Lunch & Learn seminar with Mattias Legnér
- Date
- 4 March 2026, 12:00–13:00
- Location
- Campus Gotland, lecture hall B51
- Type
- Seminar
- Organiser
- Department of Archaeology, Ancient History and Conservation
- Contact person
- Mattias Legnér
You are warmly invited to a Lunch & Learn seminar, Values to safeguard: Heritage protection in times of crises and international conflict, with Mattias Legnér from the Department of Archaeology, Ancient History and Conservation.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the deteriorating security situation in the Baltic Sea have prompted Swedish civil society to strengthen its preparedness. As a consequence, museums and other heritage managers are now increasing their readiness in order to respond to various types of crises, periods of heightened alert, or even outright war. The situation can be compared with that at the beginning and during the early phase of the Second World War, when museums also scrambled to better secure their collections and to contribute to civil defence. A notable difference, however, is the far greater importance attributed to heritage in today’s society compared with 1939. Knowledge of our past is increasingly regarded as an invaluable force for societal resilience — but is the heritage sector ready to embrace this challenge?
In this talk, Professor Mattias Legnér reports on ongoing as well as recently completed research funded by Riksantikvarieämbetet (the National Heritage Board).
We will be providing a lunch salad, and as we need to know how many to order, please register for the seminar via this link no later than 27 February.
Welcome!
Mattias Legnér
Mattias Legnér is an historian and Professor in Conservation at Uppsala University. Among his research interests is the multiple relationships between cultural heritage and war. In 2022 he published a monograph on cultural property protection, heritage destruction and cultural propaganda in the Nordic region before and during the Second World War: Värden att värna. Kulturminnesvård som statsintresse i Norden vid tiden för andra världskriget, Makadam Förlag (Values to safeguard. Heritage protection and state interest in Norden before and during the Second World War). Read more about Mattias Legnér.