ISBN 978-9985-58-962-5
Paperback
392 pages
Published: 2024
ACTA Universitatis Tallinnensis: Humaniora

Breakthroughs in Cultural Psychology

Edited by Jaan Valsiner ja Marek Tamm
Authors: Svend Brinkmann, Nandita Chaudhary, Vladimer Lado Gamsakhurdia, Vlad-Petre Glăveanu, Sven Hroar Klempe, Giuseppina Marsico, Alberto Rosa, Sergio Salvatore, Tatsuya Sato, Danilo Silva Guimarães, Marek Tamm, Luca Tateo, Rama Charan Tripathi, Jaan Valsiner, Brady Wagoner, Tania Zittoun.

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Cultural psychology is a new synthetic field of knowledge within the social sciences of the 21st century. It brings together psychology – developmental and social psychology in particular – with cultural history, anthropology, ethnography, art, music, semiotics, and sociology. The scientific focus of cultural psychology is on the realm of meaningful human experiences. The volume “Breakthroughs in Cultural Psychology” edited by Jaan Valsiner and Marek Tamm features a collection of unique personal narratives from leading scientists worldwide, highlighting the development of key ideas that are advancing the field. It serves as an essential resource for scholars, practitioners, and students alike.

ISSN 2504-6616 (print)
Paperback
251 pages
Published: 2023

Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis 8 (2023) 
Keel ja keeled. Õppimine ja õpetamine/Language and Languages. Learning and Teaching
Edited by Merilyn Meristo and Reili Argus
Authors: Reili Argus, Kristiina Bernhard, Ineta Dabašinskienė, Mare Kitsnik, Birute Klaas-Lang, Aleksandra Ljalikova, Merilyn Meristo, Miina Norvik, Renate Pajusalu, Kristiina Praakli, Helin Puksand, Tiina Rüütmaa, Maris Saagpakk, Elena Samsonova, Anna Verschik, Diana Vender.

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The eighth issue of Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis has been published. The thematic focus of this issue is "Language and Languages. Learning and Teaching," addressing the problems that have arisen in connection with the transition to Estonian-language education. The main topics under consideration include attitudes and approaches to the transition to Estonian-language education, as well as activities, teaching materials, and learning experiences that support language acquisition.

The collection comprises nine articles in Estonian and English. Language teachers and linguists from Tallinn University, the University of Tartu, and Lithuania present their research findings.

ISSN: 2228-0669
Paperback
220 pages
Published 2023

 

Estonian Yearbook of Military History 11 (17), 2021 
Independence Wars in North-Eastern Europe and Beyond 

Editor: Toomas Hiio

Authors: Toomas Hiio, Ants Jürman, Toivo Kikkas, Thomas Rettig, Vasilijus Safronovas, Khachatur Stepanyan, Lars Erikson Wolke

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Between 2019 and 2021, many Eastern European nations celebrated the centenary of  their wars of independence. On this occasion, in 2019, an international annual  conference on Baltic military history Independence Wars in North-Eastern Europe and  Beyond was held in Tartu in cooperation with the Estonian War Museum and the Estonian Military Academy. Four articles of the newly published yearbook – on the  experience of the Lithuanian Soldiers, the Swedish volunteers in Estonia in 1919, on  Pavel Bermondt-Avalov and his West-Russian Volunteer Army in Latvia and on  Armenian 1921 February rebellion – are based on the presentations of this conference.  In addition, two articles are disserting on the activities of the field courts martials and  the Soviet Cheka during Estonian War of Independence as well as on the White and Red  terror in the Northeast Estonia during 1917–1919. Articles were written by Armenian,  German, Lithuanian, Swedish and Estonian historians.

