Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies

Valters Nollendorfs
Academic Executive Director, AABS

The Association for the Advancement of Baltic Studies was founded in 1903 and is international by name, membership, and subject matter. Though most of its membership (two-thirds) lives in the United States, its members can be found in many parts of the world, primarily in Canada, Western Europe, Australia, Japan, and the Baltic states. However, because Soviet rule in the Baltic states ended only in 1991, membership there is still small and scholarly activities are still limited. To encourage the active participation of its far-flung members, two national committees have been established by the respective constituencies: the Canadian Committee, whose activities are centered in Toronto and include the organization of lectures and annual symposia, and the Australasian Committee, whose seat is in Australia and whose activities include the organization of annual conferences.

The aims of the organization can be summarized as follows:

The AABS promotes scholarly and related pedagogical activities dealing with the past and present of the area and inhabitants of the three Baltic Countries, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. These activities include the study of social, political, economic, and cultural life of the inhabitants, their ancestors, and their descendants; the study of the natural and [hu]man-made environment and its changes in time; and the study of the relationships of the area with other geographic areas and their inhabitants. (Journal of Baltic Studies 11 [1980]: 284)

The biannual conferences of the AABS, held in even-numbered years, have reflected these broad interests. They have focused over the years not only on topics concerning the three Baltic nations, but also on Baltic relations with Scandinavia and other European countries, and on ethnic minorities in the Baltic. The conferences attract participants from various parts of the world and are truly international in nature. The most recent conferences were: the 13th Conference on Baltic Studies, “Terra Baltica,” at the University of Toronto, Canada, in June, 1992, and the 14th Conference on Baltic Studies, “Independence and Identity in the Baltic States,” at the University of Illinois at Chicago in June, 1994. The next conference will take place in Boston in 1996.

The Association’s quarterly publications, the Journal of Baltic Studies and the Baltic Studies Newsletter (formerly AABS Newsletter), are provided to the membership and have additional subscribers on all continents. The Baltic Studies Newsletter has become one of the most important sources of information about the academic situation in the Baltic states, academic events, exchanges, and grant opportunities. The AABS also publishes occasional volumes of scholarly studies and subsidizes the publication of important studies in the field of Baltic Studies.

The AABS cooperates closely with two related scholarly organizations in Europe, the Baltische Historische Kommission (BHK), which is headquartered in Goettingen, Germany, and the Baltic Institute in Scandinavia, located in Stockholm. The former has annual conferences. The AABS and the BHK cooperated closely in co-sponsoring a series of specialized conferences in the late 1970s and the 1980s, all of which resulted in major publications. The Baltic Institute in Scandinavia used to have biannual conferences in odd-numbered years. These have been restructured into European Baltic Studies Conferences which will take place in various European centers of learning, beginning with Riga, Latvia in 1995.

In addition to these, the AABS maintains close contacts with centers of academic learning and research in North America and Europe. Unfortunately, there are only a few academic programs and institutes dedicated specifically to Baltic studies anywhere, including the Baltic states themselves. The most notable of these are in Sweden (University of Stockholm) and Germany (University of Muenster). Most of the academic Baltic studies outside the Baltic are carried out in the context of East European or Scandinavian studies, oftentimes by scholars for whom these studies are a disciplinary avocation. There are more centers devoted to disparate Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian studies, both in the Baltic and outside.

Since the renewed independence of the Baltic states, the AABS has devoted increased attention to developing its activities there. These include:

