Central and East European Studies - University of Glasgow

Huge congratulations to CEES' Karl Stuklis on his receipt of the 2024 Vilis Vītols Prize!

AABS Awards Vilis Vītols Prize to Best JBS Articles for 2024 and 2025 – AABS The Vītols annual award of $500 is presented to the author of the best article in a given year of the Journal of Baltic Studies.

A reminder of tomorrow's online book launch, 14.00 UK time!

Online book presentation on Wednesday, 6 May, organised jointly by the Glasgow Baltic Research Unit and the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University, with support also from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.

Dr. Paula A. Oppermann will present her 2025 book Thunder Cross. Fascist Antisemitism in Twentieth-century Latvia
(University of Wisconsin Press), which was awarded the George L. Mosse First Book Prize. The book is based on Paula's PhD, which she obtained in CEES in 2022 and which was also awarded the Fritz Theodor Epstein Prize.

A commentary on the book will be provided by Dr. Matthew Kott from Uppsala University, followed by audience Q&A.

Zoom: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65410886340?pwd=HYpocbJY9niwbAuDbGWeNd3BIckY0b.1

Online book presentation on Wednesday, 6 May, organised jointly by the Glasgow Baltic Research Unit and the Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies and Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University, with support also from the Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies.

Dr. Paula A. Oppermann will present her 2025 book Thunder Cross. Fascist Antisemitism in Twentieth-century Latvia
(University of Wisconsin Press), which was awarded the George L. Mosse First Book Prize. The book is based on Paula's PhD, which she obtained in CEES in 2022 and which was also awarded the Fritz Theodor Epstein Prize.

A commentary on the book will be provided by Dr. Matthew Kott from Uppsala University, followed by audience Q&A.

Zoom: https://uu-se.zoom.us/j/65410886340?pwd=HYpocbJY9niwbAuDbGWeNd3BIckY0b.1

Announcing the next CEES/Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies (CRCEES) Seminar:

'Contesting the Medieval Past: Historical Memory, Identity Sovereignty, and EU Integration in Macedonian–Bulgarian Relations'

By Prof. Mitko B. Panov, Institute of National History, Ss. Cyril and Methodius University in Skopje

Tuesday, 17 March,12.30-14.00, Room 256, Gilbert Scott Building

This lecture examines the political instrumentalization of the historical past in the context of EU enlargement and bilateral relations between the Republic of North Macedonia and Bulgaria. It focuses on the ‘Europeanization’ of bilateral disputes following the 2022 French proposal, adopted during the French Council Presidency, which allowed historical and identity-related issues raised unilaterally by Bulgaria to be integrated into R.N. Macedonia’s EU accession framework.
A central focus of this analysis is the exploitation of a specific Bulgarian interpretation of the "common history" political concept, derived from the 2017 bilateral Treaty of Friendship, Good-Neighborliness, and Cooperation, as a precedential and asymmetrical precondition for the accession. Using the contested heritage of the ninth to eleventh centuries as a case study, the lecture examines the legacies of Saints Cyril and Methodius, St. Clement of Ohrid, and the medieval state of Emperor Samuel. It demonstrates that Bulgarian interpretations of medieval continuity negate Macedonian identity as an ideological construct developed after 1945, rooted in earlier Bulgarian historical and cultural traditions. This framing denies the legitimacy of a distinct Macedonian historical tradition and, through the negotiation process, exerts political pressure to accept a Bulgarian-centered narrative as the foundation of the Macedonian nation’s past.
Debates over medieval heritage thus go beyond scholarly disagreement, intersecting with wider issues of historical recognition, identity sovereignty, and ontological security. The lecture emphasizes the structural tensions that arise when historical memory is instrumentalized as EU accession conditionality, arguing that the long-term stability and integrity of European integration require separating historiography from disproportionate bilateral political negotiations.

Mitko B. Panov is Professor of Byzantine and Medieval Studies and Director of the Institute of National History at Ss. Cyril and Methodius University, Skopje. Specialized in the medieval and modern historiography and imperial ideology of Byzantium and the Balkans, his work critically examines political legitimacy and statehood in Southeast Europe. He is the author of The Blinded State: Historiographic Debates about Samuel Cometopoulos and His State (10th–11th Century) (Brill: Leiden/Boston, 2019), which examines competing constructions of medieval statehood and their modern historiographical reception.

