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• To vote or not to vote? And how to vote? Strategies and divergent views among Russian anti-war civil society and politicians in exile

  The Russian parliamentary and regional elections of September 2026 took place amid tightening state control over the electoral process and severe restrictions on dissent. This essay examines how anti-war civil society and opposition politicians responded through diverse strategies, from “smart voting” to boycotts and symbolic protests. In particular, it considers the role of independent media in helping voters make more informed choices. Although these initiatives do not signal the emergence of a broader political force capable of challenging the regime in the long term, they point to the persistence of limited forms of political agency within a narrowing political space.

  Essay by Valentina Dalla Francesca October 1, 2026

• In memory of Martin Kragh

  Martin Kragh died on 23 July 2026, at the age of 45. His death is a profound loss to Swedish scholarship on Russia and Eastern Europe, and to all those who valued his ability to make history and international affairs understandable, relevant and deeply human.

  By Joakim Ekman September 11, 2026

• Conference Report: Past Legacies, Present Tensions, Future Visions: Anthropology and Ethnology in and of the Baltic Sea Region

  The international conference Past Legacies, Present Tensions, Future Visions: Anthropology and Ethnology in and of the Baltic Sea Region, held at Södertörn University from March 30 to April 1, 2026, brought together around thirty scholars—from doctoral researchers to senior academics—to reflect on the shifting political, social, and epistemic landscapes of the Baltic Sea region.

  By Florence Fröhlig June 29, 2026

• Introduction. To be or not to be? Russian civil society under repression

  This special issue contributes to the ongoing analysis of the transformations Russian society has undergone since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Tthe contributions examine acts of resistance within professional communities, as well as specific identity-based and issue-based forms of activism, including decolonial, feminist, climate, and environmental initiatives. The issue seeks to offer a bird’s introduction eye perspective on the transformation of activist initiatives over the past four years.

  Essay by Ekaterina Kalinina May 29, 2026

• TRANSFORMATION OF CIVIC ENGAGEMENT IN RUSSIA AFTER 2022

  This article examines the transformation of civic engagement in Russia after the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Drawing on more than a hundred interviews with civic and political activists across several Russian regions, the article traces how anti-war and oppositional initiatives transformed under conditions of escalating repression. Using a micro-sociological approach, the article foregrounds emotions and strategic dilemmas as key (dis)enables of civic engagement alongside with the political opportunity structures. It argues that Russian civil society has not collapsed, but has moved through several stages of the initial moral shock and immediate mobilization, towards fragmentation and cautious re-mobilization. By 2026 civic engagement persists primarily through informal and low-visibility forms, using strategic depolitization as a tactic to survive.

  By Ekaterina Kalinina May 29, 2026

• Lessons of unfreedom: “People live in a kind of limbo, where rules are both rigid and arbitrary”

  This is an interview with an anonymous Russian researcher recorded in the winter of 2023, in response to events taking place in the Russian Federation. In this interview the role of dissidents and the civil society in exile is discussed. Life under the current regime is compared with life during the Soviet-period: there are similiarities and differences in the repressive apparatus and the methods and strategies for resistance.

  By Elisa Marin and Oliver Skye May 29, 2026

• Is civil society in Russia really dead? Changing landscape of Russian civic activism amidst the war with Ukraine

  This article examines the transformation of Russian civil society since the start of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Drawing on empirical research—including case studies, interviews with civic actors, and digital ethnography—it identifies divergent trajectories across civil society’s institutional and grassroots segments. While politicized and formalized organizations have experienced sharp repression and decline, grassroots initiatives have expanded, often adopting informal, decentralized, and digital forms. These shifts do not indicate the death of civil society but rather its adaptation to an increasingly authoritarian context. The article argues that the war has acted as an accelerant to long-standing trends: the erosion of institutional influence, the growing dominance of state-controlled funding, and the rise of localized, informal civic engagement. At the same time, the article critiques the limitations of normative, democracy-centered models of civil society, which tend to equate civic vitality with political opposition and formal organization and proposes a more pluralistic and context-sensitive approach to analyzing civil society in non-democratic regimes.