ISSN 2504-6616 (in print)
Paperback
322 pages
Published: 2022

Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis 7 (2022)
Research in children’s and youth multilingualism

Edited by Anna Verschik
Authors: Triin Aasa, Kristel Algvere, Reili Argus, Piret Baird, Vlada Baranova, Ineta Dabašinskienė, Helen Eriksoo, Kapitolina Fedorova, Inga Hilbig, Oleksandr Kapranov, Victoria V. Kazakovskaya, Elisabeth Kaukonen, Geidi Kilp, Mari-Liis Korkus, Eglė Krivickaitė-Leišienė, Annika Kängsepp, Liina Lindström, Aive Mandel, Merilyn Meristo, Marion Mägi, Çiğdem Sağın-Şimşek, Getri Tomson, Maarja-Liisa Pilvik, Kristiina Praakli, Anna Verschik, Virve-Anneli Vihman, Elena Antonova-Ünlü

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The topic of the current issue is children’s and youth multilingualism. The phenomenon of multilingualism is never going to become obsolete because multilingualism is everywhere and the majority of the world population is multilingual, and new angles and approaches to the topic are constantly being developed. This time the focus is on early bi- and multilingualism in Estonia and abroad, acquisition of derivation in L1, codeswitching, second language learning and acquisition, multilingual communication in oral speech and social media and YouTube, language use and language attitudes among Estonian youth, family länguge policy, language maintenance, ethnolects and accents, comparative research on early bilingual acquisition. Some studies are experimental and some are ethnographic or combine various methods. The issue contains articles by both Estonian and foreign authors, and young aspiring scholars are represented as well.

ISBN 978-9985-58-898-7
Paperback
350 pages
Published 2021

Multilingual Practices in the Baltic Countries

Editor: Anna Verschik
Authors: Elīna Bone, Solvita Burr, Egle Gudavičienė, Kristina Jakaitė-Bulbukienė, Marleen Kedars, Geidi Kilp, Birute Klaas-Lang, Kadri Koreinik, Sanita Ladziņa, Heiko F. Marten, Merilyn Meristo, Živilė Miežytė, Meilutė Ramoienė, Maris Saagpakk.

16,95 €

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The article collection comprises nine sociolinguistic case-studies on a variety of topics such as linguistic landscapes, family language policy, language in education, language contacts, multilingual internet communication, language ideologies and practices, language maintenance and language shift.  The studies address a range of significant questions. What are Russian-speaking teachers’ strategies when teaching their subjects in Estonian? What is behind the decision of Russian-speaking parents to send their children to Latvian-medium school? How some public signs in Latvia become a controversial issue? How linguistic landscapes can be used in foreign language pedagogy? What are similarities and differences in language use of two Latvian-Estonian bilinguals? What happens in Estonian-English-Japanese trilingual communication on Facebook? What does a comparison between Tallinn and Vilnius linguistic landscape tells us?  Whether and how Lithuanians in the UK and Norway maintain Lithuania? Do siblings from the same Lithuanian family in Australia have a similar command of Lithuanian?

ISSN 2504-6616 (print)
Paperback
350 pages
Published in 2020

Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis 5 (2020)
Keeled, järjekorrad ja järjestused/Languages, orderings and successions (in Estonian and in English)

Editors: Reili Argus ja Annika Hussar
Authors: Reili Argus, Annika Bauer, Anna Branets, Ad Backus, Annika Hussar, Anu Kalda, Victoria V. Kazakovskaya, Jakub Kubś, Aleksandra Michałowska-Kubś, Andra Kütt, Asta Laugalienė, Erik Mikkus, Merilyn Meristo, Raido Remmel, Tiina Rüütmaa, Karin Zurbuchen, Mari Uusküla, Anna Verschik, Triin Õismaa

10 €

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The fifth issue of Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis on the subject of language focuses on successions in language. Studies from different fields of linguistics that reveal what certain types of successions speak of languages have been grouped to this issue. As the theoretical basis of articles varying from microstudies to macro-level studies is diverse, the range of languages under observation (Estonian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Finnish, German, Lithuanian) and international authors is also wide.

