Culture and Customs of the Baltic States

Culture and Customs of the Baltic States PDF Author: Kevin C. O'Connor Ph.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313014841
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

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Book Description
The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are thriving after hundreds of years of German colonization, numerous wars of conquest, and demographic Russification. Their cultures have survived, perhaps through a conscious effort to sustain many of their most ancient customs and traditions. Though the Baltic States are responding to modern and postmodern international trends, contemporary developments in the region's cultural life are part of an ongoing conversation about the way in which the Balts understand their histories, destinies, and national identities. This timely overview of the reemerging states portrays the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians as they see themselves—through a historical lens. The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are thriving after hundreds of years of German colonization, numerous wars of conquest, and demographic Russification. Their cultures have survived, perhaps through a conscious effort to sustain many of their most ancient customs and traditions. Though the Baltic States are responding to modern and postmodern international trends, contemporary developments in the region's cultural life are part of an ongoing conversation about the way in which the Balts understand their own histories, destines, and national identities. This timely overview of the reemerging states portrays the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians as they see themselves—through a historical lens. The approach in each of the topical chapters is to generalize what is common among the three states and then to focus on each country in turn. Chapters on the land, people, and history; religion; marriage, family, gender, and education; holidays, cuisine, and leisure activities; language, folklore, and literature; media and cinema; performing arts; and art are a superb introduction to the Baltics and to the unique aspects of the countries. Lithuania's culture has been heavily influenced by Poland, and the capital, Vilnius, was a thriving center of Jewish learning until the Nazi years. Latvia is the most ethnically diverse and Russian-influenced. Estonia sees itself as a European country, indeed, Scandinavian.

Culture and Customs of the Baltic States

Culture and Customs of the Baltic States PDF Author: Kevin O'Connor
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN: 0313331251
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Discusses the traditions, culture, religion, media, literature, and arts of the Baltic States.

Culture and Customs of the Baltic States

Culture and Customs of the Baltic States PDF Author: Kevin C. O'Connor Ph.D.
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313014841
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 299

Get Book Here

Book Description
The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are thriving after hundreds of years of German colonization, numerous wars of conquest, and demographic Russification. Their cultures have survived, perhaps through a conscious effort to sustain many of their most ancient customs and traditions. Though the Baltic States are responding to modern and postmodern international trends, contemporary developments in the region's cultural life are part of an ongoing conversation about the way in which the Balts understand their histories, destinies, and national identities. This timely overview of the reemerging states portrays the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians as they see themselves—through a historical lens. The Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are thriving after hundreds of years of German colonization, numerous wars of conquest, and demographic Russification. Their cultures have survived, perhaps through a conscious effort to sustain many of their most ancient customs and traditions. Though the Baltic States are responding to modern and postmodern international trends, contemporary developments in the region's cultural life are part of an ongoing conversation about the way in which the Balts understand their own histories, destines, and national identities. This timely overview of the reemerging states portrays the Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanians as they see themselves—through a historical lens. The approach in each of the topical chapters is to generalize what is common among the three states and then to focus on each country in turn. Chapters on the land, people, and history; religion; marriage, family, gender, and education; holidays, cuisine, and leisure activities; language, folklore, and literature; media and cinema; performing arts; and art are a superb introduction to the Baltics and to the unique aspects of the countries. Lithuania's culture has been heavily influenced by Poland, and the capital, Vilnius, was a thriving center of Jewish learning until the Nazi years. Latvia is the most ethnically diverse and Russian-influenced. Estonia sees itself as a European country, indeed, Scandinavian.

