Conference examines the evolution of nation-statehood in Eastern Europe

The Third Annual Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies on 10-12 June will bring nearly 250 researchers from across the world to Tartu for a discussion of contemporary realities in Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia and the evolution of nation-statehood since its introduction to the region one hundred years ago.

This academic conference is organised for the third consecutive year at the initiative of the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies and the Centre for EU-Russia Studies (CEURUS) at the University of Tartu. This year’s conference theme is Reflecting on Nation-Statehood in Eastern Europe, Russia and Eurasia.

The main conference organiser, UT professor of EU-Russia Studies Viacheslav Morozov, explains the selection of the theme: “Although the roots of nationhood go back at least another one hundred years, the region was dominated by multi-ethnic empires until the First World War. The collapse of these empires was a decisive moment, which established popular sovereignty across the region. Its implementation, however, took decades and, in more than one sense, is still incomplete.“

In the 46 panel sessions of the conference, 213 scholars from around Europe, the US, Canada, Russia and elsewhere are presenting their research. Topics will range from political science and security to economics and law, and from literature and translation studies to cultural and memory politics in Russia and Eastern Europe as well as from an international perspective.

The conference will open on 10 June with a keynote address by Professor Grzegorz Ekiert, distinguished political scientist from Harvard University, who will speak on the legacies of state building, democracy and authoritarianism over the past 100 years. Next day, Catriona Kelly, professor at the University of Oxford, will talk about Russian and Soviet identity in the years 1881-2018. The conference also features three roundtables, whose purpose is to shed light on the new research agendas in sociology (with a focus on Russia), the history of Eastern European nation-statehood and memory politics.

Full conference programme is available here, the panel sessions, keynotes and roundtables are open to all without pre-registration.

The conference is co-organised by the Uppsala Centre for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University and the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Kent, under a Horizon 2020 Twinning project entitled “Building Research Excellence in Russian and East European Studies at the Universities of Tartu, Uppsala and Kent” (UPTAKE). The aim of the project is to develop research related to Eastern Europe and Russia. For more information about UPTAKE, please visit the website www.uptake.ut.ee.

For more information, please contact Ms Maili Vilson, Research Communication Specialist at the Johan Skytte Institute of Political Studies at maili.vilson@ut.ee or by phone at +372 737 6584.