• Download back issue of Baltic Worlds

  Issue 2025, 3: Download.

• Would you like to contribute to Baltic Worlds?
  Click here!
• Follow us on Facebook!
• • Belarus
  • Communism
  • democracy
  • election
  • Estonia
  • Gender
  • Latvia
  • Lithuania
  • Poland
  • Russia
  • Soviet
  • Sweden
  • Ukraine
  • all tags

• 

  Folk music (post)revival in (re)invented Ukrainian military funeral. A research note on wartime ritual practice

  By Inna Shvorak on 23 October, 2025

  This research note investigates the revival of Ukrainian folk music in the (re)invented military funeral rituals during the ongoing war on Ukraine. Since the 2022 full-scale invasion, elements of folk music – such as historical Cossack songs, the Carpathian trembita, and lullabies – have re-emerged in urban civic mourning, symbolizing national grief, resistance, and identity. Drawing on concepts of revival, postrevival, and (re)invention (Livingston, Bithell & Hill, Hobsbawm, Prickett), the article examines how these musical forms are recontextualized in response to trauma and loss. Through three specific case studies, the article explores how Ukrainian folk music has been adapted to contemporary urban ritual settings and examines its role in shaping symbolic expressions of memory, resilience, and cultural continuity in wartime Ukraine. The study contributes to the broader discourse on the role of music in ritual transformation in the context of war and conflict.

  Category: Peer-reviewed articles

  

  Raving, rebuilding, and resisting. Rave tolokas as communal electronic music practices in wartime Ukraine

  By Emma C. Schrott on 23 October, 2025

  This research examines the uncharted phenomenon of rave tolokas, where electronic dance music practice merges with cleaning war-torn villages in Ukraine, fostering community, resistance, and cultural identity amidst the full-scale war in Ukraine. It interprets rave tolokas as embodied, physicalaffective experiences that intertwine dance and labor to restore cultural spaces. Through music and sonic material, participants actively confront war, challenging narratives of rave culture as escapism. Contributing to (ethno)musicology and conflict studies, this work highlights music’s multifaceted roles in armed conflict. It draws on participatory digital ethnographic methods, including in-depth interviews, addressing the challenges of conducting wartime research.

  Category: Peer-reviewed articles

Just in

• Introduction. Sounds in times of war Popular music, (contentious) politics and social change since Russia’s war on Ukraine

  That music may connect well with violence contradicts common understandings of music being a force of good which brings people together. While acknowledging that music can harmonize social relations, this special issue highlights the idea that music can equally justify war and ignite conflicts. Exploring music from such a matter-of-fact viewpoint shifts scholarly attention to the relationship between music, politics, and societal dynamics. This special issue does so in the context of Russia’s war on Ukraine.

  By Anna Schwenck, Aleksej Tikhonov, and David-Emil Wickström October 23, 2025

• Listening to alternative histories through independent sound media in Ukraine

  This essay, based on broader research on independent radio stations from Kyiv, Gasoline Radio and 20ft Radio, and an independent label, Shukai, looks at how these sound media can engage with cultural history and offer different ways to think about archiving. Through applying Diana Taylor’s use of repertoire to three specific sound examples (a radio show, an installation, and a record), I argue that these alternative sound media formats allow an open and dynamic reading of cultural works of the past. The role practitioners seem to take up is to look for and fill gaps they see in mainstream public discourse in relation to Ukrainian music, culture, and sound media history. Listening for the missing knowledge from the past allows the audience to attune it with imaginations of the future.

  Essay by Ieva Gudaitytė October 23, 2025

• Folk music (post)revival in (re)invented Ukrainian military funeral. A research note on wartime ritual practice

  This research note investigates the revival of Ukrainian folk music in the (re)invented military funeral rituals during the ongoing war on Ukraine. Since the 2022 full-scale invasion, elements of folk music – such as historical Cossack songs, the Carpathian trembita, and lullabies – have re-emerged in urban civic mourning, symbolizing national grief, resistance, and identity. Drawing on concepts of revival, postrevival, and (re)invention (Livingston, Bithell & Hill, Hobsbawm, Prickett), the article examines how these musical forms are recontextualized in response to trauma and loss. Through three specific case studies, the article explores how Ukrainian folk music has been adapted to contemporary urban ritual settings and examines its role in shaping symbolic expressions of memory, resilience, and cultural continuity in wartime Ukraine. The study contributes to the broader discourse on the role of music in ritual transformation in the context of war and conflict.