Food Culture and Politics in the Baltic States

Food Culture and Politics in the Baltic States PDF Author: Diana Mincyte
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351788035
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 248

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Book Description
This book focuses on food culture and politics in three Baltic States: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. In popular and scholarly writings, the Baltic states are often seen as a meat-and-potatoes kind of place, inferior to sophisticated cuisines of the West and exotic diets in the East. Such views stem from the long intellectual tradition that focuses on political and cultural centers as sources of progress. But, as a new generation of writers has argued, in order to fully grasp the ongoing cultural and political changes, we need to shift the focus from capital cities such as Paris, Berlin, Rome, or Moscow to everyday life in borderland regions that are primary arenas where such transformations unfold. Building on this perspective, chapters featured in this book examine how identities were negotiated through the implementation of new food laws, how tastes were reinvented during imperial encounters, and how ethnic and class boundaries were both maintained and transgressed in Baltic kitchens over the course of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. In so doing, the book not only explores culinary practices across the region, but also offers a new vantage point for understanding everyday life and the entanglement between nature and culture in modern Europe. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Baltic Studies.

Visual Culture and Politics in the Baltic Sea Region, 1100-1250

Visual Culture and Politics in the Baltic Sea Region, 1100-1250 PDF Author: Kersti Markus
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004426175
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
Focusing on visual sources and the cultural landscape, Kersti Markus offers a fresh perspective on the Baltic crusades in Visual Culture and Politics in the Baltic Sea Region, 1100-1250. The book examines how visual propaganda was used by the Danish rulers as an instrument in establishing supremacy in the Baltic Sea region. In recent decades, Danish historians have highlighted the central role of the Valdemar dynasty and the bishops supporting them in the Baltic crusades, but visual sources show how the entire society was mentally prepared for a journey with redemption waiting at the end. A New Jerusalem was being built in Scandinavia, and the crusade to Livonia was conducted under the banner of Christ. See inside the book.

Art of the Baltics

Art of the Baltics PDF Author: Alla Rosenfeld
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 9780813530420
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 502

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Book Description
The Norton and Nancy Dodge Collection of Nonconformist Art from the Soviet Union, 1956-1986, which comprises nearly twenty thousand works, is part of the Jane Voorhees Zimmerli Art Museum at Rutgers University, New Brunswick, New Jersey.

Political Culture in the Baltic States

Political Culture in the Baltic States PDF Author: Kjetil Duvold
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 9783030218430
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
The book is the first systematic and comparative effort to capture political culture in the Baltic countries, including political orientation and support for democracy. Revolving around public opinion data from the 1990s and onwards, including two recent surveys commissioned by the authors, the book takes stock of the political climate prevailing in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania a quarter of a century after reclaiming independence and fifteen years after becoming members of NATO and the EU. These three countries share the same geopolitical fate and many contemporary challenges, and yet each has been marked by their own transitions and struggles between nation building and European integration, Western and post-Soviet orientations, and past experience and future aspirations.

The Baltic Sea Region

The Baltic Sea Region PDF Author: Witold Maciejewski
Publisher: Baltic University Press
ISBN: 9197357987
Category : Baltic Sea Region
Languages : en
Pages : 686

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Book Description


Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania: Country Studies

Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania: Country Studies PDF Author: Walter Iwaskiw
Publisher: CreateSpace
ISBN: 9781490435572
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 334

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Book Description
This volume is one in a continuing series of books prepared by the Federal Research Division of the Library of Congress. This volume is about Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The Baltics in a Changing Europe

The Baltics in a Changing Europe PDF Author: Bhaswati Sarkar
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 9819758904
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 355

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Book Description


The Shadow in the East

The Shadow in the East PDF Author: Aliide Naylor
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786726386
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 169

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Book Description
'An insightful, nuanced account that highlights the present multitude of currents at play in Europe' - Peter Pomerantsev The Baltics are vital democracies in North-Eastern Europe, but with a belligerent Vladimir Putin to their east – plotting his war on Ukraine – and 'expansionist' NATO to their west, these NATO members have increasingly been the subject of unsettling headlines in both Western and Russian media. But beyond the headlines, what is daily existence like in the Baltics, and what does the security of these frontline nations mean for the world? Based on her extensive research and work as a journalist, Aliide Naylor takes us inside the geopolitics of the region. Travelling to the heart of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania she explores modernity in the region, investigates smuggling and troop movements in the borderlands, and explains the countries' unique cultural identities. Naylor tells us why the Baltics have been vital to the political struggle between East and West, and how they play a critical role in understanding the long running tensions between Russia and Europe.