Public History for a Stronger Europe — the podcast of the EUROPAST project (Horizon Europe, 2022–2025), explores the most contested spaces of European public memory: how nations remember war and dictatorship, who owns the past, and what it means to do public history honestly.

Hosted across the project’s four academic partners — Vilnius University, the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (Potsdam), Lund University, and the Centre for Contemporary and Digital History (Luxembourg) — with guests including Jonathan Brent, Maria Mälksoo, Jan Kubik, Thomas Cauvin, Michael Bernhard, Rita Gabis, and many others. I host the majority of episodes.

Selected episodes

• • Europast Podcast №18. Ką žinome ir ko nežinome apie sovietmečio elitą? [What Do We Know and Not Know about the Soviet-Era Elite?], with Saulius Grybkauskas, 2026.
• • Europast Podcast №17. “Histofest” in Luxembourg: What It Means to Do Public History, with Dora Komnenovic and Rūta Vyšniauskaitė, 2026.
• • Europast Podcast №16. Lietuva Prancūzijoje po Antrojo pasaulinio karo: ištrinta iš žemėlapio ir vaizduotės? [Lithuania in France after the Second World War: Erased from the Map and the Imagination?], with Akvilė Kabašinskaitė, 2026.
• • Europast Podcast №15. Propaganda nuo Antrojo pasaulinio karo iki šiandien: ar jau esame atsparesni? [Propaganda from the Second World War to Today: Are We More Resilient?], with Stanislovas Stasiulis, 2025.
• • Europast Podcast №14. The Battle for Memory: Pluralism vs. Populism in Public History, with Jan Kubik and Dovilė Budrytė, 2025.
• • Europast Podcast №13. Reclaiming the Past: Folklore and Local History in Lithuania, 1940–1990, with Odeta Rudling, 2025.
• • Europast Podcast №12. War Unending: A Journey Through Love, Guilt, and the Ghosts of History, with Rita Gabis, 2025.
• • Europast Podcast №10. Who Owns the Past? Public History Without Illusions, with Thomas Cauvin, Rūta Vyšniauskaitė and Giorgio Ruggeri, 2025.

Listen to the podcast series on YouTube or Spreaker.

Selected appearances

• • Interview on the Holocaust in Lithuania and its memory, with Rūta Matimaitytė, LRT Radio, 2026.
• • Slow Memory, Slow Conflict, with Ene Kõresaar, hosted by Indra Ekmanis, in Baltic Ways, AABS–FPRI, 2026.
• • Sulaužė stereotipus apie Vilniaus kraštą: dominuoja ne prorusiškumas, o sudėtinga istorija [Breaking Stereotypes about the Vilnius Region: A Complicated History, Not Pro-Russian Sentiment], with Ignė Rasickaitė and Rūta Vyšniauskaitė, LRT, 2025.
• • Lietuvos ir Europos mokslininkai susivienijo dėl bendro tikslo: istoriją sieks priartinti prie kiekvieno [Lithuanian and European Scholars Join Forces to Bring History Closer to Everyone], on the EUROPAST project, Lrytas, 2025.
• • Visuomeninė istorija: tūkstančio rankų kūryba [Public History: A Work of a Thousand Hands], with Aurimas Švedas, in Homo cultus. Istoriko teritorija, LRT, 2024.
• • Neleisti neapykantai laimėti. Interviu su Violeta Davoliūte [Not Letting Hatred Win. An Interview with Violeta Davoliūtė], with Karolis Vyšniauskas, in Nara, 2020.
• • Contested Pasts, Public Futures: Who Governs Historical Memory?, with Arūnas Gelūnas, Barbara Törnquist-Plewa, Eglė Grebliauskaitė, and Marko Demantowsky, LRT, 2025.
• • Apie kitą tremties pusę. Pokalbis su kultūros istorike V. Davoliūte [On the other side of exile. A conversation with cultural historian V. Davoliūtė], on Bernardinai, 2022.
• • From Poetics to Politics: Trauma and the Shift of Memory Paradigms in Late Soviet Lithuania, Lithuanian National Museum of Art, 2017.

