CONFERENCE
The conference aims to present and promote, among both academic and wider public audiences, research conducted within the project using the methodological frameworks of social morphogenesis, microhistory and mnemohistory. It will bring together more than 25 scholars from Latvia, Estonia, Lithuania and Germany.
Over the two days, four plenary lectures will address historical research in Latvia and Lithuania, the changing practice of history in the digital age, and social transformation in Estonia. Mārtiņš Mintaurs (University of Latvia) will examine the perspectives, challenges, and outcomes of writing history in Latvia since 1991. Aurimas Švedas (Lithuanian Institute of History) will discuss contemporary perspectives on Lithuanian history, focusing on research problems and methodological approaches. Haralds Matulis (Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia) will explore what it means to be a “digital historian” in 2026, while Triin Vihalemm (University of Tartu) will offer a sociological perspective on the transformation of Estonian society since the 1990s.
The conference will also feature four thematic panels devoted to morphogenetic processes in the state and society following the First World War; the strategy and tactics employed by society to survive the Second World War and occupation during the 1940s and 1950s; changes in state and societal structures during the period of late Soviet socialism from the 1960s to the 1980s; and the political, socioeconomic, security-related, and cultural transformations brought about by the restoration of Latvia’s independence and their impact on the present day.
The conference welcomes representatives of the humanities and social sciences, memory institutions, the creative industries, non-governmental organizations, the media, and other fields involved in researching and communicating history and collective memory.
The conference is organized as part of the State Research Program project on the history of twentieth- and twenty-first-century Latvia by the Institute of Latvian History at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia, in cooperation with the Lithuanian Institute of History and the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory.
The State Research Programme project “Navigating the Latvian History of the 20th–21st Century: Social Morphogenesis, Legacy and Challenges” (VPP-IZM-Vēsture-2023/1-0003) is funded by the Latvian Council of Science and implemented by the Institute of Latvian History at the Faculty of Humanities, University of Latvia, in cooperation with the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia, Daugavpils University and the RTU Liepāja Academy.
The project brings together more than 30 scholars from a range of disciplines, including historians, ethnologists, sociologists, political scientists, folklorists and researchers specializing in cultural studies, digital humanities, security studies and other fields. Its overarching aim is to strengthen a sense of national belonging among Latvia’s population, reduce the risks posed by disinformation, and help shape Latvia’s international image.
The project’s academic objectives are to reduce fragmentation within Latvian historical research, enhance its international visibility, establish new criteria in public discourse for interpreting Latvia’s twentieth-century history, stimulate new conceptual approaches to the development of Latvian statehood, and support the training of a new generation of historians.