The issue comprises 11 articles in Estonian and in English. The topics include the acquisition of the first language and language-learning, changes in language resulting from contacts, colour names, regulation of first name use, translating perception metaphors, vocabulary of weather phenomena and narrower language phenomena such as partitivity. A very diverse choice of examples of how successions may exist in language have been brought together in the journal – there are examples of frequency successions, references to the appearance of linguistic expressions in language, similarity between frequencies and successions which in turn point to cultural similarities, but also descriptions of how one phenomenon sets a whole chain of new phenomena in motion.

ISSN 2228-0669
Paperback
187 pages
Published 2020

 

Estonian Yearbook of Military History 9 (15), 2019
The past – a soldier’s guide for the present? Experience, History and Theory in Military Education

Editor: Kaarel Piirimäe
Authors: Kaarel Piirimäe, Clifford J. Rogers, Alexander Statiev, Igor Kopõtin, Łukasz Przybyło, Anna Sofie Hansen Schøning ja Jörg Echternkamp.

10 €

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Is it possible to learn from military history? Is it possible to learn from the past at all? Throughout several thousand years history has been valued as magistra vitae – teacher of life. Nowadays many agree with the dictum of military historian Michael Howard: „Past wars provide the only database from which the military learn how to conduct their profession“. However, the advent of professional history writing has cast doubt on the assumption. Leopold von Ranke, the father of historism, wrote already two centuries ago that his aim was not to give guidances but merely to show what actually happened. But does history have to give direcion? Would it not suffice to give general insights about how things work in the world? In this issue military historians and professors of military history from six countries discuss the use and abuse of military history in the military profession and national defence strategies more generally.

978-9985-58-876-5
Paperback 
224 pages
Published in 2020

Before Tito: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia during the Great Purge (1936–1940)

Stefan Gužvica

19,80 €

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The time of the Great Purge in the Soviet Union has been one of the most controversial and under-researched periods in the history of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (KPJ). Secrecy has surrounded it because of the executions of most leading members of the party from the interwar era, while its appeal lies in the fact that, at the end of this period in 1939, Josip Broz Tito became the party general secretary, a post he would hold until his death in 1980. Using newly-available archival sources from Moscow, Stefan Gužvica offers the first academic and systematic analysis of this crucial formative period in the history of the KPJ. He presents, in great detail, the downfall of Milan Gorkić, who led the party before Tito, as well as his closest colleagues and rivals, most of whom were swept away in the Purge, such as Ivan Gržetić, Vladimir Ćopić, and Stjepan Cvijić. Rather than focusing on Tito alone, Gužvica shows that the Comintern considered a wide array of candidates from the Yugoslav party, including Kamilo Horvatin, Ivo Marić, and Petko Miletić, before settling for Tito in early 1939. Gužvica explains the reasons of Tito's success, examines the policies and failures of his rivals, and pays particular attention to the long-term consequences of Tito's appointment, culminating in the Soviet-Yugoslav split of 1948.

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ISBN 978-9985-58-866-6
Paperback
457 pages
Published 2019

The Diametric Mind. New Insights into AI, IQ, the Self and Society
Christopher Badcock

25,90 €

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The diametric model of the mind and of mental illness is based on Hans Asperger’s depiction of autism as a deficit condition where our ability to understand other people’s behaviour in terms of intention, emotion, and meaning, is concerned: what it calls mentalism. According to the model, psychosis is a state of hyper-mentalism in which intention metastasizes into paranoia, emotion into mania, and meaning into delusions of all kinds. 

The most important insight of the diametric model is that perceived reality is complex in the sense in which complex numbers are: comprising a real part based in the physical world of cause and effect but also an imaginary part in a mind which has free will. 

The book develops this model of the mind by showing how it resolves most of the paradoxes of IQ and AI, along with giving a unique insight into modern society. It then goes on to give an up-to-date account of the imprinted brain theory which provides its neuroscientific basis and argues that literacy—and fiction in particular—plays a key role.

