Baltic Heritage Network Conference
New Beginnings of Baltic Diaspora
26.-29.06.2018
Tartu, Estonia

 

The Republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuanian are celebrating their 100th birthdays in 2018. For this occasion Baltic countries, as well as Baltic diaspora communities, are looking back in time and summing up the experience of a century. Such important anniversaries give us the opportunity to make conclusions of what has occurred, but also to look at what has yet to come and make goals for the future.

The Baltic Heritage Network is celebrating the 100th birthdays of the Baltic countries with a conference: “New Beginnings of Baltic Diaspora” at the Estonian National Museum in Tartu. The historical and present circumstances of the Baltic diaspora are like a garden of forking paths for both individuals and communities. New beginnings are taking place whether we are paying attention or not. This conference is an effort to look at the endings and new beginnings of communities and their archives both at present time and in retrospect. From oral history and family stories to the ever fluctuating flow of migration, from creating new collections to developing existing archives – how can we recognize change and convert endings into beginnings? Are we able to and how will we preserve these changes in archives and other collections? How will diaspora memory institutions survive these changes in society?

The conference is open to presentations by academic researchers, memory institution specialists, representatives of diaspora communities, and anyone to whom the preservation of Baltic diaspora communities, capturing and understanding both the past and present is important.

NPA BaltHerNet was established in Tartu in 2008 to foster cooperation between national and private archives, museums, libraries, institutions of research, public associations and organizations collecting and studying the cultural heritage of the Baltic diaspora. It aims to facilitate the preservation and research of the historically valuable cultural property of the Baltic diaspora, as well as to ensure accessibility of these materials to the public. BaltHerNet is also committed to the organizing of conferences, seminars and workshops, and to developing and administrating the electronic information website balther.net, a multilingual electronic gateway for information on the cultural heritage of the Baltic diaspora.

The working language of the conference is English.

 

Other partners for the conference are Estonian National Museum, Estonian Literary Museum, Centre of Exellence in Estonian Studies and The National Archives of Estonia.