Book Presentation: Baltic Hospitality from the Middle Ages to the Twentieth Century: Receiving Migrants in Northeastern Europe

The volume presented during the seminar addresses the history of hospitality, reception, and xenophobia in the Baltic Sea region and attitudes towards migrants and strangers. The Baltic region and its history as a connective space of cosmopolitan encounters and space of clash of cultures during the past millennium offers a unique opportunity to isolate, investigate, and exemplify migrant crises throughout history. This volume additionally sheds light on the current predicament facing many European countries, comparing past and present experiences of reception or rejection of strangers. Analyzing the circumstances which led strangers – migrants, merchants, war refugees, soldiers, missionaries and other types of aliens – to be perceived as a threat to local populations, this book offers an overview of the responses of host communities in the countries surrounding the Baltic Sea, from the late tenth century to the early twentieth. The seminar will include a short  presentation of four chapters illustrating how certain categories of strangers were discriminated against by hospitality practices and singled out for their creed or socioeconomic status. Emphasizing the Baltic Sea region as a uniquely multi-layered space of intercultural encounter and conflict , this collection demonstrates the significance of Northern Europe for understanding the history of migration. 

Presenters: 

Wojtek Jezierski (University of Oslo, Södertörns högskola, GU)

Sari Nauman (GU, Södertörns högskola)

Christina Reimann (GU, Södertörns högskola)

Leif Runefelt (Södertörns högskola)