For some time already, the Baltic Sea Region is serving scholars from different disciplines as research area. The University of Greifswald has traditionally been strongly involved into this research which has been institutionalised recently with the Interdisciplinary Centre for Baltic Sea Region Research (IFZO). One of the research focusses located at the IFZO deals with shared/divided heritage among the Baltic Sea states. Within this institutional context, the organisers of the conference “Tidal recall. Maritime Sites of Memory in the Baltic Sea Region” invited established researchers as well as museologists to discuss existing concepts of memory and how they could be applied to the Baltic Sea region building on new perspectives on the history of seas and oceans.

In her welcome address GESA ZUR NIEDEN (Greifswald) outlined the roots of the underlying ideas of this conference by referring to Michael North’s works on the Baltic Sea region. ANTJE KEMPE (Greifswald) introduced to the concrete topic of the conference by highlighting that previous concepts of memory and of lieux de memoire are deeply rooted in the framework of the nation-state. Approaches of the “new Thalassology” offer a way to overcome this limitation by concentrating on the history of the sea rather than of states and simultaneously to shift the focus to the maritime dimension of sites of memory. On basis of this reflections, a set of six questions was formulated: 1. What is the role of local and regional memories in a globalised world? 2. How is a canon of sites of memory created? 3. How do maritime sites of memory and the meaning which is ascribed to them change over time and what determining factors can be identified? 4. What is the agency of the sea and what is the connection to ecological sites of memory? 5. To what extent can memories of different groups be considered as coexistent on an equal base? 6. How are maritime sites of memory mediated? However, Kempe emphasised that this first meeting will neither limit itself to this set of questions nor will it give sufficient answers to all of them. Therefore, it should primarily serve as first exchange to explore the potential of “maritime sites of memory”.

In the wake of the Russian war against Ukraine, MARINA DMITRIEVA (Leipzig) redirected her topic to the Crimean city of Sevastopol. She analysed how the narrative about the city was repeatedly reduced to its role as war scene since the Crimean War 1853–1857. This bias was elongated even into peace times when the memory of war was kept alive in visual media and through the presence of the Soviet and later Russian fleet. Dmitrieva found that the evolvement of the narrative of Sevastopol was closely connected to the rise of modern media and that each war led to a creation of a new layer in the narrative without erasing the previous one. Consequently, she argues in her final hypotheses that the representation of the ongoing war is an extension of the already existing narrative.

BEATA LABUHN (Oslo) focused her paper on the Joseph Conrad monument in Gdynia. Against the background of the history of the city she positioned the decision to erect the monument in the context of the global anticolonial movement in the 1970s which entailed a revival of the before in Poland forbidden books by Conrad. With the reference to Conrad the inhabitants of Gdynia could express their cosmopolitan self-understanding which was further supported by the directedness of the monument to the sea. Labuhn also explicated the material conditions of the monument. However, in her final conclusion she had to admit that not many local people understand the meaning of this site nowadays, although it is still prominently present in the urban landscape.

Further contesting urban narratives in Poland, ADRIANNA BRECHELKE (Poznań) analysed the multi-layered history of the city of Kołobrzeg. The idea of an urban palimpsest served Brechelke to illustrate the different stages of the development of the city while, at the same time, tracing the different connections to the sea. During the following discussion, potential for further explorations among the different cities at the Baltic Sea coast on shared sites of memory such as lighthouses or resort infrastructures was highlighted. In addition, Brechelke described how selective the mechanisms of referring to distinct layers of the urban history operate.

In her keynote lecture the head of the environmental history department at Tallinn University ULRIKE PLATH introduced the audience to Baltic climate history. After outlining the sources of her historiographic work and the main developments of the Baltic Sea climate from the 17th to the 19th century, Plath focused on how the inhabitant of the coastal areas dealt with extreme weather phenomena and what traces these events left in historical sources. She concluded that storms, floods, and drifting ice constituted real threats to human existence. Yet, costal inhabitants for most of the discussed period failed to develop sustainable modes of reactions to these threats, which was mainly due to a lack of recognising weather events as natural events and not as expressions of higher powers. Although a later shift in this view took place, observers clung on their land-based perspective which limited their tools to measure weather events. At the end Plath formulated the hypothesis that the view changed when modern photography enabled observers to capture weather phenomena as they were and not to document merely the casualties they caused.

JOHANNES VON MÜLLER (Kiel) compared how the plaster casts of the Cammin Shrine are embedded in local historical narratives in Copenhagen, Greifswald and Szczecin. Although ascribed to different periods (Viking age in Copenhagen, medieval time in Greifswald and post-World War II in Szczecin), all three shrines had in common that they could only gain importance due to the loss of the original shrine. This led to the question of the original function of the replicas which von Müller connected to the founding of the German Empire in 1871 and the alleged search for deeply rooted historical identity, which could be found in the Cammin Cathedral. The way the replicas were each exclusively appropriated in their different contexts raised the question in the audience, if this act can be called an attempt of piracy.

