Marko Lehti

Never-Ending Second World War: Public Performances of National Dignity and the Drama of the Bronze Soldier

The article scrutinizes the April 2007 Bronze Soldier incident in Tallinn, Estonia, as a struggle over interpretations of history and as a public drama geared at upholding the national dignity, both Estonian and Russian. The statue had become a site of ritualized performances, with diverging meanings attached to it by different groups. Bronze Soldier was a visual symbol of the Russian/Soviet interpretation of the WWII, which during the 1990s became increasingly incompatible with the Estonian narrative of Soviet era as an occupation. The clashing collective memories of Estonians, Estonian Russians and Russians constitutes a school-book example of Roger Brubaker’s ‘triadic nexus’ of nationalized politics. The Bronze Soldier incident highlights the ongoing shift of Estonian national narrative from victimhood to heroism. We argue that Estonian Russians have become marginalized both in Estonian and Russian narratives, as ritualized and politicized public commemorations diminish the space of private memory. By clinging on to their nationalized views on the WWII Estonian and Russia are standing out as exceptions in the European context. “There is no doubt that the April events concerning the Bronze Soldier will become a benchmark in the contemporary history of the state of Estonia. It is the bifurcation point, the point of division, separating ‘before’ and ‘after’. For Estonian society these events are even more important than joining NATO or European Union. Before April 2007 we lived in one country and now we are getting used to living in another one.” (Aleksei Semjonov, director of Legal Information Centre for Human Rights at Tallinn, 2007) On the night of 26-27 April 2007, the removal of the so-called Bronze Soldier, previously known as the monument for Liberators of Tallinn, from its original location in the city centre triggered violent riots in the streets of Tallinn, diplomatic conflict between Estonia and Russia and an aggressive but theatrical performance organized by the Russian youth organization “Nashi”. On 30 April the statue was re-erected at the Estonian Defence Forces

Beyond East-West : marginality and national dignity in Finnish identity construction

Since the end of the Cold War it has become common for Finnish academics and politicians alike to frame debates about Finnish national identity in terms of locating Finland somewhere along a continuum between East and West (e.g., Harle and Moisio 2000). Indeed, for politicians properly locating oneself (and therefore Finland) along this continuum has often been seen as central to the winning and losing of elections. For example, the 1994 referendum on EU membership was largely interpreted precisely as an opportunity to relocate Finland further to the West (Jakobson 1998, 111; Arter 1995). Indeed, the tendency to depict Finnish history in terms of a series of ‘westernising’ moves has been notable, but has also betrayed some of the politicised elements of this view (Browning 2002). However, this framing of Finnish national identity discourse is not only sometimes politicised, but arguably is also too simplified and results in blindness towards other identity narratives that have also been important through Finnish history, and that are also evident (but rarely recognised) today as well. In this article we aim to highlight one of these that we argue has played a key role in locating Finland in the world and in formulating notions of what Finland is about, what historical role and mission it has been understood as destined to play, and what futures for the nation have been conceptualised as possible and as providing a source of subjectivity and national dignity. The focus of this article is therefore on the relationship between Finnish nationalism and ideas of ‘marginality’ through Finnish history.

Protégé or Go-Between? The Role of the baltic states after 9/11 in eu–US Relations

Since 9/11, Washington has viewed the new Europe as a protégé of the United States, whose role is to repair the political bridge across the Atlantic. Whereas the lure of the United States has started to weaken in Central European countries, the Baltic states have remained the most trustful new Europeans from Washingtons point of view. Nonetheless, the Balts have not felt comfortable with the new European label. They have seemingly begun to define themselves as something special and have aspired to a voice of their own. Instead of being merely protégés of the United States, the Balts are transforming themselves into intermediaries between Brussels and Washington.

Introduction: Contested and Shared Places of Memory. History and Politics in North Eastern Europe

The events in Tallinn on the night of 26–27 April 2007 have already been deleted from the short-term memory of the international media, but Estonians (and not least Estonian scholars) have come to regard the removal of the so-called Bronze Soldier and the accompanying riots, as well as the actions of Putin’s Russia, as a benchmark for Estonia’s future. During the past year several studies scrutinizing the Bronze Soldier case have been published, and more are in progress. The debate has not been free from political interests, which minimize the conflict by explaining and interpreting it away on the one hand, and exaggerate it as an example of ethnic Estonian racism and neo-fascism on the other. For many Estonians the whole incident was in the end a disturbing turn in the success story of EU–Estonia, recalling phenomena that they would rather forget and exclude from public debate. In this volume we will also contribute to this debate. Our aim is not to explain the conflict away, or to blame Estonians or Russians for the outbreak of aggression. We simply argue that the conflict has broader significance for the whole of Europe. The Baltic–Russian, and in particular the Estonian–Russian, debate on the past has become a ‘hot spot’ in European memory politics. This ongoing debate clearly reveals that Europe cannot be delimited according to the extended borders of the Schengen space. It also shows that public commemoration, which was ossified for decades in the Soviet hemisphere, has become subject to broad memory discourses. Here discussions about forms of cultural memory and political interests are closely intertwined. Even if the significance of the ‘Bronze War’ in Estonia should not be overemphasized, it offers an interesting insight into collective memory and history politics and their linkage to current political and inter-ethnic relationships. Furthermore, it is important to point out that at the peripheries of Europe the past seems to be remembered differently than at the center. Europe is not just defined in Paris, London and Berlin, but also in Tallinn and Moscow. Europe is diverse and so are its memories. At this point the Bronze Soldier case has wider importance. In the light of the recent Georgian–Russian conflict and Russia’s recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, one might interpret the conflicts

