Geschichtspolitik im erweiterten Ostseeraum und ihre aktuellen Symptome – Historical Memory Culture in the Enlarged Baltic Sea Region and its Symptoms Today

Prof. Dr. Oliver Rathkolb lehrt am Institut für Zeitgeschichte der Universität Wien und ist Vorsitzender des Internationalen Wissenschaftlichen Beirats des Hauses der Geschichte Österreich (HGÖ).

Prof. Imbi Sooman ist Koordinatorin der Ostseeraumstudien, Abteilung Skandinavistik am Institut für Europäische und Vergleichende Sprachen und Literaturen an der Universität Wien. Außerdem ist sie Präsidentin der Österreichisch-Estnischen Gesellschaft.

This anthology focuses on the comparison of historical memory debates concerning Holocaust, National Socialism, Communism and Stalinism in the larger Baltic sea area since the 1990s.As the enlarged Baltic Sea Region through its entire history was filled with conflict lines and cooperation regions, it offers an ideal field of research for various theories, notions and narratives of the cultural historical memory as well as for patterns of conflict solutions and can be productively compared with structurally similar border regions. History has left deep traces in the relationships between the regions or states of the Baltic Sea Region as well as in the interaction between majorities and minorities in the single states. As history, in having its impact also upon the border-crossing dialogue of this old region, essentially and subconsciously contributes to today s Region-Building of North-Eastern Europe, we regard it important to be consciously aware of its influence.