Making Use of the Past: The role of historians in Baltic Sea Region building

Abstract

In this paper I analyze how the histories of the Baltic Sea region have been constructed and used in the post-Cold War period. After 1989, historians assumed the role of region-builders. Historical narratives were constructed based on a definition of the region as a place of networks, with the aim to break with the traditional historiography of the belligerent Baltic Sea region. This approach, which was most visible in the 1990s, was conditioned by political and economic processes; but it failed to encompass the whole region.