• A colloquium which the AABS organized in Latvia in 1991 to bring together a number of Baltic counterparts for a discussion of the concept and practice of Baltic studies.
• The Baltic Academic Center (BAC) in Riga. Established as a joint venture with IREX in 1991, it was the first U.S. non-governmental representation for the Baltic states. Its IREX representation provides information and advice about IREX’s fellowship and grant programs, distributes and collects applications, and conducts special seminars and symposia. The AABS representation is concerned primarily with the development of an organizational basis and broader issues of academic reform and development, especially as they concern the humanities and the social sciences. Among its activities, the AABS has (a) organized and supported lectures and symposia concerning the academic situation in the West, especially in the United States, grant writing, academic funding, etc.; (b) provided local logistical support for U.S. institutions, scholars, and graduate students doing research in the Baltic states; (c) provided information and assistance for institutions, scholars, and graduate students about possibilities of study in the Baltic states; (d) supported membership activities; (e) carried out liaison work with institutions, organizations, and colleagues in the Baltic states; and (f) prepared an extensive current directory of academic institutions, which is now in press. A broader program is currently in the planning and implementation stages and will include support for U.S. study programs and academic development projects in the Baltic states, especially in various humanities disciplines.

The attempts to develop a broad organizational base for the AABS in the Baltic states have faced various obstacles which are worth analyzing in order to help scholarly societies which plan to establish contacts and working relationships with colleagues and institutions in the Baltic states or other East and Central European countries which for more than half a century have been subjected to similar ideological indoctrination. These include:

• Vestiges of Soviet academic organization. Although the old Soviet academies have by and large been dissolved and transformed, and universities are undergoing slow change, Soviet residues still linger in academic structures and in the minds of academic colleagues. Thus in many an instance, course titles have changed but the content and methodologies have not. Academic titles and privileges carry more weight than actual knowledge. Ideas of professionalism and professional standards are new and hard to establish in societies which have, at least for the time being, placed education at the end of their lists of priorities. Institutional rather than professional allegiances prevail. Scholarly societies as we know them have not yet evolved in the individual disciplines, making multidisciplinary organizational efforts, such as those of the AABS, all the more difficult.
• Problems of perceived functions, practical approaches, and scholarly methodologies. The 1991 colloquium on Baltic studies in Latvia revealed the great gap between the approaches to scholarly organization and methodologies in the West and those in the Baltic states. The long Soviet-enforced isolation from Western colleagues in humanities and social science disciplines is one reason for the gap. Western disciplinary and area studies methods and interests do not coincide, at least, not as yet, with those of our counterpart colleagues in the Baltic states. Narrow disciplinary and national concerns instead of comparative questions dominate in many fields, including literature, folklore, the arts, history, political science, etc. Such perceptions hinder the development of scholarly societies such as the AABS, which attempts to bridge disciplines as well as nationalities.
• Problems of academic reform and faculty development. Academic reform is painfully slow and the faculties are aging. To some extent change is impeded by factors described above. Many faculty members are unwilling or unable to adopt new methodologies and content. Old structures, privileges, and mentalities block the introduction of new approaches and the renewal of faculties. The absence of professional organizations makes the adoption and maintenance of high professional standards difficult. To an even greater extent change is impeded by the overall economic situation and governmental economic priorities, which are not placed on education. Academic infrastructure cannot be kept up, let alone brought up to modern standards. That includes the physical plant, libraries, laboratories, office and classroom equipment. Because of low academic salaries, younger scholars who know Western languages and have been educated in the West find hotter opportunities in the private sector.
• Problems of communication. Russian is no longer used as a lingua franca in the Baltic states, but the knowledge of English or German — the languages used by the AABS — is spotty at best, especially among humanists. As a result, many Baltic scholars are disadvantaged in their attempts to participate in the scholarly methodological discourses of the West, including participation in conferences and publication. Use of electronic media is limited by the dearth of equipment and lack of computer literacy. With few exceptions, access to computers is still basically restricted to computer and informatics specialists. Knowledge of electronic communication and information retrieval technologies is especially low among humanists and social scientists.

The methodological and organizational integration of Baltic scholarship into the Western scholarly community will he a long process. Under current circumstances it may take one to two generations. The process can be expedited and enhanced if disciplinary scholarly societies help to establish and support counterpart societies in the Baltic states, preferably on an area-wide rather than just a national basis.

The AABS stands ready to cooperate with and provide assistance to its fellow U.S. scholarly organizations which want to establish professional contacts with colleagues, institutions, and emerging scholarly groups in the Baltic states and/or to formulate professional exchange, assistance, and development programs.