Reflections on AABS Conference Maira Bundza
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Western Michigan University From the SelectedWorks of Maira Bundza Summer 2014 Reflections on AABS Conference Maira Bundza Available at: https://works.bepress.com/maira_bundza/58/ Baltic Studies at Reflections on AABS Conference By Maira Bundza we could mingle with all of the confer- Stanford Libraries Western Michigan University ence attendees. I stood in a food line with By Liisi Eglit a grad student who had always defined After returning himself as The Viking, and was now Asst. Curator for Estonian & Baltic Studies from the AABS disconcerted to be amongst so many Stanford University Libraries conference, I am Vikings. It was a pleasure to run into Until recently, again motivated to three delightful folks from the Herder the Baltic collec- get back to work Institute, who reminded me that the next tion of Stanford on my own re- European Baltic Studies conference will University Librar- search, so I think be held at their institution in September ies (SUL) formed a it is money well 2015. Wonder how I could get to that? tiny fraction of its spent by me and There was no bibliographic track and large Slavic and my institution. This is the second time the the only session I would categorize as East European Balts decided to have a combined confer- being library focused was on émigré Bal- collection. This ence with the Scandinavians, and though tic Press, where Andris Straumanis had changed due to an endowment re- I see overlapping themes and some joint again done solid research looking at how ceived from Kistler-Ritso Foundation, sessions, I am not sure this is the best for the word “veclatvieši” or “old Latvians” an organization founded by Dr. Olga Baltic studies. There were close to 530 at- had come about and how that first wave Kistler-Ritso. tendees from 22 countries and 39 percent of Latvian emigrants was described in In Estonia, the foundation’s great- were AABS members, so roughly 200 Latvia and in the émigré press. His pa- est achievement is building and sup- with interest in the Baltics. I don’t know per was full of useful facts and numbers. porting the Museum of Occupations, how that compares with the last confer- Erick Zen (he actually has a much longer which was opened in Tallinn in 2003. ence in Chicago, but there were a good full name) surprised me by being from The foundation’s endowment to SUL number of grad students attending, so I Rio de Janeiro and talking about Lithu- made it possible to hire a person who feel Baltic studies are alive and well. anians in Argentina and Brazil. Violeta would specifically curate and enlarge As in all conferences, there were vari- Kaledaite from Vytautas Magnus Uni- the collections of three Baltic States at ous tracks with presentations on minu- versity discussed the publication Litua- Stanford, and would also collaborate tiae that mostly interest specialists, but nus, one of the two scholarly publications with the museum in Estonia. In 2013, I found something interesting to attend on Lithuanian issues in English. My old- Liisi Eglit started her work as assis- in almost all the time slots. Only in the est acquaintance in the Lithuanian com- tant curator for Estonian and Baltic very first session I had no preference munity, Ramune Kubilius, had a very studies. and chose a room, because it just looked nice overview of current Lithuanian The current Baltic collection of SUL cool with stained glass and had plenty of publications in English. focuses on the 20th and 21st century seats, so I could go through the program I ran into Ivars Ijābs from the Univer- history and culture of the Baltic states, and choose what I was going to listen to sity of Latvia on the street and went to his and is represented by four main key- throughout the conference. With one eye presentation on the evolution of Latvian words: occupation, resistance, free- and ear I vaguely followed a session on nationalist thought through maps. I had dom, and recovery. The 20,000+ vol- Viking archeological digs. What I got out never seen the early maps of Latvia that ume collection is growing fast due to of it was that Vikings were buried with did not contain the Latgale region and acquisitions of newly published ma- their horses, dogs and weapons, some- had no distinct border at the north divid- terial, exchange programs with other times in boats. The keynote was also on ing it from Estonia. The first map that libraries, and numerous donations Vikings, or more specifically – Beserkers included what we now consider Latvia received from other institutions (e.g. – an especially crazy, violent form of Vi- was printed in 1890 and the use of the University of Washington