Upcoming

• Panellist, Occupation, Resistance, Adaptation: Memory Politics and Historical Debates on Russian/Soviet Entanglements with East Central Europe, with Eneken Laanes and Una Bergmane, Central European University, Budapest, 5 November 2026.
• Panellist, "History in Conflict: The Second World War and Soviet Myths," Museum Berlin-Karlshorst, Berlin, 10 November 2026.
• Roundtable, "Empire, State, and the Politics of Memory: Reconsidering Interethnic Relations and Violence in the Baltic Region," ASEEES Annual Convention, Chicago, 12–15 November 2026.
• "Dispossession Remembered: Deportation, Collectivisation, and the Discourse of Displacement in Lithuania," workshop The Impact of Land Reform on Baltic Societies Past and Present, Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius, 23–24 November 2026.

Recent lectures and presentations

• "When Does the War End? Lithuania's Jews and the Subject-Positions of Return after 1944," workshop Violence, Displacement, and Community Reshaping in the Western Soviet Territories and North Caucasus after WWII, CERCEC (EHESS), French Institute, Vilnius, 19–21 October 2026.
• "Testimony to Sexual Violence after Liberation in the Holocaust Memoirs of Sara/Hannah Rigler and Primo Levi," panel "Shattered Liberation," ASEEES Virtual Convention, 16–17 October 2026.
• "Borderland Narratives: Negotiating Minority Memory in the Vilnius Region Museums," with Rūta Vyšniauskaitė, panel "Security and Memory in the Baltics," CEECON 2026, Berlin, 9 October 2026.
• "Testimony to Sexual Violence after Liberation: Silencing and Unsilencing," NORAH seminar East Meets West, Lund University, 5 October 2026.
• Presentation, Friends of Lund collaboration workshop, Department of History, Lund University, 2 October 2026.
• Panellist, discussion "Pasirinkimas okupacijos metais: prisitaikyti ar priešintis?" (Choices under Occupation: To Adapt or to Resist?), Balys Gajauskas Festival, Laukuva, 1 October 2026.
• "Difficult Heritage: Art and the Soviet Legacy More than Thirty Years after the Restoration of Independence," conference on Russian drama theatres in the Baltic states, Vilnius Old Theatre, 24 September 2026.
• Chair, keynote lecture by Juliane Fürst, 15th Vilnius Symposium on Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Issues, Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius, 14 September 2026.
• "The Gendered Aftermath of Liberation in the Memoirs of Hannah Rigler and Primo Levi," and roundtables "Visuals and Memory" and "From Memory Activism to Public History," Memory Studies Association Annual Conference, Buenos Aires, 29–31 July 2026.
• Panellist, "Professionalization," International Conference Jewish Life in the Baltic States, 1917–1945, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, 9 June 2026.
• Panellist, "The Current State of Research," International Conference Jewish Life in the Baltic States, 1917–1945, Vytautas Magnus University, Kaunas, 10 June 2026.
• "From the Long Thaw to the Long Perestroika: Justinas Marcinkevičius, Algirdas Brazauskas, and the Defense of the Post-Soviet Village," The Long Perestroika from Afar: Making Peripheries Central, Kloster Seeon, Bavaria, 1–3 June 2026.
• "Oral Histories of the Holocaust in Eastern Europe: Local and Global Perspectives." Invited lecture and seminar, Reconsidering the Transnational in Holocaust Studies (NORAH inaugural conference, Lund University), Båstad, Sweden, 15 April 2026.
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  • Roundtable, "Jewish Studies in Lithuania," Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania, Washington, DC, 25 November 2025.
• "To Erase or Preserve: Contested Legacies of Soviet Baltic Writers," 14th Vilnius Symposium on Late Soviet and Post-Soviet Issues, Lithuanian Institute of History, Vilnius, 4 November 2025.
• "Decolonization in the Baltics? Revisiting the Concept of Cultural Resistance under Foreign Rule since 1990." Monuments of the Soviet Occupation Period as Dissonant Heritage, Art Academy of Latvia, 30 October – 1 November 2025.
