Exploring Baltic Identity and Resilience: CBSS Summer University 2024 in Tallinn

From 5 to 21 July 2024, Tallinn hosted the CBSS Summer University under the theme “Balticness in Transition: Exploring Identity and Resilience in the Baltic Sea Region.” This event, financed by the Council of the Baltic Sea States, marked the fourth summer university within the Young People Network for Balticness (YoPeNET) project.

Nearly twenty students from across the Baltic Sea Region, along with participants from as far as Indonesia and Brazil, gathered in Estonia’s capital. The week-long program featured lectures from experts and scholars, fostering vibrant discussions on cultural resilience amidst numerous, often challenging transformations. Key topics included societal responses to crises, the resilience of democratic structures and cultural practices against renationalisation, extreme ideologies, aggressor states, the climate crisis, and transformative changes.

A primary focus of the Summer University was exploring whether a shared regional identity, termed “Balticness,” could bolster resilience in the Baltic Sea Region. Participants examined how a collective identity, rooted in a shared natural environment and cultural memory of contact, cooperation, and conflict, might reinforce transnational democratic institutions and cultural resilience.

In addition to the intensive academic sessions in Tallinn, participants visited Tartu, designated the European Capital of Culture 2024. This excursion provided a practical experience of the region’s cultural dimensions and enriched the participants’ understanding of Baltic identity and resilience.

Hosting the Summer University in Estonia was no coincidence. Estonia not only has held the presidency of the Council of the Baltic Sea States since 1 July 2024, but it is also the country which has faced most of the challenges that have emerged in the Baltic Sea Region throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. The choice of location underscored Estonia’s pivotal role in addressing and navigating these issues within the region.

For more information about YoPeNET and its initiatives, visit YoPeNET.