Finally, the diametric model is presented as a new paradigm for psychiatry, psychology, and the social sciences.

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978-9985-58-855-0
Paperback
222 pages
Published 2018

Theory and Practice in Driver Education
Edited by Marko Susimetsä and Heli Ainjärv

The book “Theory and Practice in Driver Education” has been compiled by higher education institutions that prepare driving instructors in Estonia, Finland and Norway through the funding of Erasmus+ programme.  The book is particularly intended to be used as a textbook for higher education institutions, but provides a good overview of theories in the field and best practices for all other authorities and persons engaged in driver education.

Download free e-Book: Theory_and_Practice_in_Driver_Education.epub

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ISSN 2504-6616
Paperback
280 pages
Published 2018

Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis III (2018) On Language and Culture 
Editor-in-Chief: Reili Argus
Editors: Reili Argus, Suliko Liiv

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The third issue of Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis focuses on the relationships between language and culture. Many specific features of acquiring, learning and using a language stem from the fact that language has features attributable to a particular group of speakers and thus a culturally organised and self-organising system. This issue comprises articles which take a look at the associations between language and culture as the collective behaviour of a group of speakers, doing so on a rather large timescale from the viewpoint of both acquiring a language and the historical evolution of a language. The compilation includes nine articles in three languages, from an international circle of authors. The topics addressed range from acquiring a first language in various cultures, family language policy in multilingual families in Tallinn, acquiring Estonian as a second language, the development of intercultural communication competences at school, linguistic politeness in Lithuanian, Estonian and Hungarian original names, and the multilingual language scene of Tallinn to the contact phenomenon of the Estonian aspect system and Estonian language phenomena which can be classified as expressions of the other sex through word formation.

SAA 7_n.jpgISSN 2228-0669
284 pages
Paperback
Published 2017

Estonian Yearbook of Military History (in English)
Visions of War. Experience, Imagination and Predictions of War in the Past and the Present

Editor: Kaarel Piirimäe

10 €

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The popular maxim holds that generals and, by extension, their armies always plan for the previous war. The wide-ranging chapters of this volume show the limits of this truism. There is much more to thinking about future war: it is a dynamic and on-going process, influenced by a myriad of political, military, social, economic and cultural shifts. The imagining of future war is an important factor and often a causal element in historical processes, whether or not it is immediately followed by war. The study of the thinking about and the planning for wars in the past not only opens a window on wider societal conceptions and preoccupations at the time but is also a basis for thinking about, and hopefully implementing, military changes in peacetime.

This issue of the Estonian Yearbook of Military History includes a preface on the study of war by Martin van Creveld, and chapters by Gary Baines, Benedict von Bremen, Tobias J. Burgers, General Michael H. Clemmesen, Oliver B. Hemmerle, Robert A. Jacobs, Michael Jung, Iain MacInnes, Kaarel Piirimäe, Alon Posner and Blaž Torkar. The articles discuss a wide range of subjects: Mediaval strategy and tactics, concepts and imaginations of decisive battles and total wars in the 19th and 20th centuries, general staffs and war plans before the First World War and before the Second World  War, visions of a conventional and nuclear Third World War during the Cold War, historical analogies in thinking and speaking about war, and new technologies and present trends in the development of warfare.

The editor of the issue is Kaarel Piirimäe, the editor in chief of the yearbook is Toomas Hiio. 

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ISBN 978-9985-58-828-4
Paperback
420 pages 

Between Self and Societies: Creating Psychology in a New Key
Jaan Valsiner
Edited by Maaris Raudsepp 

24,20 €

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Between Self and Societies: Creating Psychology in a New Key contains a collection of unpublished texts by Dr. Jaan Valsiner, an innovative researcher in the field of cultural psychology. The papers included in this book enable the reader to trace the unfolding of Valsiner’s central ideas and are organized into six thematic chapters, according to the main focus of the texts (I Trajectories of psychology in societal context, II How to study qualitative developmental phenomena?, III Focus of cultural psychology: culture as a process within and between persons, IV Semiotic processes: how meanings are made?, V Cultural-semiotic regulation in societal and interpersonal processes,VI Cultural-semiotic self-regulation). The articles are accompanied by retrospective comments and two interviews that uncover Valsiner’s unique personal perspective.