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  • Keynote Lecture, "Continuity and Change in Remembrance of the Soviet Past: The Case of Lithuania." Mobilizing and Weaponizing Memories of Soviet Repressions, University of Warsaw, Warsaw Library, 29–31 October 2025.
• Public discussion, "Nepalūžtančios: moterys išbandymų akivaizdoje" (Unbroken: Women in Times of Trial), with Vilana Pilinkaitė-Sotirovič, Beatričė's House Museum, Vilnius, 15 October 2025.
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  • Two lectures, European Humanities University, Vilnius, 9–10 July 2025.
• "Current State of Holocaust Studies (History, Memory) in Lithuania," EHRI-ERIC International Seminar, Riga, Latvia, 19 May 2025.
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  • "The Habitus of Holocaust Reckoning during the Thaw in Soviet Lithuania." Lecture, Surveiller et réprimer à l'Est: nouvelles approches, nouveaux terrains (URSS, Europe centrale et orientale), École des hautes études en sciences sociales, Paris, 25 March 2025.
• Discussant, panel "Genocide and Memory in Central and Eastern Europe," ASEEES Annual Convention, Boston, 24 November 2024.
• Discussant, panel "Moments of Liberation in Baltic History," ASEEES Annual Convention, Boston, 22 November 2024.
• "Present Impact of Cultural Divides – The Management of Cultural Differences in the History of Russia," Cluster of Excellence Eurasian Transformations, 1st Annual Conference: Cultural and Linguistic Diversity, University of Vienna, 22 November 2024.
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  • Moderator, panel "Public History as a Tool of Democracy: Lithuanian Memory Institutions in Context," international conference Memory Institutions and the State, Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Vilnius, 7–8 November 2024.
• "Jewish Deportees and Evacuees from Lithuania in June 1941: Displaced Lives, Misplaced Memories," Retours d'exils en Lituanie et en Europe orientale au 20e siècle, University of Strasbourg, 5 November 2024.
• Panellist, "Uneven Ground: 'The Holocaust by Bullets' in Literature and Film," University of Edinburgh, 23–24 September 2024.
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  • Invited Speaker, Conférence inaugurale de la Saison lituanienne en France – Lituanie et France: un voisinage lointain – une expérience partagée, Faculté des Lettres, Sorbonne Université, Paris, 12–13 September 2024.
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  • Invited Speaker, "Anniversary of the Molotov–Ribbentrop and Contemporary Fears and Drives of Creating a Common European Defence System," House of European History, Brussels, 22 August 2024.
• Panellist, "Remembrance of Crimes of Communism and Nazism – an Ongoing Tension in Memory Cultures in Eastern and Central Europe," Memory Studies Association 8th Annual Conference, Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, Lima, 19 July 2024.
• "The (Un)silencing of Sexual Violence and the Politics of the Past in Lithuania: A Tale of Two Diaries," Travels beyond the Holocaust: Memorialization, Musealization and Representation of Atrocities in Global Dialogue, Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna, 26 June 2024.
• "Decolonisation in Lithuania? Revisiting the Concept of Cultural Resistance under Foreign Rule," History and Responsibility: Doing History in Times of Conflicting Political Demands, International Network for Theory of History, National Library of Portugal, Lisbon, 21–24 May 2024.
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  • Book presentation and discussion, Everyday Representations of War in Late Modernity (with Nerijus Milerius, Agnė Narušytė and Lukas Brašiškis), Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, Vilnius, 8 May 2024.