Library, kings. A renown Yale professor – Anders term “Latvia” started in the 1860’s. It was Estonian Museum Abroad) and mem- Winroth – started with the word “beserk” fun to watch the Lithuanians squirm, bers of the Baltic community. SUL is as used in newspapers and elsewhere in when some of the maps took a broad increasingly interested in enlarging its the last 100 years or so, went on to refer- sweep of Latvia that included Lithuania. Baltic archival collections by focusing ences of Beserkers in 12th century sagas, There were many simultaneous ses- on memoirs, life stories, and docu- to various linguistic explanations of the sions, but at least they were all in close ments of members of the Baltic dias- word – weather it meant bare-skinned, proximity, and I would hop from one pora in the United States. or bear skin covered or chain mail cov- to the next, even within one session, so I SUL actively collaborates with ered. I enjoyed watching this man make only got to a part of the round table on other institutions and organizations his argument. BATUN, the Baltic Appeal to the United in order to enhance the Baltic studies The reception was held in the Yale's Nations. This session led to some of the by conducting collaborative projects, Beinecke Rare Books & Manuscript Li- most useful discussions for me. First, See BALTIC STUDIES AT SUL, pg. 7 brary. It was one of the few times where See REFLECTIONS, pg. 10 AABS Newsletter | Summer 2014 5 Reflections on Conference Continued from Page 5 I heard them ask the presenters, if they would be willing to share their presenta- tions, and it was left up to people emailing each other. I just thought „Sheesh, if they were using our institutional repository platform, had the conference schedule up in that, they could just add their presenta- tions, and they would be available to ev- erybody.” The Administrative Executive Director of AABS, Irena Blekys, was there, so I started talking to her about this. Then it evolved into a conversation about how AABS and BATUN archives should be saved, organized, digitized, etc. There was a whole series of sessions on the Singing Revolution theme. I wanted to hear Guntis Šmidchens speak, so I went to one of those sessions and got to also hear Andris Straumanis and Ramune Kubilius at the 2014 AABS-SASS Conference. | Photo by Maira Bundza Jānis Chakars, who will organize the next residents whose first language was Italian, Anna Romanovska talked about think- AABS conference in Philadelphia, and Russian, French, etc. She also asked them ing of her past life in colors - dark ones for Bradley Woodworth, who heads the Baltic about their motivation to learn or not learn difficult parts of her life, bright yellow for Studies program at Yale and was the main Lithuanian. Some were eager to learn so shoes her mother had purchased for her organizer of this conference. The Sing- they would fit in better, others felt no rea- abroad, etc. She had an amazing sketch ing Revolution is an engaging topic rais- son to and had not learned anything be- where she had managed to display the ing questions on the role the Baltic States sides very basic courtesies in over 15 years. lives of her family as intertwining colored played in the fall of the Soviet Union, did Iveta Grinberga, the Latvian instructor timelines. I think this would be a fun way they show how a David can slay Goliath, for UW had done a preliminary study with for displaying a family history. Mark Ian what role singing had in it, did the fact two students of different backgrounds. Jones from Australia talked about Swedish that choirs are inherently democratic have The non-heritage student had more dif- and Scandinavian design that was very an effect, etc. At this session I also ran into ficulty with cases and tended to simplify popular 1950-70. Mark Svede talked about Joseph Ellis from Wingate University in the case system. The heritage student, who the Latvian artist Andris Vitoliņš, making NC, who had taken his students to Estonia had at least heard the language in child- sense of things I would not have under- after teaching a class on the Singing Revo- hood, tended to do more code mixing stood on my own. The session ended with lution. We presented at the same session – substituting English words for Latvian. Zivile Gimbutas talking about Lithuanian in Chicago and he was recognized with a Looking forward to more of her research. artists Ciurlionis, Vizgirda and Virkau. reward at the AABS meeting. Agita Misāne of the University of Lat- Mark suggested that we also listen to Alise I heard Vilis Inde talk about translating via explained to us how the Namejs ring Tifentale, who he considers the brightest a Latvian classic – Rainis’ Zelta zirgs into became a tradition.