A fascinating piece in The Bell about the late, great Alec Nove and the history of the University of Glasgow's Institute of Soviet and East European Studies.

Centre for Russian, Central and East European Studies (CRCEES)

Glasgow’s Gorbachev go-between How a local academic saw through the iron curtain

Sign and share the petition Petition · Stop the removal of Modern Languages courses at the University of Nottingham! - United Kingdom · Change.org
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The University of Nottingham has suspended applications to all languages degree programmes (including Russian and Serbian/Croatian), with a view to their permanent closure. Under the proposals, it will not be possible to study any modern language to degree level at the University of Nottingham, or anywhere in the East Midlands.

Languages matter for the UK’s economy, society, and security. See The economic value to the UK of speaking other languages (2022) and the British Academy’s 2016 Born Global report.

If these degrees are lost, the entire East Midlands region will be a ‘cold spot’. The region already ranks high in terms of educational deprivation – this decision will make that deprivation worse:
The pipeline for language teachers in the region will be affected, making it even more difficult to maintain language teaching in schools and limiting local pupils’ opportunities, further disadvantaging them compared to others nationally. There will be no language degrees available to students who prefer to study locally, undermining the University’s local and regional civic mission and at odds with the University’s own Civic Strategic Delivery Plan.

The University of Nottingham presents itself as Britain’s global university. The university’s Strategy promises a vision “to be a university without borders”, to “solve problems and improve lives … through application to local and global challenges”. Without any modern languages degrees, the University instead shows a narrow vision and inability to embrace other languages and cultures.

Cutting degree-level languages provision jeopardises expertise in many other disciplines too, including history, philosophy, literature, business, and law, which depend on high-level language skills and in-depth cultural knowledge. For example, many of Nottingham’s own leading historians rely on their advanced language skills to study the history across the globe (in Chinese, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese …). No languages, and you lose most of global history too, also philosophy, literature, as well as access to and appreciation of crucial trading partners and their ways of doing business.

Cutting language degrees would make Nottingham the only Russell Group (research-intensive) University with no languages in its Arts and Humanities and would damage its reputation and standing.

Change starts here Join over 500,000,000 people creating real change in their communities.

European Traditional Dance Workshop

Join us for a fun and interactive workshop where you'll learn traditional European dances from different countries!

Date and time
Sun, 2 Nov 2025 14:00 - 17:00 GMT
Location
Jordanhill Parish Church Hall, Glasgow
28 Woodend Drive Glasgow G13 1QT

All Welcome

More details via eventbrite https://tinyurl.com/EuropeanDance
Glasgow For Europe Central and East European Studies - University of Glasgow European ParliamentGlasgow Live Glasgow Times

Infrastructures for a (Dis)Connected World: Polarities Network+ 2025/26 calls

As part of the UKRI-funded Network + Shifting Global Polarities: Russia, China, and Eurasia in Transition, which includes the University of Glasgow alongside colleagues in Birmingham, Oxford and Manchester, we are pleased to announce this year's round of funded opportunities made available by the network.

Calls are open for:
- Up to 10 Research Projects to enable original research, policy analysis, and synthesis of knowledge
- Up to 8 research fellowships
- Up to 4 Art fellowships
- The annual Polarities Network workshop, to be held in Glasgow in early June 2026, which this year will focus on Infrastructures for a (Dis)Connected World

Deadlines for submission are specified in the calls for each activity, which can be found at https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/research/projects/network-plus-shifting-global-polarities.

We would be grateful if you could please disseminate this notice through your professional network.

Network Plus: Shifting Global Polarities - University of Birmingham Global research network tackling geopolitical, societal & environmental shifts across Eurasia to build a secure, resilient world.

CEES' Vladimir Unkovski-Korica has co-curated an online exhibition "Factories to the Workers?" to commemorate 75 years since the birth of Yugoslav self-management. Check out more at: https://fabrikeradnicima.com/ and attend one of his presentations across the ex-YU!

Istorija jugoslovenskog radničkog samoupravljanja Izložba posvećena istoriji jugoslovenskog radničkog samoupravljanja povodom 75 godina od njegovog uvođenja. Arhivska grada i kritički uvidi otkrivaju složenost ovog sistema i njegovo nasleđe.

Congratulations to our newly-minted PhD, Dr Sophie Peng! 👏