Jaan Valsiner (born in 1951 in Tallinn, Estonia) is one of the founders of the re-birth of cultural psychology at the end of the 20th century. Among many varieties of cultural psychology, which all focus on the meaningfulness and cultural nature of psychological phenomena, he has inititated and is developing a cultural psychology of semiotic dynamics, providing thorough theoretical innovations to psychological science. Since 2013 Jaan Valsiner is the Niels Bohr Professor of Cultural Psychology at Aalborg University in Denmark, where he leads Europe’s first Research Centre on Cultural Psychology. Among his numerous works  Culture and the Development of Children's action (1987, 1997) The Guided MindThe Social Mind(2000), Culture in Minds and Societies (2007), A Guided Science (2012), An Invitation to Cultural Psychology (2014) could be named. In spring 2017 he was honoured with the Hans Kilian Award.

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ISSN 2504-6616
Paperback
199 pages

Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis I (2016)
Linguistic, Social and Cognitive Aspects of Language and Multilingualism
Editor-in-Chief: Reili Argus
Editor: Anna Verschik

7,90 €

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This year's topic of Philologia Estonica Tallinnensis, a collection by international authors, is "Linguistic, social and cognitive aspects of language contact and multilingualism".

No language exists in isolation without contacts with other languages; whether it is a peripheral fact for the researcher, or, on the contrary, the main object of study, is another matter. Most articles included in this volume are focused on language contacts having Estonian language as one of the parties.

The article by Lea Meriläinen, Helka Riionheimo, Päivi Kuusi and Hanna Lantto provides an overview of the theories of loan translations. Jim Hlavac approaches loan translations in Macedonian-English bilingual speech from the angle of contact linguistics. Virve Vihman's and Jim Hlavac's articles test theoretical models known in contact linguistics and state that in the process of language contacts, innovations which do not follow the grammar of either language are born. Anette Ross covers the dialect of the Roma living in Estonia in the context of other Roma language forms. Kristiina Praakli's article which analyses the social group of Estonians living in Finland from the viewpoint of pragmatics, and Helin Kase's study on the impact of English in Estonian fashion blogs are centered on multilingual virtual communication. Elīna Joenurma examines Estonian-Latvian bilingual speech, following the code-copying model, and focuses on the impact in both directions. Daria Bahtina-Jantsikene and Ad Backus treat Estonian-Russian receptive bilingualism, using experimental methodology.
The collection includes articles both in Estonian and in English.

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ISBN 978-9985-58-819-2
Paperback
453 pages

Cultural Patterns and Life Stories
Compiled and edited by Kirsti Jõesalu ja Anu Kannike

20,90 €

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The articles collected in this book were initially presented at a conference dedicated to Aili Aarelaid-Tart's memory on August 27, 2014, in Tallinn. Aili Aarelaid-Tart (1947-2014) was a well-known Estonian cultural researcher and public figure. All of the authors of that collection have collaborated with Aili Aarelaid-Tart in her research at different times and on different themes: they shared her interest in biographical research (Kõresaar, Zdravomyslova, Temkina, Assmuth and Siim), in exiles and life stories (Bela, Bennich-Björkman, Kõll and Skultans), in research on cultural trauma (Rahi-Tamm, Roos and Skultans), and in questions of cultural patterns and values (Halas, Norkus, Gronow).

