The “Transitional Justice” event series organised by the Federal Government Commissioner for the New Federal States and the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany, continues to offer interesting sessions for those interested! The upcoming discussion, titled “Remembering two Dictatorships? The Rivalry of Dealing with the Past in the Baltic States”, will take place on May 11th, 2021 at 6 p.m. (UTC+2).

This series of events is put together by the Federal Government Commissioner for the New Federal States and the Federal Foundation for the Study of the Communist Dictatorship in Eastern Germany from February 2021 to May 2022. In ten events, the various forms and aspects of social and legal processes of coming to terms with the past after war, tyranny and dictatorship(s) are examined through various country examples. The series is moderated by Tamina Kutscher, editor-in-chief of dekoder.org.

In May 2021, the third event “Remembering two Dictatorships? The Rivalry of Dealing with the Past in the Baltic States” will focus on the debates about the culture of remembrance and dealing with the past in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. With the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Pact on August 23, 1939, the three Baltic states were assigned to the Soviet sphere of power, occupied by the Red Army and incorporated into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics until 1990. The Soviet occupation was interrupted from 1941 to 1944 by the occupation by the Nazis. How do today’s Baltic states deal with their history of two dictatorships which caused brutal arbitrariness, acts of violence, mass arrests, mass liquidations and deportations? What approaches to transitional justice existed in these states after they regained independence in 1990? How can the injustice of the Soviet period be remembered without relativizing the injustice that accompanied the German occupation? Can we speak of a rivalry in dealing with the past?

The participants are Prof Dr Violeta Davoliūtė (Vilnius University), Dr Meelis Maripuu (Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, Tallinn) and Lolita Tomsone (Žanis Lipke Memorial, Riga). The event will take place as an online-discussion and will be broadcast in two streams in German and English. You can access the livestream in English on May 11th, 2021 at 6 p.m. here.

You can find an overview of the event series “Transitional Justice” on this flyer. You will also find all recordings in the media library. Further dates and topics are:

• June 22, 2021: Hate or Reconciliation? National Identity and Transnational Relations in the Balkans
• September 14, 2021: Between Liberation and Influence—Dealing with the Soviet Occupation in Contemporary Caucasus
• October 12, 2021: Violence and Resistance—Truth Commissions in Latin America
• November 23, 2021: The Presence of the Past—30 Years after the Collapse of the Soviet Union