  By Inna Shvorak October 23, 2025

• Raving, rebuilding, and resisting. Rave tolokas as communal electronic music practices in wartime Ukraine

  This research examines the uncharted phenomenon of rave tolokas, where electronic dance music practice merges with cleaning war-torn villages in Ukraine, fostering community, resistance, and cultural identity amidst the full-scale war in Ukraine. It interprets rave tolokas as embodied, physicalaffective experiences that intertwine dance and labor to restore cultural spaces. Through music and sonic material, participants actively confront war, challenging narratives of rave culture as escapism. Contributing to (ethno)musicology and conflict studies, this work highlights music’s multifaceted roles in armed conflict. It draws on participatory digital ethnographic methods, including in-depth interviews, addressing the challenges of conducting wartime research.

  By Emma C. Schrott October 23, 2025

• Processing of the Russian war against Ukraine in the lyrics of Ukrainian rappers in Ukraine, Germany, and Russia

  This article is a linguistic exploration of the lyrics and selected social media posts of nine contemporary rappers from Ukraine, Russia, and Germany, all of whom are of Ukrainian descent. The selection of these artists is based not only on their ethnic background but also on their considerable popularity and cultural influence within their respective countries. The primary objective of this study is to examine the pragmatic aspects of their lyrics and linguistic behavior, with particular attention to potential instances of language shift or code-switching, which can be socio-politically motivated. Additionally, the article explores the role these artists play in the sociopolitical landscape shaped by Russia’s full-scale war against Ukraine. Given that rap has emerged as one of the most dynamic genres in global mainstream music, it is imperative to analyze the messages conveyed in its lyrics, as they now reach a significantly broader audience compared to the genre’s early decades (1970s–1990s). Many of these musicians have attained the status of opinion leaders, amplifying their sociopolitical influence. Within the broader context of East Slavic linguistic dynamics, the choice of language – regardless of its pragmatic function – can itself serve as a potent political statement.

  By Aleksej Tikhonov October 23, 2025

• Remixing nationalism. Gender and sexuality in Russian popular music and its reception on TikTok and Instagram

  The full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022 has exacerbated Russian nationalism, as reflected in popular music and its reception on digital media. This article explores the role of gender and sexuality in formulating and negotiating ideas about the Russian nation since the start of the full-scale invasion, focusing on the circulation and reception of the songs and music videos by the Russian singers Shaman and Tatiana Kurtukova. Both performers occupy a significant place within a broader landscape of Russian popular music and are popular on social media platforms, where users generate content that features their songs. The analysis focuses on the ways (dis)identifications with Russianness in and through popular music are performed and highlights popular music’s symbolic capacity to naturalize normative ideas about gender and sexuality as well as the war in Ukraine.

  By Kirill Polkov October 23, 2025

• Performing homeland and the de-/legitimation of war. A multimodal analysis of music videos

  How is war legitimated and delegitimated in music videos? We seek to answer this question using the example of depictions of Russia as a homeland in contemporary music videos. Advancing a multimodal, sound-oriented method to analyze music videos, we engage with the interplay of sound, moving images, and lyrics. How is homeland performed in music videos? Analyzing music videos and performances by Sobor (Ukrainian pro-separatist), Shaman (Russian), and Zemfira (in exile), we find that violence remains hidden in pro-war performances, while emphasizing a Russian-Soviet way of life. Depictions of traditional food and binary gender roles play a central role in pro-war, imperialnationalist renderings of homeland while performances mixing Russian food with hand grenades and questioning traditional femininity subvert such romanticization.

  By Anna Schwenck and Anastasia Bondarenko October 23, 2025

• The ethos of resistance in Belarusian rock. The 2020 protests and Russia’s war on Ukraine

  This article, based on the analysis of media, video production and songs, as well as semi-structured interviews, pursues three objectives. First, it analyses Belarusian rock musicians’ modes of protest engagement in the context of the 2020 Belarusian post-electoral protests and the 2022 Russian war of aggression against Ukraine. Second, it situates their engagement within the Belarusian underground rock artistic tradition that took root in the 1980s, but which was updated in waves as new impulses were given to protest. Finally, it provides an overview of four types of social logics that have historically contributed to the protest politicization of Belarusian rock music.