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ISBN 978-9985-58-8093
Hard cover
488 pages

Juri Lotmani autoportreed. Автопортреты Ю. М. Лотмана. Juri Lotman’s
Self-portraits (in English, Estonian and Russian)
Edited and compiled by Tatjana Kuzovkina and Sergei Daniel
Translated from Russian to Estonian and English by Piret Peiker

16,90 €

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A trilingual and colourful book of self-portraits is a valuable addition to the legacy of this great scientist. Yuri Lotman was artistically talented and mastered a brilliant sketching technique; he knew how to convey the essence of things, animals, people with just a few lines. Often he drew himself, and this part of his artistic heritage is especially interesting culturally and in terms of his biography as a scientist: self-portrait is the expression of inner and outer at the same time, and reveals how the author views himself, what are the most intrinsic features of his character and behaviour. Yuri Lotman drew self-portraits often at random, on the edges of his research work, bibliographical sheets, calendar sheets etc. His self-portraits have been drawn in a humorous light, often using self-irony and expressing the author’s sense of humour. This makes the images especially charming. Illustrations differ by composition: there are quick portraits on the edges of texts, some have been outlined into the text, often accompanied by verbal comments, there are image series, stories within the images. Each drawing is accompanied by a short comment that contains necessary information for understanding the image: size, time of creation, location of the archival document, explanations on the content and the circumstances of its creation, if necessary. Comments have been written by Tatyana Kuzovkina. She has also written an epilogue for the drawings in cooperation with S. M. Daniel. As an important addition to Yuri Lotman’s legacy, primarily his biography, the book is trilingual: all comments and the epilogue are in Estonian, Russian and English.

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ISBN 978-9985-58-807-9
Paperback
336 pages

Urban Semiotics: the City as a Cultural-Historical Phenomen 
Edited by Igor Pilshchikov

23,70 €

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This collection of essays presents the materials of the Third Annual Juri Lotman Days at Tallinn University in Estonia (3–5 June 2011). The participants discussed the semiotics of urban space from the perspective of the Tartu-Moscow School in comparison with contemporary approaches.

This book consists of four sections. The articles in the first section discuss how “urban texts” function in modern and contemporary Baltic cultures. The papers in the second section focus on the semiotics of place in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian and Soviet culture from the perspective of linguistic poetics, cultural semiotics, and new materiality. The last two sections are devoted to the visual perceptions of the cityscape and their ideological interpretations as exemplified by Ukrainian, Estonian, Korean, Chinese, and North American illustrations.

 

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ISBN 978-9985-58-806-2
Paperback
290 pages

I luoghi nostri: Dante’s Natural and Cultural Spaces
Edited by Zygmunt G. Barański, Andreas Kablitz and Ülar Ploom

26 €

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This article collection contains a selection of the latest work of internationally renowned Dante-researchers. The collection is centred, above all, on room-related problems in different aspects (late medieval cosmology, Dante’s poetics of room, semiotics and phenomenology, Judaic, Islamic, Christian, Pagan and folk aspects and motives in the representation of room) as well as many other topical issues in contemporary Dantology (Dante’s dialogue with the epic of antiquity, Dante’s intellectual development). Eleven articles and essays include approaches to above issues within a w

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296 pages
Paperback 

Inventing the National Defence: Eastern Europe Before the Fall of the Berlin Wall and Accession to NATO
Estonian Yearbook of Military History

10 €

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The fourth issue of The Estonian Yearbook of Military History (in English) published in collaboration with the Estonian War Museum - General Laidoner Museum and Tallinn University Press, is dedicated to the re-establishment of national defence in the Baltic states and in other East European states after the collapse of the USSR.

The yearbook contains articles written by historians and military men from the USA, Latvia, Germany and Estonia on the re-establishment or reshaping of national defence in Eastern Germany, Czechoslovakia, Latvia, Poland and Estonia between 1990 and 2004. The yearbook includes articles by Toe Nõmme on weaponry purchases in Estonia during the 1990s; the military plans of General Ants Laaneots at the beginning of World War II; the memorial research by Hain Rebane on the failure in the conception of national defence of 1993 by the Government; as well as the so-called Israeli arms deal in 1993. Trivimi Velliste, the ex-Foreign Minister of Estonia and ex-Ambassador to the UN, wrote the introduction. 

