TRANSBOUNDARY LANDSCAPE SEMINAR AND DOCTORAL COURSE
Universities of Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, Tallinn and Turku & Nordic Landscape Research Network
Mekrijärvi, Finland and Sortavala, Russia 13 – 15 May 2009
According to Friedrich Ratzel’s classical definition, borders were an organic element of nation states, from which followed their relentless interest in it and the adjoining areas. Later, Doreen Massey has characterised borders as crucial parts to the process in which places and place-based identities are produced. Yet the defining power of borders is constantly challenged by the flows and networks between people, goods and ideas across them. These contribute to the formation of transboundary identities and landscapes.
Universities of Petrozavodsk, St. Petersburg, Tallinn and Turku & Nordic Landscape Research Network arranged a landscape seminar in May 2009. The venues were the research station of the University of Joensuu in Mekrijärvi and the premises of the University of Petrozavodsk in Sortavala. The seminar was followed by excursion to the village of Kurkijoki on the Russian side of the border.
The aim of the seminar and doctoral course was to discuss borders and transboundary issues from both a theoretical point of view and in terms of concrete case studies from Karelia and elsewhere. The area of Karelia is by no means an exact geographical entity. On the Finnish side is currently the region of North Karelia, on the Russian side a part of the Karelian Republic. The histories of the area show in the strata of landscapes on both sides of the border as well as in that of the border itself. The latter has evolved from a transitional zone into a superimposed political boundary, dividing the ethnic population in two, and subsequently into a cultural border. In the process the location of the border has shifted several times, leaving behind fossilised borders.
The seminar was attended by 11 keynote speakers and 16 students, altogether 20 presentations. The first seminar day was in Mekrijärvi research station and the second day in Sortavala. On the third day the seminar group visited village Kurkijoki, former Finnish village on the Russian side of Karelia. Netta Böök, an architect researching Kurkijoki, introduced the village and its surroundings to the seminar group.
The statue of the Karelian rune singer Pedri Shemeikka in the formerly Finnish Sortavala, sculpted by Alpo Sailo in 1935 for the centennial of Kalevala.
Programme
13.5. Wednesday
Tom Selwyn, University College of London, UK
Transborder Landscapes as Instruments of War: The case of the
Wall in Israel/Palestine.
Maunu Häyrynen, University of Turku, Finland
Double Exposure. The landscape of transboundary gaze.
Christina Sagalova
Anna Pashkova
Tomas Germundsson, University of Lund, Sweden
The transitional landscape of urbanity.
Anu Printsmann, University of Tallinn, Estonia
Maarja Saar
Martins Lukins
Gabriel Bladh, University of Karlstad, Sweden
Landscapes and Identities in change - the case of Finnskogen, a Swedish-Norwegian border region.
Anita Zarina, University of Latvia
Path dependence of peasant living practises: a borderland situation.
14.5. Thursday
Alexander Pashkov, University of Petrozavodsk, Russia
North Ladoga region as perceived by Russian travelers in XVIII – beginning of the XX centuries.
Sergei Verigin, University of Petrozavodsk, Russia
North Ladoga region in 1940 - 1941: population and economics between two wars.
Grigory Suzi
Pirkkoliisa Ahponen, University of Joensuu, Finland
Lamentable or golden view - students' way from Joensuu to Sortavala and back.
Grigory Isachenko, University of St Petersburg, Russia
Real and virtual landscape of the Russian-Finnish border area at the beginning of the XXI century.
Dmitry Blyshko
Katia Makarova
Hannes Palang, University of Tallinn, Estonia
Are there counter-landscapes?
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