Projects

On Belonging and Identity in the Post-WWII Baltic Diasporas as Mediated in Fiction and Life Writing

For the Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian exile communities that emerged in the aftermath of World War II and the occupation of their respective homelands, the arts became a way to both perpetuate their identity in the free world and to explore the predicaments wrought by the condition of exile. Within the diasporas’ literary scenes, the works that touched upon the exilic experience varied from attempts to recapture and preserve lost homelands to contemplations on trauma and displacement.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Building a Union through Crises: The EU, Crisis-induced Policy Learning and the European Integration Process, 2008-2022

Since the late 2000s, the EU has faced an abundance of external and internal crises, from the Sovereign Debt Crisis to Russia’s current war on Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis. To understand how these crises affect the EU, it is essential to understand how the Union deals with and, crucially, learns from crises.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

“A great and unheard-of sea wonder” Narratives and perceptions of historical storm surges in the southwestern Baltic Sea from the 14th to 17th century

Extreme storm surges occurring on the southwestern coasts of the Baltic Sea were perceived as disasters. How can this be concluded from the narrative texts concerning these events and which factors played a key role in their depiction?

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Shattered Expectations: The construction of narrative meaning in a shared reading group for informal caregivers

Informal caregivers often experience expectancy violations when caring for loved ones. The experience of becoming an informal caregiver may for example challenge their expectations of themselves as caregivers and expectations regarding their own future. This thesis aims to investigate these schema violations as prominent themes in contemporary Scandinavian caregiving fiction.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Gold Treasures as Objects of Identification in the Baltic Sea Region from 1800 until Today

The PhD project investigates the reception of Viking Age gold treasure finds in the Baltic Sea Region during the 19th and 20th centuries. Their discovery, their way into museums and collections, their presentation there, as well as their research and popularisation allow conclusions to be drawn about processes of identification with and demarcation from early medieval Scandinavian culture that took place around the Baltic Sea during this period.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

The Influence of Russia-related Critical Junctures on Its Standing in the Baltic Sea Region

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Written Traces of Contact in Medieval Greenland and Sápmi (1000-1550)

Medieval Greenland and the north of Fennoscandia (Sápmi) share a very interesting feature, namely the existence of people who, at least partly, did not become Christians until after the reformation. This is the case even though Christians lived in rather close proximity. Therefore, my research focuses on two main questions: How did the coexistence of Christian and non-Christian groups, namely Saami and Proto-Inuit, look like in the Middle Ages? How where non-Christians perceived, and what influence did these views have on the interaction between them and Christians?

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

From Ideology to Politics – German Occupation of Sámi Everyday Life 1940–45

During the occupation of Norway by the Nazis, Norway was granted a special position in the Nazi regime’s imagined post-war world order, based on a fabricated “Germanic shared destiny”. But how were the Sámi people viewed by Norwegian and German National Socialists within the framework of National Socialist racial ideology? What kind of contact was there between Sámi communities and the German occupying forces during the war, and how were the meetings influenced by this racial ideology?

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Between Nation, World and Universe: The Philosophy of Home in Nynorsk Literature. 1840-1925.

The motif of heim (the Nynorsk word for home) appears constantly in Nynorsk literature’s beginnings and well into the modern breakthrough. Aside from its definition as a symbol of topographical place, to where one belongs or returns, or from where one departs, heim develops a second meaning that becomes a primary symbol in poetry and prose. It is this second meaning which this thesis argues is paramount to the literature of Nynorsk.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025