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ISBN 9789-985-58-774-4
Paperback
512 pages

Playgrounds And Battlefields: Critical Perspectives of Social Engagement

Edited by Francisco Martínez ja Klemen Slabina

Authors: Francisco Martínez, Klemen Slabina, Mihhail Lotman, Siobhan Kattago, Kevin Ryan, Tom Frost, Flo Kasearu, Marcos Farias-Ferreira, Jaanika Puusalu, Dita Bezdíčková, Emeli Theander, Patrick Laviolette, Alastair Bonnett, Oleg Pachenkov and Lilia Voronkova, Anne Vatén, Helena Holgersson, Patricia García Espín and Manuel García Fernández, Benjamin Noys, Kristina Norman, Madli Maruste, Pille Runnel and Ehti Järv, Alessandro Testa, Sean Homer, Tarmo Jüristo

Out of stock

This book explores whether the metaphors of ‘playground’ and ‘battlefield’ might be analytically meaningful terms for understanding contemporary society. The duality of playgrounds and battlefields is presented as a space of continuous becoming, related to the recreation, domination and experience of a place, as well as to corresponding practices of excess, interaction and enjoyment. We believe that a discussion about engagement and responsibility in a modern social setting is possible only through new concepts that avoid binary formulations. Playgrounds and battlefields are thus used as a trigger enabling a fresh approach to a contemporaneity that is highly influenced by the way in which societies deal with their past and future. In this sense, the ‘Playgrounds and Battlefields’ volume is a thematic one, mapping the field and offering grammar of possibility.

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ISBN 9789-985-58-768-3
Paperback
296 pages

The Unpredictable Workings of Culture
Juri Lotman
Translated from Russian to English by Brian Baer
Afterword by Mihhail Lotman

6,50 €

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The Unpredictable Workings of Culture belongs to Juri Lotman’s late period. Previously published in Italian and Russian, this work is appearing now for the first time in English translation. The book’s general thematics link it to Lotman’s two other final monographs, Universe of the Mind and Culture and Explosion, already well-known to Anglophone readers. All three of these books are dedicated to questions that occupied this scholar and thinker during the last years of his life: first, the need for a common approach to natural, social, and spiritual phenomena; second, the problem of evolutionary and explosive processes in the history of culture; and, third, the question, closely linked to the previous two, of art as a workshop of unpredictability.

Lotman’s friends and colleagues—brilliant representatives of the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School—point out the special style and tone of this work: “While I was reading the book, I had the sensation I was speaking with Lotman. I could hear his intonations; I could see his face turned toward me. I used to have the same feeling when I listened to his lectures. It seemed that he wasn’t speaking to us all at the same time but rather to each one of us individually” (Boris Uspensky). “This book is an outstanding example of Lotman’s style. Here Lotman expresses his most cherished thoughts with a clarity and in a form that make them accessible to a wide audience, offering rare and fascinating examples to illustrate his points” (Vyacheslav Ivanov).

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ISBN 978-9985-58-753-9 
Paperback
237 pages

Working with Feminism: Curating and Exhibitions in Eastern Europe 
Editor Katrin Kivimaa
Authors: Angela Dimitrakaki, Katrin Kivimaa, Katja Kobolt, Izabela Kowalczyk, Pawel Leszkowicz, Suzana Milevska, Bojana Pejic, Rebeka Põldsam, Mara Traumane, Airi Triisberg, Hedvig Turai.

