Romanian peasant and of the dynamics of development in a “third world country” – to put it so – are rude expressions of the differences between Northern and South Eastern Europe at the beginning of the 20th century and a reminder of the reasons for which the relations between those societies were so limited. Alexandru Popescu’s contribution enriches the chronology and bibliography of the Romanian-Finnish relations with new facts and is a testimony of the recent developments to which the author himself, a former diplomatic counselor in the Romanian Embassy in Helsinki, has contributed. Nerijus Babinskas’ theoretical contribution compares the approaches to the concept of tributalism of Samir Amin, Hohn Haldon and H.H. Stahl., a Romanian sociologist and historian from Dimitrie Gusti’s school of thought. The author discovers a gap between the Western and Eastern historiography traditions by the importance the concept has acquired in West and emphasizes why the debate is still important and topical. In the end, I hope that the novelty of interpretation and the new findings behind the articles included in the first issue of RRSBN will attract scholarly and public interest and give birth to fresh academic debates on the exchange of cultural values between the Romanian space and Baltic and Nordic Europe in the past and – as this new magazine shows – in the present. The new networks created between Romanian and Baltic and Nordic scholars can open new avenues of cooperation and contribute to the progress of our scholarly and public agendas and the magazine is ready to become a mirror of those developments.

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, vol. 5, issue 1, 2013

Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice / The Romanian Journal of Baltic and Nordic Studies (RRSBN) continues the publication in this issue of a series of studies which have been presented at the annual conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies in Romania. These articles approach topics related to the relations and encounters between Black Sea and the Baltic Sea areas or various developments in the Baltic Sea region during the 20th century. Kari Alenius contributes to this issue with an analysis of the way Romania was presented in the Finnish schoolbooks. As correctly emphasized by the author, this image reflects the perception and attitude of the authors of „ the outside world and diversity”. Alenius identifies four stages in this respect: end of 1800s until the end of the First World War; early years of the 1920s to the 1950s; the 1960s to the 1980s and the last decades since the 1990s. Although each stage emphasized different characteristics of Romania, the author finds also continues among them. Saulius Kaubrys deals with the Jewish faction at the Third Seimas of Lithuania in 1926-1927. This was a time when the Jewish faction entered the government. Although it showed solidarity with its coalition partners and hoped that by doing so its aims would be dealt with, the fact that progress in this regard was slow and the coup d’état of December 1926 marked a change of attitude of the Jewish faction from pro-active to passive. Dalia Bukelevičiūtė approaches the project of the Eastern Pact of 1934–1935 from the perspective of two regional cooperation structures, the Baltic Entente and the Little Entente. The author concludes that in the process of negotiations, it became apparent that countries were more concerned with their narrow national interests than with the common security of the whole bloc. Kalervo Hovi highlights the rationalities behind Finnish decision to go to war against the Soviet Union alongside, although not in alliance, with Germany. The decision was a result of the way the Finnish elites assessed the national interest in the aftermath of the Winter War. Dragana Kovacevic approaches the condition of Bosnians and Herzegovinans residing in Norway who moved to Norway as children and war refugees in the 1990s. It discusses the way they relate to their identity and heritage and also how the receiving society perceives their integration in the Norwegian society. Kovacevic brings into light concepts such as transnational belongings and long-distance nationalism. An outcome of ample investigations in Sveriges Riksarkivet, Veniamin Ciobanu contributes with new documents revealing the international dimension of the Russian brutal suppression of the Polish insurrection (November 1830). Countries such as Great Britain and France tried to soften the attitude of Russia towards Polish insurgents. We hope that the variety of themes tackled in this issue and their importance to the enrichment of our knowledge of past and current developments affecting the Black Sea and Baltic Sea areas will foster academic and public debates