LAURA TACK (Greifswald) continued on the topic of flood memory. At the examples of three floods between 1497 and 1872 at the places of Darłowo in Poland, Greifswald in Germany, and Marielyst in Denmark material and immaterial lieux de memoire were analysed. The following discussion was dominated by the questions of how material sites of memory are treated today and how the role of memorising floods has changed over time.

ARNE SEGELKE (Greifswald) compared the way the German Revolution of 1918 was commemorated in East and West Germany. Either state faced challenges throughout the Post-War period dealing with this historical event. In the GDR this mainly concerned the fact that the actual historical place where the revolution started was located beyond its state borders on West German territory. The FRG, on the other hand, did not integrate the revolution into a state-wide historical narrative, unlike the GDR where the revolution served as the historical and legitimizing reference. The following discussion especially focused on the role sailors played in the visualisation of the revolution.

The ensuing roundtable brought together TEELE SAAR and FELIKS GORNSCHEFF from the Estonian Maritime Museum in Tallinn, RUTH SCHILLING from the German Maritime Museum in Bremerhaven, and BENJAMIN ASMUSSEN from the Maritime Museum of Denmark in Elsinore. Together with the chair SÜNNE JUTERCZENKA (Göttingen) they discussed perspectives and challenges in exhibiting and mediating maritime sites of memory in museal contexts. The first aspect touched upon the iconic architectural appearance of the maritime museums, which, however, do not always display an immediate connection to maritime history, as e.g. in the case of the German Maritime Museum which is hosted in a building designed by Hans Scharoun. Remaining at the question of how important materiality is for mediating maritime history, all speakers agreed that ships are often not less iconic and their role cannot be limited to their function of mere symbols for maritime history. They often serve as connector to local history including personal biographies and thus fulfil the function of anchor for an exchange especially with local inhabitants. However, museums are also sites of research. All speakers agreed, that their institutions regard the transmission of research-based information about the past to the public as prime objective for their activity. Yet, to what extent each individual institution can also fulfil research and archive functions depends on the available capacities and the local support. During the following discussion the narratives of freedom that people often associate with ships, sea, and ocean, was thematised. In addition, it was discussed how the decrease of the general visibility of maritime activities due to the transformation processes in shipping since the 20th Century challenges the work of the museums. On the one hand, this process found its expression in a growing disconnection of the people to the sea which requires constant re-working on the exhibitions. On the other hand, it is responded with a sense of nostalgia which also motivates people to donate inheritances of those who were connected to the maritime past. Experiencing this flood of donations, all speakers expressed their concerns about the digital era when communication losses its material basis, which, until today, constitutes the foundation of museal work.

In total, this first meeting on maritime sites of memory could not find answers to all questions that Antje Kempe presented in her introduction. Neither was it strictly limited to the Baltic Sea Region, as the title suggested, nor did it have an outspoken thematic focus. Yet, this wide spectrum was exactly the strength of this format. Starting from empirical findings, scholars from different disciplines as well as practitioners from relevant institutions and from different regions were brought together to think about how “maritime sites of memory” could be theorised and methodologically embedded. This concerns not at last the question of definition and how maritime sites of memory are different from others and why. Above all, the commonality of different sites beyond state borders was repeatedly highlighted which, although not always explicitly mentioned, convincingly showed how insufficient the framework of the nation-state proofs for understanding sites of memory that are connected to the sea. The discussion to what extent these sites can be called “maritime” will be continued at an envisioned follow-up workshop. However, this does not diminish the important contribution already this first gathering paid to the new history of the Baltic Sea.

Conference overview:

Gesa zur Nieden (Greifswald), Antje Kempe (Greifswald): Welcome & Introduction

Marina Dmitrieva (Leipzig): Staging the War: Sevastopol in Visual Media, 1850s – 1950s – 2014

Beata Labuhn (Oslo): Gdynia–An Inquiry into its Maritime Monuments (Joseph Conrad Monument)

Adrianna Brechelke (Poznań): Kołobrzeg–the Seaside Town of Memory. Ville de memoire-lieu de memoire

Ulrike Plath (Tallinn): Storms, Droughts, and Floods: Baltic Climate Memory between Land and Sea

Johannes von Müller (Kiel): Reliquary to the Square: The Plaster Casts of the Cammin Shrine in Greifswald, Copenhagen and Szczecin

Laura Tack (Greifswald): Shapes of Flood Memory Sites in the Baltic Sea Region – Material and Immaterial

Arne Segelke (Greifswald): The German Revolution of 1918 as a Maritime Site of Memory in the two German States

Roundtable: „Shifting Memories. How to Exhibit and Mediate Maritime Sites of Memory?”
Chair: Sünne Juterczenka (Göttingen)

Teele Saar (Tallinn) / Feliks Gornischeff (Tallinn) / Ruth Schilling (Bremerhaven) / Benjamin Asmussen (Elsinore)

Antje Kempe (Greifswald): Conclusion