8 €

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This edited collection, bringing together art historians and curators working both in the ‘East’ and the ‘West’ of Europe, is a result of a growing interest in the theorisation and historical analysis of feminist curating as a distinct practice with its own transnational history and politics.
In most former state-socialist countries of Eastern Europe, the emergence and public visibility of feminist curating and exhibitions usually dates back to the 1990s and is associated with the radical transformation of art practices, ideologies and art systems as well as with wider socio-political and intellectual changes, and challenges, of post-socialist transition. This history, and its legacy, is addressed in this book through national and regional case-studies ranging from the Baltics to the Balkans.
An equally significant part of the book is dedicated to the present and future of feminist curating, as well as of other politicised forms of curatorial activities (e.g. queer curating). In addition to the theoretical or historical accounts presented, the collection includes two highly relevant interviews with curators: Bojana Pejic on the block-buster exhibition Gender Check(2009–2010) in Vienna and Warsaw; and Airi Triisberg and Rebeka Põldsam on Untold Stories (2011), the first international queer exhibition in Tallinn, Estonia.

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ISBN 978-9985-58-734-8 
Paperback
304 pages

Politics, Illusions, Fallacies 
George Schöpflin 

11 €

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"Politics, Illusions, Fallacies" is an insightful vision of the dilemmas of the Western modern state and democratic politics facing universalism, globalization and the non-West way of thinking and life. It is a well structured contribution that deserves the needs of a wide international debate: the paper actually provides good grounds for a comprehensive analysis of the most sensitive questions elaborated by the author that will attract the critical attention of the academic world and the readers in general.

Stefano Bianchini,
Professor of East European History and Politics at the University of Bologna

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ISBN 9789985587065
Paperback
132 pages

A Brief History of Sexuality in Premodern Japan 
Saeko Kimura

Out of stock
 

“A Brief History of Sexuality in Pre-modern Japan” addresses sexuality in pre-modern Japanese society as revealed by court literature, picture scrolls and Buddhist art. Based on the balance between power and productivity, which derived from a political system utilizing marriage politics, pre-modern sexuality transcended the dualism of homo/heterosexuality.
Also discussed are the relationship of sexuality to family structure, feelings of desire between mothers and children, and other topics that combine to paint a compelling picture of gender politics and sexuality in pre-modern Japan. The book is based on two prize-winning studies that have previously been published only in Japanese.
Saeko Kimura is an Associate Professor in the Department of International and Cultural Studies at Tsuda College,Tokyo, Japan.

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Connecting Paradigms of Motor Behaviour to Sport and Physical Education 
Edited by Kaivo Thomson and Anthony Watt

8.50 €

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“Connecting Paradigms of Motor Behaviour to Sport and Physical Education” presents recent articles that examine theoretical and empirical research on the learning and teaching of motor skills. The development of the book is based on the effect of synergism – a phenomenon whereby the cooperative interaction of multiple psychological, pedagogical, and biological ideas, drawn from the systemic model, produces an outcome that is superior to that which could be expected from knowledge derived from the independent contributions of these disciplines.
For students, researchers and teachers working in the fields of sports and physical education, this book should promote a deeper understanding of previous knowledge, and provide exposure to ideas that frame new perspectives related to the acquisition of skills and motor learning.

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Baltic Suicide Paradox 
Edited by Airi Värnik, Merike Sisask and Peeter Värnik

8 €

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Suicide is the most extreme form of self-destructive behaviour. The mystery of suicide has prompted mankind to search for the causes of self-inflicted mortality in all ages and societies. During the last 50 years, most of the research into suicide has been conducted in countries with established democracies and market economies, in which no significant societal changes have taken place. By contrast, this book provides the reader with insights into the sociological and psychological aspects of suicide in the Baltic countries –Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have experienced dramatic social upheaval in the last 30 years.
The peaks and valleys of suicide curves coincide with rapid socio-political and economic changes that demanded high levels of adaptation in all post-Soviet countries. It has been found that the causes of suicide in Eastern European countries varied widely and the same explanations do not apply to all of them; however, the relationship between suicide and social processes is undeniable.
This book presents a collection of ideas and theories from well-known researchers about suicide in the Baltic countries against the backdrop of the former Soviet Union, its satellites and Western Europe.