Aims of the Conference
The 2018 conference focuses on the historical, cultural, social, economic processes which led in the Baltic Sea Region to the independence of Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and Poland, to the unification of Romania and the independence of Czechoslovakia, Austria, Hungary and Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (Yugoslavia) in East-Central Europe and the consequences of the reshaping of the entire region from the Baltic Sea to the Black Sea and Adriatic. Several other political entities created at the end of the World War I such as Ukraine, Georgia or Litbel succumbed after barely living for a few months or years of existence. How did the changes of borders and belonging affect the human communities living in the area and what impact it had beyond the region on the short, medium and long-run? How war and peace-making were experienced in this region and how did they influence the changes of political geography? How the processes of independence and unification reverberated throughout the region and how state and non-state actors reflected, echoed and reacted to this structural transformation of the area? How is this metamorphosis resonating in historical memory, the politics of memory and cultural identity, in historical narratives, including competing narratives, and in the use of history in identity politics a century after the guns were silenced? How is literature permeated by the changes occurring at the end of the war to end all wars in the region? How are art, architecture, patrimony, in general, capturing the message of those tremendous transformations? Places of commemoration, autobiographies, biographies and memoirs, empiric or theoretical research relevant to the conference’s topic may also be the focal point of the submitted papers.
The 2018 conference invites applications from consecrated and young specialists, theorists and practitioners in the most various fields: history, memory studies, cultural studies, anthropology, political sciences, international relations, economics, geography, etc.

Prospective panels:
Panel 1: Historical processes contributing to and explaining the paths towards independence and unification in the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe
Panel 2: The Great War and the post-war settlements in the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe
Panel 3: Memory and centennial memorialization in the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe
Panel 4: Historical discourse and conflicting memories in the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe
Panel 5: History, patrimony, identity in the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe in the frame of post-World War I settlements
Panel 6: Soft versus hard borders in post-World War I Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe
Panel 7: Reflection of World War I and its political, territorial, social, cultural outcomes in literature, arts, architecture, and cinematography
Panel 8: Media representations of war, peace and change of the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe
Panel 9: The League of Nations and minority rights as a panacea following the reshaping of the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe
Panel 10: Security (national, regional, collective) and peace in the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe following the end of the Great War
Panel 11: The impact of post-World War I legacy on current European debates of heritage and identity
Panel 12: Relations between the Baltic Sea Region and East-Central Europe nations in the context of World War I and its outcomes
Others to be proposed by the applicants.
The Conference Schedule and Deadlines:
• Publication of the call for papers: March 10th, 2018
• Proposals for panels and roundtables (approx. 500 words): May 15th, 2018
• Abstracts for individual papers (approx. 300 words): May 15th, 2018
• Notification of acceptance: June 1st, 2018
• Publication of the conference program: June 15th, 2018
• Deadline for submitting the conference articles: September 15th, 2018
• Conference: November 15th-16th, 2018
• Publication of conference articles: December 30th, 2018

