Thomas Lundén

Crossings and crosses : borders, educations, and religions in northern Europe

This volume critically explores the state of religious and civic life and politics on the margins of state spaces by analysing the themes of borders, education, and religions in northern Europe. It suggests that the formation of religious and civic identity through education is not becoming less parochial and more culturally open. It also challenges the idea that secular liberal democracies are by definition uninvolved in matters of faith.

Border Regions and Cross-Border Cooperation in Europe. A Theoretical and Historical Approach

The creation of trans-border regions, as a reality or as a symbol, has to overcome state territorial indoctrination, because the names given to areas are often defined by the extent of influence of each state. Border studies encompass a wide range of scholarship, ranging from legal studies of demarcations and territorial rights to the study of border narratives and symbols, formal cross-border cooperation, and the actual spatial behaviour of borderland inhabitants. Where territorial states are in juxtaposition, differences between the jurisdictions have led to a hierarchical asymmetry that produces discords. The period 1989–1991 marks a sudden and profound change in the political geography of Europe. The birth, rebirth, and disappearance of territorial states led to a totally new situation of borders, both in their demarcation and in their degree of openness, and the sudden transformation of boundaries into international borders had profound impacts on cross-border transactions. The present political map of Europe hides a palimpsest of earlier territorial divisions, some forgotten, and others brought to memory by irredentist interests or by nostalgic tourists. Even after the eradication of the “east” and “west” dichotomy (or the move eastwards of the divide), many border-related issues remain. The relaxation of border controls in the Schengen Area has led to new developments. “Sleeping abroad and working at home” is a tendency in several borderlands, reflecting differences in the availability of housing and job opportunities in the adjacent states, but this also creates problems with taxation and the right to social services and education, even in areas with a common language.

Geopolitics and religion – a mutual and conflictual relationship. Spatial regulation of creed in the Baltic Sea Region

The geopolitical history of religion in the Baltic Sea area shows a development from the time of the Lutheran Reformation of a mosaic of states with very different jurisdictions of creed, from the tolerance under local containment of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth to the strict Evangelical mono-religion of the Scandinavian countries. With seventeenth-century mercantilism, groups of skilled people of ‘foreign’ religion were invited to newly founded towns and ironworks in order to promote the economy. In the eighteenth-century enlightened absolute monarchs, defying both church and bourgeoisie, allowed groups of Catholics and Jews to Scandinavia under spatial restrictions on settlement. In Russia non-Russians of different religions were tolerated, while dissidents to the Orthodox Church were deported to peripheral places. With the Prussian territorial expansion in Germany, more groups were included into citizenship, including Jews. The last states to include groups of ‘foreign’ creed were the early nineteenth century semi-independent states of Norway and Finland.

Nation Split by the Border. Changes in the Ethnic Identity, Religion and Language of the Karelians from 1809 to 2009

Tapio Hamynen and Aleksander Paskov (eds): Nation Split by the Border. : Changes in the Ethnic Identity, Religion and Language of the Karelians from 1809 to 2009.

The Emergence and Decline of Ethnic Minorities in Baltic Borderlands

The purpose of the paper is to discuss the emergence and decline of national and / or ethnic minorities in the borderlands around the Baltic Sea. The socio-political development of ethnic groups is seen as a result of different influencing factors: The territorial history, the change of state borders and population groups plus relations beyond the state territory. Several criteria were found to determine the development, non-development or decay of national allegiance. The change, establishment or eradication of state boundaries, the ethnic cleansing of areas, mostly for the sake of “nation-state” homogeneity, the assimilation of a potential ethnic group into the majority population, and the non-emergence of a national movement.