Sovereignty Redefined Baltic Cooperation and the Limits of National Self-determination

The end of the First World War and of the Cold War can be seen as two ruptures of history that were accompanied by a redefinition of old practices and by the vision of a new Europe. The emergence of the three independent Baltic States and the idea of a Baltic Sea area were unifying factors between these two periods. In both cases, the emergence of new nation-states and region-building approaches has redefined the existing interpretation on sovereignty. However, it is argued in this article that while after the First World War the new states were themselves the main supporters of regional unions and of the idea of limited state sovereignty, they have been a barrier to change in the post-Cold War era. Nation-state centricity in the East has not readily mixed with new region-building efforts. Although some of the new nation-states defined their location in Europe through a Baltic Sea Region, the current Baltic Sea Region is a Western project controlling parts of the disintegrating East. As a project, it does, however, include postmodern elements and may be described as a territoriality without sovereignty.

Mapping the study of the Baltic Sea area: From nation-centric to multinational history

Abstract In this article alternative ways of using the Baltic Sea area, North East Europe and Northern Europe among historians are examined. The Baltic Sea area and Northern Europe have been depicted as historical regions, but what does that mean? The older tradition has concentrated on looking for unifying structures, while the latest discussion has underlined the combining role of the sea or comprehended the area as a contact zone. In this article, it is argued that geography is not a passive setting but a social construct. On that basis, three different usages of historical regions are developed: one based on the metaphor of network, another looking for a space of mixed identities and yet a third concentrating on the study of spatial imagination.

‘Hitting Moving Targets’: Transformative Dialogues

Transformation is an apt concept that from increasingly describes private peacemakers’ view of the whole peace process; various interesting efforts to adjust the transformative approach to new practices of peace intervention are recognizable. The transformative approach to (peace) mediation practice contests the conventional frame of conflict management and thus has substantial consequences for the framing of (peace) mediation goals and practices. Nonetheless, the private peacemakers are far from a uniform group in this regard and their understanding of what the relationship between mediation and transformation is and how drastic terms of old premises of mediation should be revisited diverge between organizations, as well as individual staff members. Through transformative shift, the organization of dialogue processes, including both National Dialogues (NDs) and informal dialogues, has gained increasing significance in the private organizations’ niche as dialogue allows better attachment to the demands of inclusivity and local ownership. Dialogue platforms and workshops are not organized only to gain bottom-up legitimacy and support the reconciliation process, but they have been used increasingly as a tactical tool for breaking deadlocks, engaging new actors in the peace process, and facilitating the envisioning of a more peaceful future, in particular when the official negotiation forum has stalled.

Professionalization of the Private Peacemaking Sector

There have already been different kinds nongovernmental actors in peace processes in the Cold War era (discussed in details in Chapter 4), but the field of private peacemakers has changed enormously during recent decades. First, the established and widely recognized field of private peacemaking organizations at the surface of official and nonofficial peace diplomacy has emerged. Tens of new transnational organizations with a particular niche in peace mediation have been founded and many organization have shifted their focus from a humanitarian, development and research focus to peace mediation. Private peacemaking organizations can be roughly divided into two groups according to their self-identification: private diplomacy organizations and faith-based organizations (FBO). Second, this sector has not only grown in number but, in recent years, has demonstrated the professionalization of private peacemaking. An essential part of the development and professionalization of private peacemaking has been increasing the brainstorming energy invested in the revision of strategical thinking, including in-depth analysis of the essence and objectives of peace processes; rethinking appropriate means and approaches of peace mediation; and reassessments of the role of private peacemakers themselves.

From Management of Incompatibles to the Transformation of Antagonism

The scope of understanding in peace mediations depends on how ‘peace’ and ‘conflict’ is understood and, furthermore, how it is seen to be possible to manage, solve or transform conflicts. Peace mediation in its classical terms is firmly based on the conflict management approach and it aims to look for a win–win situation among the conflict parties. Conflict management understands incompatible interests as a source of conflict, and presumes that these interests are negotiable. The conflict transformation approach takes an alternative approach. It understands conflict as a socially constructed relationship between parties and it aims to turn destructive, violent forms of conflict into non-violent ones. In order to do this, conflict transformation prioritizes transforming antagonist relationships, discourses, attitudes and interests. Rather than try to adjust the positions of the parties and compromise between their differing interests, conflict transformation attempts to change the nature and functions of violence.

Towards a Locally Owned Inclusive Peace Process

The normative principles of local ownership and inclusivity of peace processes have been part of peacebuilding rhetoric from the very beginning, but it has only been after the harsh criticism towards intrusive and elite-based forms of liberal peacebuilding that these principles have been revisited and taken as a true normative basis of peace processes—at least by an increasing proportion of peacebuilders as well peace mediators. These principles that were first adopted only within the peacebuilding and development context have recently been attached to mediation in particular by private peacemakers but cherished also by official actors. It is noteworthy that although calls for inclusive and locally owned peace processes are intertwined in a complex way, they do not necessarily mean the same thing. Inclusivity primarily refers to participation, whereas ownership points more to agency in the peace process.