Politics of Uncertainty

CBEES Advanced Seminar “Politics of Uncertainty. The United States, the Baltic Question, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union”, with Una Bergmane, Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki University

Speaker: Una Bergmane, Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki University

Discussant: Per Bolin, Professor of History, Södertörn University, and Director of the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES)

Chair: Lelde Luik, Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies (CBEES), Södertörn University

Abstract: Bergmane’s research investigates the interplay between international and domestic dynamics in the Soviet disintegration process. Based on extensive multilingual archival research, she recovers the voices of local actors in Riga, Tallinn, and Vilnius in her examination of the triangular relations between Washington, Moscow, and Baltic independence movements. By focusing on the relations between those at the top of global power hierarchies and those situated at their margins, Una Bergmane underscores how the Soviet collapse was driven much more by uncertainty, domestic pressures, and last-minute decisions than by long-term strategy – while warning about the tenuous geopolitical positions of these three states that joined NATO and the European Union after breaking out of the Soviet empire.

Una Bergmane is an Academy of Finland Research Fellow at the Aleksanteri Institute at Helsinki University. Before joining Aleksanteri Institute Una was a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University and a teaching fellow at the London School of Economics. She holds a Ph.D. from Sciences Po Paris.