Unofficial Trade and Business Practices in the Baltic Region in the 20th Century

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

With a regional focus on the southern Baltic Sea region (Poland, Germany, Russia/Soviet Union) the panel deals with different forms of unofficial trade and trade relations throughout the 20th century. Its main aim is to analyze how different actors managed to establish and maintain trade routes on a transnational level in national political and legal environments which were hostile towards their actions. All three papers offer a new perspective on the economic and social history of East-Central Europe which is still dominated by national narratives and instead expose the transnational and multi-ethnic entanglements of unofficial business practices in East Central and Northern Europe.

Sub Unit

• History: Central and Southeast Europe, Since 1918

Chair

• Frank Hadler, Leibniz Institute for History and Culture of Eastern Europe (Germany)

Papers

• Kaliningrad under Brezhnev: A Faithful Soviet Outpost in the Baltic or a Basket Case of Rootless Cosmopolitanism? - Tomasz Blusiewicz, Harvard U

• Rum Runners of the Baltic: Liquor Contraband as a Form of Unofficial Trade in Interwar Europe - Adrian Mitter, Herder Institute Marburg (Germany) / U of Toronto (Canada)

• Trade Relations between the Polish Port City of Gdynia, the Free City of Danzig, and Germany (1920-1939) - Marcin Andrzej Szerle, Leibniz Science Campus (Germany)

Discussants

• Frank Hadler, Leibniz Institute for History and Culture of Eastern Europe (Germany)

• Mila Oiva, U of Turku (Finland)