11 June 2025

Book presentation: Una Bergmane „Politics of Uncertainty. The United States, the Baltic Question, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union“

Una Bergmane, a Latvian historian and research fellow at the University of Helsinki, specialises in Soviet collapse, Baltic history, and international relations. Her 2023 book, “Politics of Uncertainty: The United States, the Baltic Question, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union”, examines how Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania leveraged global instability during the late Cold War to assert their independence, highlighting the influence of marginalised actors amid geopolitical upheaval.

Based on extensive multilingual archival research, this book recovers the voices of local actors in Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius in its examination of the triangular relations between Washington, Moscow, and Baltic independence movements.

Joined by Lithuanian reasercher Rasa Navickaitė (Vilnius University), Bergmane will discuss questions such as: What role did the Baltic countries play in the Soviet collapse? Did the USA support the restoration of Baltic independence? How did uncertainty and confusion within Soviet and Western leadership create opportunities for Baltic activism?

Una Bergmane is a Latvian historian and Academy Research Fellow at the University of Helsinki’s Aleksanteri Institute, specializing in the Soviet collapse, Baltic independence movements, and Cold War international relations. She earned her Ph.D. in History from Sciences Po Paris and has held fellowships at institutions including Yale University, Cornell University, and the London School of Economics.

Rasa Navickaitė is a post-doctoral research fellow and lecturer at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University. She has earner her PhD at the Central European University in Budapest, Hungary, and was formerly a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions postdoctoral fellow at the University of Vienna, Austria.

The event will be held in English.

Briefly about the event

Date

16 June

Time

17:30

Duration

1,5 hours

Place

Statehood Space, 2nd floor

Attendance

free

Organiser

Statehood Centre of the National Library

Important

the event may be photographed and/or filmed
the event will be held in English

More information

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