Anu Mai Kõll

Professor of Baltic History, Culture and Society
Director of the Centre for Baltic and East European Studies, Södertörn University

Contact details:

CBEES
Södertörn University
141 89 Huddinge, Sweden

Telephone +46 8 608 43 82

E-mail: anu-mai.koll@sh.se

 

At CBEES, Södertörn University since October, 2006
Professor of Baltic History, Culture and Society, Stockholm University 1998
PhD at Department of Economic History, Stockholm University 1984
 

Research:

Political formation of the peasantry

My current project deals with the political formation of the peasantry in the Baltic Sea area. It is a comparative project with five participants, covering Estonia, Finland, Galicia and Sweden. The idea is to study how peasants became citizens in the Baltic Sea realm in 1880-1939. The comparisons include great historical diversities, but common influences of ideas on agrarianism, cooperation, gender and nationalism. Their relationship to corporativism in the 1930's forms the final point. Comparative studies have interested me throughout my career.

Collectivisation process in the Soviet     

Related, but belonging to a different academic discourse, are my studies into the collectivisation process in the Soviet period. A local, detailed study of the process in southern Estonia, the participants as well as victims, the dependency between the double occupations in the war and the postwar repressions extending to the collectivisation is still under way. This study was part of the programme on Communist regimes by the Swedish Research Council. I co-ordinated this programme and edited the anthology Kommunismens ansikten, Repression övervakning och svenska reaktioner, Eslöv:Symposion 2005 and  the preparatory study Research on Communist Regimes, with Aleksander Kan and Tom Hart,  Brytpunkt, Vetenskapsrådet, Stockholm 2001. A monograph on the local study in Viljandi is still under way.   

The economic history of the Baltic Countries

The economic history of the Baltic Countries is still unknown in many of its parts.  Peasants on the World Market, Agrarian Experience of Independent Estonia 1919-39.  Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia no 14, 1994, and Economic Nationalism and  Industrial Growth. State and Industry in Estonia 1934-39, Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia no 19, 1998, in cooperation with Jaak Valge, today at University of Tartu are contributions to cover the lacunae. The debates about economic nationalism have continued, together with colleagues at the University of Lausanne in the 1990's and the Viadrina University at Frankfurt/Oder more recently.

Integration of agriculture into a capitalist market economy

My dissertation was about the relationship between social and technological change in Swedish 19th century agriculture. The  problem area integration of agriculture into a capitalist market economy in comparative perspective  was continued with Ulf Jonsson and Ronny Pettersson at the Department of Economic History, Stockholm University, publishing for instance Problems of a Peasant-based Development Strategy, Centre for International Economic History, Genève 1993.

 

Other information:

I serve on the boards of Baltic Worlds (responsible publisher)
Advisory Board, Aleksanteri Institute, Helsinki
Expert Council, Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory, Tartu University
Tartu Institute, Toronto
Editorial board  Ajalooline Ajakiri, The Historical Journal of Estonia

 

Books:

• Kommunismens ansikten, Repression, övervakning och svenska reaktioner Stockholm/Stehag: Symposion 2005
• (Ed) The Baltic Countries under Occupation; Soviet and Nazi rule 1939-1991, Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia  23, 2003
• Research on Communist Regimes, with Aleksander Kan and Tom Hart,  Brytpunkt, Vetenskapsrådet, Stockholm 2001
• (Ed) Time of Change in the Baltic Countries, Essays in Honour of Aleksander Loit, Department of Baltic Studies, Stockholm 2000
• AM  Kõll, J Valge Economic Nationalism and  Industrial Growth. State and Industry in Estonia 1934-39, Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia no 19, 1998
• Peasants on the World Market, Agrarian Experience of Independent Estonia 1919-39.  Studia Baltica Stockholmiensia no 14, 1994
• U Jonsson, AM Kõll, R Pettersson, Problems of a Peasant-based Development Strategy, Centre for International Economic History, Genève  1993
   
  Tradition och reform i västra Södermanlands jordbruk1810-90, akademisk avhandling, Stockholm Studies in Economic History 7, 1983

Recent articles in anthologies:

• Eesti põgenike toimetulekust Rootsis naiste perspektiivist, antologibidrag, Terje Hallik et al. Eestlaste Põgenemine Läände Teise maailmasõja ajal, Tartu:Filiae Patriae 2009. (English version Estonian Refugees in Sweden - a Gender Perspective, due 2010-11)
• The East-West Dimension of Citizenship in the Baltic Sea Area  in Piotr Wawrzeniuk (ed) Societal Change and Ideological Formation among the Rural Population of the Baltic Area 1800-1939, Studia Baltica Serie II:2, Södertörn 2008, pp 13-34.
• Co-operatives as part of the national movement in the Baltic countries, in Torsten Lorenz (ed), Cooperatives in Ethnic Conflicts: Eastern Europe in the 19th and early 20th Century Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag 2006
• Agrarianism and ethnicity, in Helga Schultz , Eduard Kubu (eds) History and Culture of Economic Nationalism in East Central Europe, Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag  2006.

Recent articles in journals:

• "David Feest, Zwangskollektivisierung in Baltikum" recension Ajalooline Ajakiri, The Estonian Histoircal Journal 2008:1/2. pp 165-168.
• "The history of the Baltic States - a minefield" i Baltic Rim Economies 2009:3 p 34.
• Debt-ridden elites leave the scene, Baltic Worlds Vol II:3-4 2009.