The Cambridge University Baltic Geopolitics Programme is hosting a symposium to mark the 30th Anniversary of the dissolution of the Soviet Union. It is of particular significance in light of recent events in Ukraine.
It will focus upon the contribution of events in the Baltic to this enormous geopolitical change. This in-person event was planned to mark the first anniversary of the launch of the Baltic Geopolitics Programme and celebrate a successful first year of online events.
PROGRAMME
0915 – 0945
Tea, Coffee etc
0945 – 1000
Welcome by Professor Brendan Simms and Rt Hon Charles Clarke
1000 – 1030
Keynote: The Baltic context in 1991 and its Significance
Professor Kristina Spohr, Professor of International History at the London School of Economics. Her recent books include Post Wall, Post Square and Germany and The Baltic problem after the Cold War
1030 – 1130
The international preconditions for the freedom of the Baltic States and the collapse of the Soviet Union
Professor Jonathan Haslam FBA, Emeritus Professor in the History of International Relations, Cambridge University and author: The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II
Doctor Mart Kuldkepp, Associate Professor School for European Languages Culture and Society at University College London, author: Baltic Crisis: Nordic and Baltic countries during the end stage of the Cold War
1130 – 1200
Tea, coffee and biscuits
1200 – 1300
The contribution of the independence campaigns in the Baltic states
Professor Stefan Hedlund, Professor at the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Uppsala University and author: The Baltic States and the End of the Soviet Empire
Professor Kaarel Piirimae, Associate Professor of Contemporary History, University of Tartu and Project Researcher at Helsinki University, articles include Gorbachev’s new thinking and Estonia has no time
1300 – 1400
Buffet lunch
1400 – 1500
Responses in Moscow to events in the Baltic
Professor Archie Brown FBA, Emeritus Professor of Politics, Oxford University and author of The Human Factor: Gorbachev, Reagan, and Thatcher, and the end of the Cold War
Professor Vladislav Zubok, Professor of International History, LSE and author: Collapse: the fall of the Soviet Union
1500 – 1520
Tea, coffee and biscuits
1520 – 1615
How Britain dealt with events in the Baltic at this time
Sir Rodric Braithwaite, British Ambassador to the Soviet Union 1988-1991 and to Russia 1991-2, Author Across the Moscow River: the world turned upside down
Patrick Salmon, Chief historian at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and an expert on Britain’s relationship with the Baltic and the Nordic countries.
Bridget Kendall, Master of Peterhouse Cambridge. BBC Moscow correspondent 1989-1994
1615 – 1700
Contemporary implications of interpretations of the history of 1991
Dr Inga Zakšauskienė, Assistant Professor at the Faculty of History, University of Vilnius, Author Discovering the Secret Listener: Western Radio Broadcasts to Soviet Lithuania
Professor Andrew Wilson, University College London, Author Ukraine Crisis: What the West Needs to Know
1700 – 1715
Concluding remarks
Professor Brendan Simms, Director, Centre for Geopolitics
Dr Donatas Kupciunas, Research Associate, Baltic Geopolitics Programme
Rt Hon Charles Clarke, Joint Leader, Baltic Geopolitics Programme
1745 – 1915
Drinks reception at the Graduate Hotel