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies 12 (1), 2020

On 28-29 May 2020 in full Coronavirus pandemic upsurge and lockdown conditions the Eleventh Conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies gathered on Zoom instead of The Palace of Culture and The Middle Age Citadel of Târgu Mureș as initially planned. The meeting was summoned in partnership with Rethinking Europe in order to reflect, from the perspective of the Baltic Sea Region, upon the Old Continent in the context of Brexit and the pandemic. Questions on the impact of the recent evolutions on Baltic and Scandinavian states have been raised, but the perspective was much wider looking on how the countries of this region responded to structural changes or alterations of the international environment over time. The two plenary sessions on the EU after Brexit: Perspectives on the Future of Europe and Constructions of Christian Identity and the Idea of the Holy Land in the Northern Periphery: The Sawley World Map in Twelfth-Century England appropriately mirrored the sequential diversity of the conference. Panels have been devoted to Encounters, fantasies and perceptions in shaping Europe, Rethinking Europe in Nordic and Baltic cultures, Rethinking the Baltic Sea Region in Europe during the interwar period, Rethinking Scandinavia and the Baltic Sea Region in Europe during the two world wars, Intercultural relations in the Nordic and Baltic countries, Reception of Nordic literature, New perspectives on Norwegian literature, Teaching and use of Nordic languages. The main theories, concepts and ideas presented are resumed in the Book of Abstracts published before the conference, while the full papers are assembled in volume 12, issues 1 and 2 of our biannual peer review journal. The Honorary Chair of the Conference, Her Excellency Dr. Violeta Motulaitė, Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania in Romania and Bulgaria, Honorary President of the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies, has focused in her lecture, published in this issue, on the Lithuanian perspective of the current European Brexit and Covid crisis, professing that: “Lithuania is interested in a deeper cooperation in the common foreign and security policy (CFSP), especially in the crisis management, the prevention of hybrid threats and disinformation, the transatlantic partnership, the neighborhood policy development; the common market, especially in the services area; the protection of external borders, the strengthening and development of the Schengen area; the energy security; the transport policy; and eventually the health policy, having in mind lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic.” This issue publishes five research articles clustering political science analyses, cultural studies and historical research. Luiza Filimon deals with discriminatory discourses in the parlance of the Scandinavian radical right parties and concludes that the rhetoric utilized during the 2015 refugee crisis “falls into the coded register or at the very least purposefully attempts to veer away from the radical excesses which are marginalizing and self-exclusionary.” Ildikó Varga reconstructs the activity of the La Fontaine Society from the perspective of a convergence locus of Romanian, Hungarian and Finnish literature. Roxana Ema Dreve tackles Thorbjørn Egner’s book People and Robbers of Cardamon Town as a showcase of how children’s behaviour is influenced by adults’ expectations on Scandinavian rules of modesty. Costel Coroban recalls “the change in women’s mentality towards the concept of war and their own role in it according to autobiographical sources such as was journals, diaries, letters or autobiographical novels authored by women who were present at the front during the Great War.” In her article of debut Andreea Dahlquist approaches for the first time in historiography the Romanian-Swedish economic relations during the Second World War, successfully reflecting on the expectations and evolution of trade combined with politics and war. This issue ends with Crina Leon’s interview of Andreas Sønning, a Norwegian flute soloist, Associate Professor at the Norwegian Academy of Music and the owner and artistic director of Sønning Music Performance in Oslo, and a book review of Epp Annus’ “Soviet Postcolonial Studies: A View from the Western Borderlands”.

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, vol. 10, issue 2, 2018

The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies devotes the first half of this issue to novel social analyses and paradigms tailored on societies on the interference of pre-modernity and modernity. A well-known researcher of the phenomenon, especially as it is reflected in an East-Central European setting, Nerijus Babinskas maintains that feudalism, in contrast to the classical Marxist-Leninist interpretation that had become a canon during the Communist regime, „was not an inevitable stage of pre-modern development of all European societies”. By breaking apart of this ideological conception, Babinskas investigates the pros and cons of four Marxist alternative notions such as Asiatic mode of production, African mode of production, early Central European model or tributary mode of production, and a non-Marxist approach based on Max Weber’s patrimonialism. The author contends that a blending of these interpretation is the way out of the conceptual ossification which over the past decades has led social research in the matter into a deadlock. A case in points is offered by Darius Žiemelis who undertakes the first comparative analysis to date between Lithuanian manorial-serf economy, a subject of his earlier published researches, and hacienda economic systems of Latin America of the modern age. With this investigation the author confirms the lack of theoretical ground of self-sufficient fossilised analytical systems as highlighted in Babinskas’s article. Žiemelis sets his research in a context dominated by the strengthening of manorial-serf economy in Lithuania and hacienda economy in Latin American as a result of the industrial revolution. The puzzle is augmented by the fact that the two cases belonged to self-supporting economic systems. Finding the clue to this analytical dilemma calls precisely for a breakup from traditional interpretations: the two systems were neither wholly feudal nor entirely capitalistic. The author of this foreword approaches the Congress of the Representatives of the Lithuanian Military Officers of the Romanian Front (1917) as a meaningful post on the Lithuanian path to independence. After exploring the historical context and undertaking a conceptual and comparative research the author emphasizes the degree to which the Lithuanian soldiers and officers have grown into a pro-independence action group not dissimilar in their options to the opinions circulated in the intellectual circles. Bogdan-Alexandru Schipor devotes his article to the reflection of the German invasion of Norway of spring and early summer of 1940 in the Romanian mass-media, political and military circles. The author points out to the subordination of Romanian perspectives on this campaign to the overall developments in the West, in the end exploits in Norway being completely overshadowed by the German advance into France that entailed more serious consequences to Romania. Nonetheless, the opinions were generally favourable to Norway and sympathy was shown to this small nation facing a Goliath-like adversary. This issue ends with a summary of the first ten years of our journal. This shall be regarded as a tribute to the many authors who have brought a consistent contribution to the growth of the periodical of the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies.