Stefan ApplisTusheti is a historic region in the Caucasus. To the north,t is separated from the Republic of Chechnya within the Russian Federation by a mighty mountain range. To the west, another moun...

In Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service (Oxford University Press, 2026), Harry C. Merritt explores the wartime experiences and postwar legacies of the...

In Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service (Oxford University Press, 2026), Harry C. Merritt explores the wartime experiences and postwar legacies of the...

Stanisław Edward Boridczenko  Writing from the MarginsIn much of Eastern Europe, as elsewhere, contemporary national histories have traditionally been written from the perspective of elites, with a fe...

Giorgi MeladzeMore than three decades after independence, Georgia continues to confront a persistent paradox of rule of law reform. In recent years, as concerns about democratic decline and institutio...

Adelina Stefan talks to Peripheral Histories about researching and writing a transnational history of tourism in two peripheral postwar European dictatorships (Romania and Spain).

Conference Call for Papers: Hybrid Identities in Imperial Spaces of Northern EurasiaPlace and Date: 28–29 October 2026, University of Szczecin, PolandConveners: Stanisław Boridczenko (University of Sz...

Isabelle DeSistoValentina[1] was born in exile in Krasnoyarsk, the second-largest city in Siberia, to an ethnic German father and a Moldovan mother, both of whom had been deported from their homes und...

In Bound by Exclusion and Violence: A History of Belarusian Armed Struggle in the Twentieth Century (published by University of Toronto Press, 2025) Aleksandra Pomiecko follows a group of Belarusian n...

Donald MorardIn 1965, the French Communist journal Démocratie Nouvelle, in its special issue on the “young, advanced republic” of Estonia, described the occupied Baltic country as a “laboratory” for t...

Donald MorardIn 1965, the French Communist journal Démocratie Nouvelle, in its special issue on the “young, advanced republic” of Estonia, described the occupied Baltic country as a “laboratory” for t...

In Moscow’s Heavy Shadow: the Violent Collapse of the USSR (published with Cornell University Press, 2023) Isaac McKean Scarborough weaves together archival documents from Dushanbe and Moscow to tell ...

In Moscow’s Heavy Shadow: the Violent Collapse of the USSR (published with Cornell University Press, 2023) Isaac McKean Scarborough weaves together archival documents from Dushanbe and Moscow to tell ...

Beatrice Penati’s new book Rural History of Soviet Central Asia: Land Reform and Agricultural Change in Early Soviet Uzbekistan (published with Brill, 2025) provides a comprehensive account of early S...

Nicole HarryIn 1959, the Holy See of the Catholic Church and the Soviet government agreed to send two Lithuanian priests to study at the Vatican College of Saint Casimir, which was run by Lithuanian é...

The year 2026 will mark the 110th anniversaries of what are increasingly recognised as defining moments within the wider history of international anti-imperial and anti-colonial struggle: the Easter R...

Kateřina ZächThe Soviet government attempted to demonstrate its resolute power by shaping the perceptions of the population in ways that evinced a feeling of hope. The resource security of the governm...

The ICCEES XI World Congress is being hosted by UCL in London in 2025, and will run from Monday 21st July to Friday 25th July. There is a large and diverse range of panels and roundtables to view, ei...

Stanisław BoridczenkoAmong the private papers of Fr Lew Goroszko — now archived in the Francis Skoryna Belarusian Library and Museum situated in northern London — there lies a chilling, handwritten no...

Victoria Peretitskaya As religious dissenters, the Doukhobors, a pacifist Christian sect dating back to the eighteenth century, endured multiple resettlements within the borders of the Russian Empire....

Aglaia GulakovaThese remaining Old Believers must be seen – their strength, their conviction, their selfless nightly prayers (no longer feasible for us), their vital courage and determination – in tho...

Leora EisenbergIt would have been absurd if it wasn’t quite so sincere: at least seven Kazakhstani composers sitting in a conference room, drawing up lists of people I needed to interview for my disse...

Kristo Nurmis“Ready to Die for Liberty: Tiny Estonia to Declare War on USSR as well as on Reich.” So proclaimed The Boston Globe in July 1944, relaying dramatic claims from Estonian diplomats in neutr...

Hanna Maria Aunin In January 1988, the editorial board of the Tallinnfilm studio signed a contract with Rein Saluri for a feature film script about mass deportations. According to the studio, the topi...

As part of the series that discusses ‘peripheries’ in the Baltic states, Rasa Kamarauskaitė (RK) of the BASEES Study Group on the Baltic States interviewed Estonian sexuality scholar Rebeka Põldsam (R...

Kateryna BudzOne of the most popular Ukrainian carols is ‘Nova Radist’ Stala’ (‘A New Joy has Come’), which tells the story of the birth of Christ.[1] After the Soviets occupied the Western Ukrainian ...

It is no secret that the Peripheral Histories? editorial team is comprised of a few historians of humanitarianism who are rather enthusiastic about drawing upon the archives of international organisations to write new histories of Eastern Europe, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. Some of our readers may remember that we included the collections of the ICRC archives and library back in our archives-focused series in summer 2023. Therefore, we were very excited to see the publication of a

Mann LoperThe establishment of Estonia’s independent statehood in 1918 took the political and cultural freedom of Estonians to an entirely new level. Under the Russian Empire, imperial policies and th...

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Rasa Kamarauskaitė (RK)As part of the series that discusses ‘periphery’ in the Baltic states, Lithuanian sexuality scholar Rasa Navickaitė (RN) challenges Western-focused approaches to Baltic sexualit...

John FreemanThe early modern eastern Baltic Sea has often been considered, with some criticism, a global periphery in comparison to the oceanic ‘core’. Nevertheless, a handful of eastern Baltic territ...

Our archives and libraries series is back with new interviews related to digital primary source collections, as well as with archivists and librarians who manage underused collections related to Easte...

For our special series on libraries and archives with collections easily accessible online, Peripheral Histories? editor Priska Komaromi spoke to Judit Hegedüs (JH) and Robert Parnica (RP), two archiv...

Based on a discussion of the argument that there might be tensions between interwoven processes of nationalization and democratization we address the following question: Do divisions – regarding ethni...