Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia

Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia

Author: Francisco Martinez

Publisher: UCL Press

Published: 2018-07-06

Total Pages: 285

ISBN-13: 1787353532

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What happens to legacies that do not find any continuation? In Estonia, a new generation that does not remember the socialist era and is open to global influences has grown up. As a result, the impact of the Soviet memory in people’s conventional values is losing its effective power, opening new opportunities for repair and revaluation of the past. Francisco Martinez brings together a number of sites of interest to explore the vanquishing of the Soviet legacy in Estonia: the railway bazaar in Tallinn where concepts such as ‘market’ and ‘employment’ take on distinctly different meanings from their Western use; Linnahall, a grandiose venue, whose Soviet heritage now poses diffi cult questions of how to present the building’s history; Tallinn’s cityscape, where the social, spatial and temporal co-evolution of the city can be viewed and debated; Narva, a city that marks the border between the Russian Federation, NATO and the European Union, and represents a place of continual negotiation of belonging; and the new Estonian National Museum in Raadi, an area on the outskirts of Tartu, that has been turned into a memory field. The anthropological study of all these places shows that national identity and historical representations can be constructed in relation to waste and disrepair too, also demonstrating how we can understand generational change in a material sense. Praise for Remains of the Soviet Past in Estonia 'By adopting the tropes of ‘repair’ and ‘waste’, this book innovatively manages to link various material registers from architecture, intergenerational relations, affect and museums with ways of making the past present. Through a rigorous yet transdisciplinary method, Martínez brings together different scales and contexts that would often be segregated out. In this respect, the ethnography unfolds a deep and nuanced analysis, providing a useful comparative and insightful account of the processes of repair and waste making in all their material, social and ontological dimensions.' Victor Buchli, Professor of Material Culture at UCL 'This book comprises an endearingly transdisciplinary ethnography of postsocialist material culture and social change in Estonia. Martínez creatively draws on a number of critical and cultural theorists, together with additional research on memory and political studies scholarship and the classics of anthropology. Grappling concurrently with time and space, the book offers a delightfully thick description of the material effects generated by the accelerated post-Soviet transformation in Estonia, inquiring into the generational specificities in experiencing and relating to the postsocialist condition through the conceptual anchors of wasted legacies and repair. This book defies disciplinary boundaries and shows how an attention to material relations and affective infrastructures might reinvigorate political theory.' Maria Mälksoo, Senior Lecturer, Brussels School of International Studies at the University of Kent


Contemporary Change in Estonia

Contemporary Change in Estonia

Author: Eglė Rindzevičiūtė

Publisher:

Published: 2004

Total Pages: 92

ISBN-13:

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"Selection of papers presented at the seminar "Contemporary Change in Estonia" held at the Baltic & East European Graduate School (Södertörns University College, Huddinge), April 2003" -- Rear cover.


European Union and the Making of a Wider Northern Europe

European Union and the Making of a Wider Northern Europe

Author: Pami Aalto

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2006-09-27

Total Pages: 294

ISBN-13: 1134162294

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This book is the first comprehensive study of how and why the European Union has enlarged to become northern Europe’s leading power. Pami Aalto presents a new approach to the under-theorized field of EU foreign policy studies, showing how, since 1990, the EU has enlarged to include Finland, Sweden, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland, and also incorporated the former East Germany. He also examines how this northern expansion has led the EU to reflect on relations with Russia and its north-western regions. This unique study includes: a fresh approach to the under-theorized field of EU foreign policy key empirical material, including hundreds of documents, interviews and field experiments in-depth case studies of relations between the EU, Nordic states, Baltic states and Russia with its north-western regions. This is essential reading for all students of European politics, Russian studies and international relations.


Pathways

Pathways

Author: Karin Hilmer Pedersen

Publisher: Aarhus Universitetsforlag

Published: 2009-08-30

Total Pages: 244

ISBN-13: 8771246665

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Political and economic developments after the implosion of the Soviet Union have not been easy, nor have outcomes been similar. The different trajectories of political development in post-communist countries are traced through cases from within the post-communist region that exhibit maximum variation in terms of both background variables and outcome. Six countries - Kazakhstan, Georgia, Estonia, Slovenia, the Czech Republic and Poland - have been selected. Following the Tocquevillian tradition, a 'method' of indirect comparison where in-depth knowledge of a country based on linguistics and history is held up against existing concepts, six country specialists have drawn broad pictures of what characterises 'their' country in terms of political and economic reform, state building and nation building, at the same time placing developments within the international context. The book argues that the elite constellation along two dimensions - consensus about the direction of policy and institutions, and the extent of inclusion of elite interests in decision making - is specific to each country and points to the direction of future developments.


