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...

I don't think any of this actually happens without the last ten years of campus panic and I've yet to see anyone even explore that question seriously.

"If people whose ancestors have lived here for a long time...are asked to feel only like tenants here, nothing good will come of it. I am not a tenant in Latvia, I do not rent my room. I am part of this nation and belong to it." -Valentīna Freimane, "The Law of Antigone" bsky.app/profile/mkap...

Feels extra bleak that one of Google's top search results for habeas corpus directs you to this utterly useless AI graphic

This V-E Day/Victory Day, I am thinking of the Red Army soldiers of the 130th Latvian Rifle Corps who liberated Latvia from the Nazi occupation in 1944/45, some of whom also later contributed to the restoration of Latvian independence from the Soviet Union from 1988-1991.

It’s time to reconsolidate a counterculture and politics against this shit. Science, art, medicine, poetry, philosophy as the beautiful life, the fullness of human civilization, that they want to destroy. Humanism, not cynicism, not slop, not tech “””nerd””” culture

Darkly humorous that liberals spent 2016/2020 lecturing leftists about Weimar Germany and the KPD's shortsightedness ("After Hitler, our turn!") but now the official Democratic Party strategy is to "play dead" and let Trump run wild ("After the midterms/2028, our turn!"). bsky.app/profile/davi...

"May 1st - International Workers' Solidarity Day. In commemoration of the May 1st, 1886 protest by Chicago workers, May 1st, 1889, was declared International Workers' Solidarity Day." (Alnis Mitris, Latvian SSR, 1986)

The Latvian Prosecutor General's Office closes the case on Holocaust perpetrator Herberts Cukurs, effectively posthumously exonerating him (again), despite copious evidence of his participation in the Nazi occupation's SD Arājs Kommando. www.jta.org/2025/04/25/g...

On March 18, at the University of Vermont, I will deliver a lecture on clashing ideas between Jewish survivors and Latvian refugees of World War II atrocities in Latvia.

March 16 is "Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires," an unofficial holiday in Latvia commemorating soldiers of the Waffen-SS Latvian Legion, which fought under Nazi German command during World War II. As it remains a historical flashpoint, here is my attempt to succinctly contextualize it.

""Activities aligned to… a designated terrorist organization" is a construction previously unheard of in the generation-long history of tortured official circumlocutions designed to obscure lawlessness in the guise of counterterrorism." www.forever-wars.com/mahmoud-khal...

For breaking news, I only use Bluesky and The Baltic Hotline

Giving this a try. By means of introduction: 🎓 Historian of modern Europe, focusing on 🇱🇻🇷🇺🇩🇪 👨‍🏫 Postdoc in History and Holocaust Studies 🏙️ University of Vermont (Burlington, VT) 📚 "Latvian Soldiers of World War II: Fighting for the Homeland in Nazi and Soviet Service," under contract w/ Oxford UP