  By Irina Meyer Olimpieva May 29, 2026

• MEDIA REALISM Conceptual insights from research on digital feminisms in and beyond Russia

  This article introduces the concept of media realism to theorize the political sensibility that emerges from feminists’ engagement with digital media in contemporary Russia and beyond. Drawing on empirical data and insights from the FEMCORUS research project, the article explores how activists and media professionals navigate the contradictory affordances of digital media ecosystems that simultaneously enable oppositional political expression and practices and impose significant structural constraints. In this context, media realism refers to the experience of digital media as flawed, yet without alternatives. Thus, the concept captures the affective and ethical (dis)orientation of activists who recognize the problematic underpinnings of existing ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) architectures yet continue to rely on them for visibility, mobilization, and resistance. Through empirical case studies, the article demonstrates how feminist actors adapt their tactical repertoires and renegotiate their ethics due to a media environment shaped by both authoritarian repression and neoliberal media logic. Ultimately, media realism offers a grounded, non-reductionist framework for understanding the ambivalences of digital activism under constraints and invites further inquiry into how political subjectivities are shaped by the ICTs infrastructures they inhabit.

  By Daniil Zhaivoronok May 29, 2026

• Anti-war movements from Russia’s national republics Intersections of gender, sexuality, and decoloniality

  Since the onset of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, various ethnic protest and anti-war movements from Russia’s national republics have called for decolonization. While the focus of these initiatives lies in regional politics and ethnic and Indigenous rights, the movements also address women’s and LGBTQ rights. Based on content analysis of seven ethnic anti-war initiatives, this article examines the themes and frameworks through which questions related to gender and sexuality are addressed within the activist agendas of these initiatives. The analysis shows that while these questions play only a minor role in the ethnic anti-war activism, they are used to articulate systemic oppression and the harmful impact of Russian state policies on people in the national republics. Taken together, the ways in which gender and sexuality are discussed bring out the activists’ search for a discursive position between Russian and Western political and discursive regimes.

  By Eeva Kuikka May 29, 2026

• “We comply but do not obey” Everyday resistance in contemporary Russian schools

  Following the full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, education has become a central arena in Russia for the consolidation of an authoritarian state project. This article examines how history and social studies teachers navigate the intensified ideological control in everyday school practice. Drawing on ten in-depth interviews conducted in late 2024, the study analyses subtle, non-heroic forms of resistance, conceptualized through James C. Scott’s notion of the “weapons of the weak”. The guiding research question is: What forms does resistance take when open confrontation becomes too costly, and how should such practices be interpreted politically? The authors identify two principal scenarios of resistance: a collective one, which they term the “besieged fortress,” and an individual one – “a stranger among one’s own”; suggesting an ambivalent character of quiet resistance in authoritarian contexts — simultaneously protective, adaptive, and potentially erosive of the regime’s normative authority.

  Essay by A. Hope and V. Milidia May 29, 2026

• Cover of BW 2026:2
  Issue 2026, 2: Download.
• 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 Theses Reviews.
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• reviews

  1. The Chernobyl Children. A generation growing up with radiological contaminations

     Chernobyl Children: A Transnational History of a Nuclear Disaster Melanie Arndt, transl. Alastair Matthews (Cambridge University Press, 2025), 368 pages.

  2. Expelled from Communist Poland. Polish Jews in Sweden since the 1960s

     Vi, de fördrivna. Historiska erfarenheter hos polska judar som kom till Sverige 1967–1972 [We, the exiled. Historical experiences of Polish Jews who came to Sweden 1967–1972] Martin Englund, Södertörn doctoral dissertations, Stockholm, Södertörns högskola, (2025), 322 pages.

  3. Ecocide in Ukraine. An epistemological dimension of loss

     Ecocide in Ukraine: The Environmental Cost of Russia’s War Darya Tsymbalyuk, (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2025) 208 pages.

  4. 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.

  5. 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.

  6. All reviews