Main Organizer
The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies (Asociaţia Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice) is the leading Romanian organization involved in the advancement of Scandinavian studies in Romania. ARSBN organizes, starting with 2010, a yearly international conference of Baltic and Nordic Studies, publishes the bi-annual peer-reviewed Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies, edits monographs, volumes of documents, translates Scandinavian and Baltic authors into Romanian, coordinates the Summer School of Nordic and Baltic Studies in Romania. It also organizes various events, exhibitions, conferences, meetings and book presentations with subjects related to Nordic area studies. It offers grants and prizes in order to encourage the development of Scandinavian research in Romania. It has also set up a small library of Baltic and Nordic studies which is continuously enhanced and updated. Thus, ARSBN has an extensive web of partners within research institutions and universities in Scandinavia and around the Baltic Sea area, which it seeks to develop by networking and engaging in common ventures. The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies has achieved already a large number of research and educative projects in the field of Scandinavian and Baltic Studies. ARSBN has so far organized eight editions of the Annual International Conference of Nordic and Baltic Studies (2010-2017):
It has also organized three sessions of the Nordic and Baltic Summer School whereby 50 students from Romania and Republic of Moldova have been taught Scandinavian, Finnic, and Baltic languages, history, culture, the latter session sbeing funded from the EEA Grants
- http://arsbn.ro/coolpeace.htm
ARSBN has been successful in achieving finance for projects dealing with Romania’s relations with Nordic and Baltic countries and has the most valuable expertise in this field. The results of its researches have been twice chosen as the Book of the Month by the Romanian Foreign Ministry and once by the Latvian Foreign Ministry:
- http://www.mae.ro/node/12161
- http://www.mae.ro/node/17530
- http://www.mfa.gov.lv/en/news/press-releases/2013/may/31-1/
Accomplished research projects in this respect are the volumes dedicated to the Romanian-Lithuanian relations, Romanian-Latvian relations, the histories of Finland and Lithuania, the diaries of Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim and General Titus Garbea ,etc.
ARSBN has also organized a large number of conferences, seminars and exhibitions dedicated to Romania’s relations with Nordic and Baltic nations and cultures. For instance, it is highly relevant that ARSBN has cooperated in the celebration of playwright Henrik Ibsen (http://arsbn.ro/celebrare-henrik-ibsen.htm), Edvard Munch (http://arsbn.ro/edvard-munch-150-de-ani-de-la-nastere-2.htm) and has organized the Norwegian Culture and History Week in 2013 (http://arsbn.ro/saptamana-culturii-si-istoriei-norvegiene-2013.htm).
Furthermore, the ARSBN has been a partner in a project designed by the Romanian Embassy in Oslo to mark the 50th anniversary of the opening of diplomatic relations at the embassy level between Romania and Norway.

Past conferences
The conference continues and develops a project that the Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies (ARSBN) initiated in 2010, aiming at investigating, comparing and describing the relations, encounters, intersections, confluences, mutual influences and/or parallels between the Nordic and Baltic Sea areas, on the one hand, and the Black Sea Region, on the other hand. The project was structured in annual international conferences. Thus, the first conference, entitled “Romania and Lithuania in the interwar international relations: bonds, intersections and encounters” was held on 19-21 May 2010 in Târgoviște and concentrated, as the title suggests, on the present and historical relations between the two countries belonging to these two areas. The following editions of the annual ARSBN conference enlarged their scope, being entitled “The Black Sea and the Baltic Sea regions: confluences, influences and crosscurrents in the modern and contemporary ages” (Târgoviște, 20-22 May 2011), “European networks: the Balkans, Scandinavia and the Baltic World in a time of economic and ideological crisis” (Târgoviște, 25-27 May 2012), “Empire-building and region-building in the Baltic, North and Black Sea areas” (Constanța, 24-26 May 2013), “A piece of culture, a culture of peace, re-imaging European communities in the North Sea, Baltic Sea and Black Sea regions” (Târgoviște, 17-19 August 2014), “Historical memory, the politics of memory and cultural identity: Romania, Scandinavia and Baltic Sea Region in comparison” (Constanța, 22-23 May 2015), “Good governance in Romania and the Nordic and Baltic countries” (Bucharest, 24 November 2016), “Finland, Romania, Roma integration - Learning from each other” (Bucharest, 9 October 2017).
During its previous eight editions, the ARSBN conference addressed fundamental problems within the current agenda of the Nordic, Baltic and Black sea states and contributed with fresh ideas and innovative research results to the general knowledge in the scientific field. Moreover, the conference advanced draft proposals useful to the European decision-makers of different fields.
While the participants to the first two editions of the conference concentrated rather on the historical dimension of the relations, the following editions brought together specialists from various fields (political science, economics, international relations, minority studies, cultural studies, mnemonic studies, etc.) and addressed, besides the historical aspect of relations, other aspects relevant to the present time, i.e. the global economic crisis, the Balkan organized crime in Nordic Europe, region-building processes, the minorities in the Baltic Sea area and in the Balkans, the Roma minority integration, etc.