News archive

The autumn edition of the Baltic Heritage Network quarterly newsletter is now available. In these pages, you will find information about our past and future events, new publications, and what is happening across the globe within the diaspora research and archive communities.

November 21, 2025| Riga, Latvia@Latvians Abroad Museum and Research Centre (LaPa)

The end of summer brought many visitors to VEMU in Toronto.

On September 19th, VEMU Estonian Museum Canada hosted “Turning Pages Through Time: A Seminar Dedicated to 500 Years of the Estonian Book and Literary Culture.” Taking place at Tartu College in Toronto, the day-long program brought together scholars, translators, writers, and community members to reflect on the Estonian written word as it has grown over the centuries.

On September 9, Dr. Liisi Esse, Curator for Estonian and Baltic Studies at Stanford University, and Michael Keller, Librarian at Stanford University, visited the National Library of Lithuania.

The Estonian Institute of Historical Memory invites researchers up to the age of 35 to participate in an international competition aimed at encouraging academic research on the history of communist ideology and the practices of communist regimes.

The Board of the Lithuanian American Cultural Archive (Lith. Amerikos Lietuvių Kultūros Archyvas) agreed to consolidate and to transfer the archives of the United Lithuanian Relief Fund of America (Lith. Bendras Amerikos Lietuvių Fondas) to the Lithuanian Research Center in Lemont. The LRC already had a large collection of the Lithuanian American Relief Fund’s archives received after organization closed in 2008. The project is supported by the Lithuanian Foundation, Inc.

In fall 2024, University of Toronto Information Sciences Master’s students Yoonkyung Kim and Ke Wang visited VEMU to learn about our activities and the exhibition “The Great Escape of 1944”. The result is now available in the special issue of The iJournal “Diasporas and Cultural Heritage Institutions in the GTA and Beyond”. You can read the publication here.

In the August 15th Sirp newspaper issue, you can read about a discussion group dedicated to diaspora Estonian music, which celebrated 10 years since the release of the triple album “Esto-muusika” by Vaiko Eplik and Maarja Merivoo-Parro. In addition to those mentioned, the discussion group featured Australian Estonian musician Olev Muska, musician and producer Karl Korts, music lover and head of record store Psühhoteek Ahto Külvet, and VEMU chief archivist Piret Noorhani. Happy reading! Issue can be found here.

From 3–8 August 2025, the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory welcomed 18 high school and university students from nine countries – including Ireland, Sweden, the USA, Germany, the UK, Belgium, Australia, Finland, and Estonia – to its annual summer school for young people of Estonian descent.