Old Religion, New Spirituality: Implications of Secularisation and Individualisation in Estonia

Old Religion, New Spirituality: Implications of Secularisation and Individualisation in Estonia

Author:

Publisher: BRILL

Published: 2021-09-06

Total Pages: 197

ISBN-13: 9004461175

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Estonia is often described as one of the most secularised countries in the world in terms of de-institutionalisation and de-Christianisation. Old Religion, New Spirituality: Implications of Secularisation and Individualisation in Estonia, edited by Riho Altnurme, starts with the question: what are the historical reasons for Estonia to be so secularised? The decisive factor in the diminishment in the importance of Christianity was the overlap between social classes and ethnicities. The national identity of Estonians became disconnected to any religion. Second, what are the consequences? How are the secularity of Estonia and the picture of individualised religiosity in this country linked? This book provides fresh results from surveys, archival work and analysis by a group of Estonian researchers. Contributors include: Riho Altnurme, Lea Altnurme, Priit Rohtmets, Indrek Pekko, Toomas Schvak, Ringo Ringvee, Alar Kilp, and Marko Uibu.


The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance

The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance

Author: Ralf Remshardt

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-08-24

Total Pages: 978

ISBN-13: 1000913643

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This is a comprehensive overview of contemporary European theatre and performance as it enters the third decade of the twenty-first century. It combines critical discussions of key concepts, practitioners, and trends within theatre-making, both in particular countries and across borders, that are shaping European stage practice. With the geography, geopolitics, and cultural politics of Europe more unsettled than at any point in recent memory, this book’s combination of national and thematic coverage offers a balanced understanding of the continent’s theatre and performance cultures. Employing a range of methodologies and critical approaches across its three parts and ninety-four chapters, this book’s first part contains a comprehensive listing of European nations, the second part charts responses to thematic complexes that define current European performance, and the third section gathers a series of case studies that explore the contribution of some of Europe’s foremost theatre makers. Rather than rehearsing rote knowledge, this is a collection of carefully curated, interpretive accounts from an international roster of scholars and practitioners. The Routledge Companion to Contemporary European Theatre and Performance gives undergraduate and graduate students as well as researchers and practitioners an indispensable reference resource that can be used broadly across curricula.


Landscape Perspectives of Land Use Changes

Landscape Perspectives of Land Use Changes

Author: Ulo Mander

Publisher: Computational Mechanics

Published: 2000

Total Pages: 238

ISBN-13:

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Presenting scenarios for further development of various landscapes, this volume contains edited and reviewed papers presented at a symposium which was part of the Seventh International Congress on Ecology. There are additional relevant case studies from North America and Spain.


The handbook of political change in Eastern Europe

The handbook of political change in Eastern Europe

Author: Frank H. Aarebrot

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Published: 2014-05-14

Total Pages: 413

ISBN-13: 1781954291

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'The editors have succeeded in putting together an excellent group of authors who present a well informed and balanced analysis of the formation of political systems in the examined countries. . . . The authors of this book are to be congratulated on the structure and clarity of its presentation. This volume makes an interesting contribution to knowledge in this field and should be useful reading for students and experts interested in Central and Eastern European politics.' - Dan Marek, Journal of European Area Studies 'This is a very interesting reference book of the political changes in Eastern Europe since the demise of communism. It will prove to be of great use for everybody involved in research on Eastern Europe, but it can also offer considerable introductory information to those who have not followed the most recent developments in the region.' - Ioannis Armakolas, The Ethnic Conflict Research Digest This major new reference book provides an authoritative and thorough analysis of the political changes which have occurred in Eastern Europe since the demise of communism. It offers an historical, comparative perspective of the region and focuses on the social consequences of the transition, historical legacies, and variations between countries in the sequences of the changes.


The European Union and the Baltic States

The European Union and the Baltic States

Author: Bengt Jacobsson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2009-09-10

Total Pages: 446

ISBN-13: 1135211906

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This book explores how the Baltic States have adapted to, and been embedded in, a wider European environment and how they have become modern European states. It focuses on changes in the policies, politics and administrative practices that have taken place after 1991 in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and on the influence of rules and ideas in the European Union. The authors investigate the meeting between national traditions, rule-making and practices – on the one hand; and traditions, rule-making and practices connected to the European Union – on the other. Drawing on organization theory, and the image of states as complex and fragmented organizations, this book discusses: The forms of governance that are directed towards states, differentiating between regulative, inquisitive and meditative activities. The logic of appropriateness and the scriptedness of states. To what extent do the states have to follow the rules, and to what extent are they able to do what they want themselves? Adaptation processes in the state organizations. This book examines how European integration prompts and accelerates new forms of governance in Europe; it will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, the European Union and the Baltic states.