Admittedly, coming up with a stab-in-the-back myth *before* even launching the war is a very forward-thinking perspective... bsky.app/profile/chri...

In honor of Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires (March 16) and "as a token of respect for the Latvian Legionnaires," the municipality of Ogre has installed a replica of the arm shield patch of the Waffen-SS Latvian Legion in a public display that will remain in place for the coming months.

The End of History™ has formally ended

Guards Captains Mavriks Vulfsons (left) and Eduards Berklavs (right), serving in the Red Army's 43rd Guards Latvian Rifle Division, near Staraya Russa, Russia, March 10, 1943 (photo: Latvian War Museum)

"Greetings on International Women's Day!" (Latvian SSR, 1978)

Unfortunately, "I feel like Batman or Halo" has become one of the essential texts for understanding a certain type of American mind in the 2020s... bsky.app/profile/rike...

Gotta love how academic books don't earn you money, but LLMs can make money off of stealing them in the aggregate and if you write enough, they can also profit from stealing your personality after you are dead.

My thoughts open.substack.com/pub/musgrave...

The Azores islands are the westernmost point of Europe and the easternmost point of Rhode Island

Unlike some people whose names are Bret, I don’t think the answer is to give up on the fight against antisemitism and only invest in Jews, but instead to think more about how antisemitism interacts with the rest of society. For @forward.com forward.com/opinion/8072...

Reading about big Latvian brains (Arveds Švābe, The Story of Latvia and Her Neighbours)

0-3 minutes / 3+ minutes

Traces of Baltic immigration in Providence, RI (though this club is sadly defunct)

A bizarre and unsettling choice by the Latvian War Museum (an institution that I otherwise respect) to use an AI-remixed/upscaled 1942 Nazi propaganda poster to promote an event of theirs next month. The soldiers depicted in the original poster are German, not Latvian! bsky.app/profile/kasp...

"I have decided to shift from colonizing from Mars to colonizing an even more inhospitable planetary body, because I just realized that Mars is farther away with a different orbit" is quite the announcement from someone who already promised to land humans on Mars by 2024. bsky.app/profile/dbur...

IMPORTANT OLYMPIC NEWS: THE POLISH FIGURE SKATING TEAM HAS A PLUSH PIEROGI

This International Holocaust Remembrance Day, EU institutions mark Auschwitz's liberation but can't name its liberators, Russia names liberators but pivots toward a new holiday centering "the Soviet people" as genocide victims, and the White House uses the occasion to debate "illegal immigration."

I was always told that one of the central lessons of the Shoah is that legal, juridical regimes can still be immoral. The claim that Anne Frank was in Amsterdam "legally" is false, but more than that, the question "Was Anne Frank an illegal?" is so grossly missing the point of Holocaust remembrance.

I do not find this to be a helpful approach for understanding (or even opposing) Trump's fixation on Greenland. American history provides ample evidence of general expansionist aims and of longstanding interest by various U.S. administrations in the territory of Greenland. bsky.app/profile/timo...

This Indian restaurant in Rhode Island attributes its name to the Sanskrit word for "essence," yet it always made me do a double take since "rasa" is also the Latvian and Lithuanian word for "dew," coming from the same linguistic source.

The perpetrator of a November 7, 2025 school bombing in Indonesia made perhaps the strangest appropriation of the Latvian Legion I've yet seen by painting the insignia (backwards) of the 15th Waffen Grenadier Division of the SS (1st Latvian) onto an airsoft rifle. gnet-research.org/2026/01/07/t...

Friedrich Percyval Reck-Malleczewen, August 11, 1936 (echoing into January 12, 2026)

Don't miss out on this event! Join us on Tuesday to learn more about applying for AABS Grants and Fellowships. You'll hear from a former grantee about what to expect and prepare. RSVP now: https://aabs-balticstudies.org/2026/01/01/webinar-applying-for-2026-baltic-studies-grants/

Copy Editing Matters, from HHS's release on the new childhood vaccine schedule: All the diseases will still be available to anyone who wants them

The invasion of Venezuela is being defended as a law enforcement operation and ”self-defense.” It is neither. It is imperialism, pure and simple. And illegal seven ways to Sunday. www.nybooks.com/online/2026/...

