Book Launch: Bakom och bortom järnridån. De sovjetiska åren och frigörelsen i Baltikum och Ukraina (Behind and Beyond the Iron Curtain. The Soviet Years and Liberation in the Baltic States and Ukraine).

The 20th century history of Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Ukraine was dramatic. Wars of liberation, world wars, occupations, deportations and resistance have marked these now sovereign states. For decades they were part of the Soviet Union - much of Ukraine from 1922 and the Baltic States and western Ukraine from 1944. Beginning with the death of Stalin in 1953, Behind and Beyond the Iron Curtain examines the evolution from Soviet Council Republics to independent states from a political perspective. What similarities and differences characterized the countries' development during the decades behind the Iron Curtain? And how did the years surrounding the liberation of the 1980s perestroika play out? After 1991, beyond the Iron Curtain, Estonia became a success story both economically and politically, while Ukraine has been associated with corruption and oligarchs - but also with a growing civil society strengthened by each popular uprising. In between are Latvia, which developed extensive political corruption at the highest level, and Lithuania, where bitterness over the past nearly tore the country apart in the 1990s. Why did they become so different?

This book, a culmination of over two decades of research and numerous illuminating interviews, offers an unparalleled window into the complex and intriguing political history of these four nations. Li Bennich-Björkman is Johan Skytte Professor in Eloquence and Political Science, and affiliated with IRES.

After the seminar there will be a post-seminar with lighter refreshments.

The seminar will be held in English