Conference “Estonian War Refugees in World War II”
In Haapsalu Cultural Centre
24th August, 2024 from 10:00–16:30
Estonian-English translation provided
Live online streaming link
Programme
9:30 Registration
10:00–10:05 Greeting and introduction, Meelis Maripuu, PhD, Board Member of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory
10:05–10:15 Opening Words by President of the Republic of Estonia, Alar Karis
10:15–10:45 Keynote speaker: Uprooted: the Refugee in Us – Andreas Kossert, historian, PhD (Germany)
10:45–11:15 Meelis Maripuu, PhD, Board Member of the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory – Introduction of the database “Estonian War Refugees in World War II”
11:15–11:45 Hiljar Tammela, Researcher at the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory – presentation of a collection of articles on boat refugees to Sweden
11:45–12:00 Coffee break
12:00–12:30 Heikki Roiko-Jokela, PhD (Finland), The Northbound Journey of Estonian Refugees: Secret Crossings over the Gulf of Finland, Exile in Sweden and Extraditions to the Soviet Union
12:30–13:00 Pär Frohnert, PhD (Sweden) – Sweden and Refugees during the World War II
13:00–13:30 Ivar Rüütli – Departure of Estonian Swedes
13:30–14:00 Lunch
14:00–14:30 Marko Poolamets and Olev Liivik, PhD (EMI) – Film introduction
14:30–15:30 Screening of the documentary film “Fleeing: Departure Into the Unknown”. The film brings to the viewer the topic of helping refugees, the stories of refugees and returnees on the example of Sweden, and illustrates the void left by refugees in Estonian society.
15:30–16:15 Discussion: Professor of Archival Studies at Tartu University, Aigi Rahi-Tamm and demographer, Tallinn University Professor Allan Puur, and Sirle Sööt, President of Association of Estonians in Sweden and Estonian World Council
16:15–16:30 Closing remarks
17:00–18:15 Raimo Kangro’s “Mass for Innocent Estonians” (1989, op. 40)in Haapsalu Cathedral, conductor Jüri-Ruut Kangur
Register for the conference here.
The conference is organised within the frames of the project “European Traumatic Memory – women refugees during the 1944 Baltic Escape”, which is co-funded by the European Union.
Presenters
President Alar Karis acquired academic degrees in parasitology, and later his PhD research focussing on molecular genetics and developmental biology.
Alar Karis has worked at universities in Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, and joined the University of Tartu as a professor in 1999. His research has been among the most widely cited internationally of any Estonian scientist of his generation.
In 1999 President Karis founded the University of Tartu-spawned Visgenyx with Professor Eero Vasar, serving as a member of the management board until 2005. The company was involved in the development of transgene organisms for European biotech companies and universities.
President Karis has served as the rector of both the Estonian University of Life Sciences and the University of Tartu. He has led the work of Universities Estonia (the national council of university rectors) a number of times. He has served as the Auditor-General of the Republic of Estonia and as the head of the EUROSAI Working Group on Environmental Auditing (EUROSAI WGEA). He was also the director of the Estonian National Museum.
President Karis has previously been a member of the Academic Council and Academic Advisory Board of the President of the Republic and of the Research and Development Council; a member of the supervisory boards of the Estonian Fund for Nature, the European University Association, the Entrepreneurship & Living Environment Development Division of Enterprise Estonia, the International Council of Archives, the International Council of Museums and the museums of the University of Tartu and the Estonian Literary Museum; and the chairman of the supervisory boards of the Estonian Development Fund and the Estonian University of Life Sciences. He has also been a member of the World Cultural Council since 2011.
Prior to becoming the head of state, President Karis served as the honorary consul to the Republic of Chile in Estonia for 10 years.
He was inaugurated as President of the Republic of Estonia in October of 2021.
Meelis Maripuu is a historian (PhD), who has been researching the Soviet and German occupation regimes since 1998. The topic of his dissertation was the activities of the German civil administration in Estonia 1941-1944. In the Estonian Foundation for the Investigation of Crimes against Humanity and the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, which grew out of it, he has focused on the political repression of the occupation regimes against the Estonian people. Since 2022, he has coordinated the creation of a database of Estonian war refugees.
Andreas Kossert is a research fellow at the Federal Foundation Flight, Expulsion, Reconciliation in Berlin since January 2010. In addition, he teaches German history in the German School at Middlebury College since 2011. After studying history, political science, and Slavonic studies in Freiburg, Edinburgh, and Bonn, he completed his doctoral thesis at the Free University of Berlin in 2000. He worked as a research fellow at the German Historical Institute in Warsaw from 2001 to the end of 2009, from 2004 also as deputy director. Specialized on Central European history, Kossert has published widely on nationalism, borderlands, ethnic and religious minorities, forced migration, displacement, and refugees. His publications include Masuren: Ostpreußens vergessener Süden, Ostpreußen. Geschichte und Mythos, and Kalte Heimat. Die Geschichte der deutschen Vertriebenen nach 1945.
Pär Frohnert, professor of history at Stockholm university. Within the field of migration history he has published the anthology Reaching a State of Hope. Refugees, Immigrants and the Swedish Welfare State, 1930-2000 (2013) and Invandringens historia. Från ”folkhemmet” till dagens Sverige (2017). His book on three Swedish refugee aid organisations, ”Hjälp våra flyktingar!” Politisk och ideell hjälpverksamhet 1933-1939 i Sverige, will be published this fall.
Heikki Roiko-Jokela is an Associate Professor (Docent) at universities of Helsinki, Jyväskylä, Oulu, and Turku and Senior Researcher at Department of History and Ethnology of University of Jyväskylä. My fields of researcher are History and Society of Finland in long-term and I specialise in Political History and History of Ideas, Environmental History, Sport History, and Estonian History. I have published several books and articles on relationships between Finland and Estonia. I have gained academic leadership experience in several international and national researchers projects.
Aigi Rahi-Tamm, a professor of archival science at Univeristy of Tartu, has dealt with various research topics, including Estonian population loss in the 1940s. She has compiled databases, studied forced migration processes and their consequences, Soviet repression policy, war experience, has been involved in the collection of memories, biographies and their analysis, teaches students on a daily basis on how to work with different historical sources. In view of the theme of the conference, articles have been written about the fate of refugees and deportees, the influence policy of the Soviet foreign-Estonian community, etc.
Allan Puur is a professor of population science at Tallinn University. Research in recent years has focused mainly on birth rates and family processes (manifestations of the second demographic transition, differences between native and foreign populations, the impact of family policy measures, etc.). He is also involved in population science infrastructure development and data creation.
Olev Liivik has been working as a Senior Researcher at the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory since 2019 and has also been an Associate Professor of Archival Studies at the University of Tartu since 2022. His research focuses on the political and social history of the Baltic region in the 20th century.