Projects

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

“The Home Born Anew: The Concept of ‘Heim’ in Nynorsk Poetics and Poetry.”

The word heim (the Nynorsk word for home) appears constantly in the poetry written by Nynorsk (New Norwegian, one of Norway’s official language forms) writers, from the 18th century to the middle of the 20th century. Its poetic meaning is ambiguous; sometimes topographical, religious, metaphysical, mythological or abstract, the motif of heim has become an important symbol in Nynorsk poetics. This thesis is concerned with the history of this symbol; how it has been shaped, its discursive meaning and the possibilities of meaning in poetic forms.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

“A poet in Russia is more than a poet”. The New Generation of the Thaw as Stylistic Group: A Case Study

The process of de-Stalinization made it finally possible for Soviet culture to start to free itself from a heavily censored and ideologically contained creative production, even if only partially. Inside this complex literary surrounding, a new group of poets emerged: Evgeny Evtushenko, Andrei Voznesensky, Bella Akhmadulina and Robert Rozhdestvensky were extremely young and at the very beginning of their careers, and therefore extremely receptive to all the changes and new possibilities of this decade.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

In Search of Lost Homes: Post-Holocaust Restitution in Norway 1945–1950s

In my PhD thesis, I research the post-Holocaust restitution of homes and businesses in Norway, focusing on the greater human significance of property and return. Through this lens, I examine the larger topics of Jewish Norwegians’ rebuilding of their post-Holocaust lives and the post-war Norwegian government’s response to the genocide.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Die finnische Avantgarde im Spiegel der Sprache

Das Projekt nimmt eine ausdrücklich linguistische Analyse von Konstruktionen des Konzepts ‚Avantgarde‘ in Finnland vor. Im Sinne der Idee eines „sprachlichen Weltbildes“ (zurückgehend auf die klassischen Entwürfe der Konstruktion von Welt durch Sprache) sollen Begriffsumfang und -inhalt von ‚Avantgarde‘ aus sprachlichen Reaktionen auf künstlerische Praktiken erschlossen werden.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Pandemic Role Models, Negative Pioneers and World Champions. The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Journalistic Spatial Narratives for the Cases of Sweden and Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania

This project focused on the corona pandemic as a turning point for public narratives about the Baltic Sea Region. Based on a corpus of German newspaper articles covering the pandemic, it investigated how the public perception of Sweden and the federal state Mecklenburg-Vorpommern has changed under the influence of the current crisis.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

From Pariah to Partner? Shifting Narratives about Swedish Right-wing Populists

This project examines how the way established parties in Sweden referred to the right-wing populist party Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden Democrats) has changed between 2010 and 2024, thereby highlighting the agency of mainstream political actors in determining what ideas and discourses are deemed acceptable.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

Health as a Happy Ending? Potentials of a Narratological Interpretation of the Concept of Disease Using the Example of the Conceptions of Disease and Health before and after the Accession of the GDR to the Federal Republic of Germany

The project contributes to the philosophical research on the concepts of health and disease systematically as well as historically. The application of the narratological concept of peripety to the interpretation of ‘disease’ aims at extending and clarifying the complex medico-philosophical debate. Viewing definitions of disease as instances of peripeties enables me to craft a heuristic that is adequate to analyse these definitions with regard to their underlying narrativity. That way recently developed narratological approaches that are gaining popularity within the field of medical humanities are put in relation with the broader philosophical debate.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025

The Flow of Time. The Alta-Controversy as a Historical Turning Point

In 1970 the Norwegian government publicly announced plans for a monumental dam and hydropower-station located in the far north of the country. The Sámi minority played an important role in the numerous oppositional movements formed against these plans. The Alta-saken was a definite turning point in the history of the indigenous Sámi-population in northern Europe. Drawing on Jurij Lotman’s work, I analyse the narrative construction of this crucial event to explain the cultural negations surrounding the Alta-river.

- Olga Syrova, 21.11.2025