  By Yauheni Kryzhanouski October 23, 2025

• Slushai Bat’ku! Popular music, politics and the legacy of Belarusian Vokal’no- Instrumental’nyi Ansambls (VIAs)

  Being once a central component of Soviet popular culture, the Vokal’no-Instrumental’nyi Ansambls [Vocal-Instrumental Ensemble] (VIA) repertoire has become a shared heritage across today’s former Soviet republics. While portrayed in the media as a depoliticized historical phenomenon, some music groups still active today like the Soviet Belarusian VIAs Pesniary, Siabry, Verasy and Charaunitsy have in part also become entwined with domestic politics. Focusing on Belarus, this article explores through virtual ethnography and a multimodal critical discourse analysis the intersection between popular music and politics. It especially focuses on how Belarusian president Aliaksandr Lukashenka, drawing on populist strategies, champions artists like the mentioned VIAs that support his ideology. Over his 30-year rule Lukashenka has promoted a national identity based in part on Soviet nostalgia. The mentioned VIAs are not only important drivers of contemporary Belarusian national identity, but they also provide a bridge to the Soviet past. Not only are they (in) directly supported by Lukashenka and the Belarusian state, they in different ways also support Lukashenka and were thus notably absent in the protests following the contested presidential elections in 2020.

  By David-Emil Wickström October 23, 2025

• Doctoral Thesis. Review Series 2025:1 ”Digital spaces are often the only venues where dissent and mobilization can take place”

  Alesia Rudnik is a political scientist based in Sweden, originally from Belarus. Her research has been published in journals such as Europe-Asia Studies, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, Media, War & Conflict and Internet Policy Review. She is also a regular contributor to Baltic Worlds (see for example the co-authored article with Malin Rönnblom in BW, vol. 17, no. 4, 2024). She currently serves as the Director of the Center for New Ideas, an independent Belarusian think tank operating in exile. She previously led a Belarusian diaspora organization in Sweden and was awarded “European of the Year 2022” in Sweden for her civic engagement. Rudnik’s academic work focuses on the relationship between people and technology in the context of political protests under authoritarian regimes. On September 12, 2025, she defended her doctoral dissertation in political science at Karlstad University, titled Machinery of Dissent: People and Technology in Political Protests in Autocracies. In conversation with Baltic Worlds, Dr. Rudnik reflects on research in Sweden concerning Belarus, the 2020 Belarusian protests, and the role of digital platforms in mobilizing protest movements within authoritarian contexts.

  By Joakim Ekman October 6, 2025

• Baltic Worlds covers; the Baltic Sea Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, CentralAsia, Caucasus and the Balkan area.
  Articles listed by country you find here.>>
• Scholars in Ukraine write about the war.
  Read voices from Ukraine!>>
• New Series: Doctoral Thesis Reviews.
  Read the reviews here!>>

• reviews

  1. Tracing developments in 14 East European states since 1989 until today.

     East Central Europe since 1989. Politics, Culture and Society, Sabrina P. Ramet and Lavinia Stan, (Routledge: London and New York, 2025), 388 pages.

  2. Åland’s autonomy. A particular case

     Reflexioner från landet som icke är – Sju essäer om oss människor och vårt samhälle [Thoughts from the land that is not – Seven essays about us human beings and our society] Bjarne Lindström, Hangö, Libraria, 2024, 172 pages.

  3. Far-Right Europe online. A mosaic of the diversity of right-wing historical memory

     On the Digital Frontline: Far-Right Memory Work in the Baltic, Central and East European Online Spaces Andrej Kotljarchuk and Francesco Zavatti (eds.), (Visby: Eddy, 2023) Opuscula Historia Upsalensia 62 , 197 pages.

  4. Challenging the nationalist hegemony The third generation displaced persons and new approaches to the difficult past

     Review article of Kassandra Larysa Luciuk, Making Ukrainian Canadians: Identity, Politics, and Power in Cold War Canada, (Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Toronto, 2021) xv+338 pages.

  5. Lake Ladoga. A transnational history

     Lake Ladoga: The Coastal History of the Greatest Lake in Europe. Maria Lähteenmäki and Isaac Land, eds.,(Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2023). Studia Fennica Historica vol. 27, 233 pages.

  6. All reviews