Do you want funding for your research in Baltic Studies? Maybe you're already aware of AABS grants, but not sure what to apply for? Join us and former grantee Harry Merritt on 13 January for an info session and get your questions answered! Registration required: vist.ly/4kcmp

Daudz laimes Jaunā gadā! / Happy New Year! (from the lucky Latvian pig plane)

Something to look forward to in the new year--in 2026, my book, Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service, will be published with Oxford University Press.

As someone whose 9x-great-grandfather arrived as a settler in Plymouth Colony in 1626, I'd like to say that there is no such thing as a "Heritage American." I am no more (or less) "American" than any other American citizen.

entirely unforced and unnecessary trauma as cultural pedagogy and social reproduction www.nytimes.com/2025/12/13/u...

‘The Dual Monarchy seeded countless ideas that germinated much later. Vushko argues that the European Union traces its “origins to the history of pre-1918 federalism and internationalism in the Habsburg Empire”.’ Holly Case reviews ‘Lost Fatherland’. www.lrb.co.uk/the-paper/v4...

Sveicam Lāčplēša dienā! / Greetings on Lāčplēsis Day! (poster: “The spirit of Lāčplēsis has not passed away,” Rihards Zariņš, 1934)

Tomorrow at UMass Boston, I will give a talk on historical narratives of/memory work by veterans of the Waffen-SS Latvian Legion as an interesting case of "overcoming defeat"

New podcast episode! 🎙️ This month we share an episode from our colleagues at the EUROPAST podcast: "The Battle for Memory: Populism vs. Pluralism in Public History" with Professor Jan Kubik. It's a fascinating and highly timely listen - check it out now! vist.ly/4cd8e

Smart people keep saying… “AI technologies severely impede humans’ ability to learn and retain skills… Rather than expanding our intellectual horizons, these technologies undermine the very conditions that allow us to think for ourselves.”

I will be giving a lecture on the Holocaust in Latvia this Thursday at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence, RI bornsteinholocaustcenter.org/event/the-ho...

The Prussian city of Konigsberg is a microcosm for the twentieth century. This week, explore the it's storied legacy as we deep dive with @nicoleeaton.bsky.social into her book, "German Blood, Slavic Soil: How Nazi Königsberg Became Soviet Kaliningrad." patreon.com/posts/how-konigsberg-141130456

I will be giving a lecture on the Holocaust in Latvia this Thursday at the Sandra Bornstein Holocaust Education Center in Providence, RI bornsteinholocaustcenter.org/event/the-ho...

If you're wondering why one of Superman's antagonists in the 2025 movie is a Radovan Karadžić analog from "Boravia," a seemingly Slavic, onion-domed land of militarism and ethnic hatred, see my Awl (RIP) essay on imaginary Eastern Europe in comic book films: www.theawl.com/2015/08/the-...

My thanks to @balticstudies.bsky.social for their support in the publication of my book with Oxford University Press, Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service! bsky.app/profile/balt...

Congratulations to Oxford University Press and @harrymerritt.bsky.social for receiving the AABS Book Publication Subvention! The award will support Harry's monograph, "Latvian Soldiers of World War II." Learn more: aabs-balticstudies.org/2025/07/13/o...

Of course, the utilisation of postcolonialism in CEE, which is not unreasonable in any sense, can easily overplay its understanding of colonisation elsewhere. It's is understandable but must be delivered with due consideration martindbrown.substack.com/p/on-postcol...

Competative victimhood doesn't quite work if you don't know your history

There's a call for papers going round everybody! Pleased to announce the BASEES Study Group on the Baltic States' third annual workshop on 30-31 August in Glasgow, welcoming submissions from postgrads and early career researchers.

What do you know about Great Britain? Test your knowledge! (from the November 1, 1974 "Foreign Language Corner" of Plēsums, newspaper of the Latvian Academy of Agriculture in the Latvian SSR)

Huge opportunity for a political party that believes government can do good things. Public opinion is finally shifting after 50 years of right wing anti-government propaganda. This isn't the time for cowering and throat clearing www.cnn.com/2025/06/01/p...

Senate Republican JRPG Villain Caucus bsky.app/profile/bria...