• "The Holocaust Perpetrator in Local Memory. Case Studies from Lithuania in European Perspective," Iconographies of the Holocaust, Brown University, Providence, USA, 20 April 2024.
• Panellist, "Good Citizens, Terrible Times: Community, Courage and Compliance in and beyond the Holocaust," NIOD, Amsterdam, 17 April 2024.
• "Means and Forms of Resistance: On the (Im)possibility of Independent Public History in Contemporary Russia," History and Historians in the Post-Truth Era: Monopoly, Polyphony, Cacophony?, Aufarbeitung Foundation, Berlin, 13 April 2024.
• "Decolonization in Lithuania? Revisiting the Concept of Cultural Resistance under Foreign Rule," BASEES Annual Conference, Cambridge, UK, 7 April 2024.
• Keynote lecture, "Vilnius ir pokario vilniečiai" (Vilnius and Residents of Vilnius after the Second World War), Vilnius City Council Hall, 8 December 2023.
• "Ontological Insecurity and the Framing of Memory Studies in Eastern Europe," ASEEES Annual Convention, Philadelphia, 3 December 2023.
• "The Myth of Judeo-Bolshevism and the Soviet Mass Deportations of June 1941," international conference Ideologies of Hate and Hope in Modern Jewish History, Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, Vilnius, 28 November 2023.
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  • Guest lecture, "Genealogical Writing and Perpetrator Postmemory of the Holocaust in Lithuania," Department of History, Lund University, 24 October 2023.
• "Representations of the Post-Genocidal Shtetl in Soviet Lithuanian Cinema," VIII Baltic Sea Region Film Conference – City, Cinema and Media, Vilnius, 20 October 2023.
• "The Baltic Model of Civic-Patriotic History and the New Wave of Anti-Soviet Iconoclasm," 2nd PoSoCoMeS – MSA Working Group conference, Tallinn University, 20–23 September 2023.
• Keynote lecture, "Public Spaces and the Legacy of Soviet Occupation in the Baltic States. The Case of Lithuania," Europe Lab – Civil Society Forum, Amsterdam, 12 September 2023.
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  • Public discussion, "Vilniaus vizija viešosiose erdvėse: nuo istorijos iki politinių sprendimų" (The Vision of Vilnius in Public Spaces: From History to Political Decisions), EUROPAST, Culture Night, Vilnius, 16 June 2023.
• "Attitudes towards the Soviet Past in Contemporary Lithuania," 75 Baltisches Historikertreffen, Göttingen University, 3 June 2023.
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  • Discussion with Sofi Oksanen, "Historical Remembrance and the Identity of the Baltic States and Finland: Experiences of the 20th Century and How They Affect Us Today," Helsinki, 1 June 2023.
• Keynote lecture, "The Transnational and Transgenerational Migration of Memory," New Geographies of Scandinavian Studies, Aarhus University / Vilnius University, 31 May 2023.
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  • Panellist, International Holocaust Remembrance Day discussion, National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, January 2023.
• Keynote Lecture, "Vectors of Memory since the Collapse of the USSR. Examples from the Baltic States," 30 Years after the Collapse of the USSR from the Perspective of Warsaw, Studium Europy Wschodniej, University of Warsaw, 6–7 December 2022.
• "Memory of the Shoah," Fifth World Litvak Congress, Constitution Hall, Parliament of Lithuania, Vilnius, 23–26 May 2022.
• "The Habitus of Holocaust Remembrance during the Thaw in Soviet Lithuania," Ethnic Relations in the Baltic Reconsidered, European Studies Council, Yale University, 16–17 September 2022.
• "Unfinished Transitions and Historical Memory: Personal Narratives and State Memory Institutions," Transformation Narratives Beyond Winners and Losers, Vilnius University, 17 June 2021.
• "Remembering Two Dictatorships? The Rivalry of Dealing with the Past in the Baltic States," Bundesstiftung zur Aufarbeitung der SED-Diktatur, Berlin, 11 May 2021.
• "Resistance and Sovietization of the Western Borderlands in the Mirror of the Cinema of Late Stalinism," ASEEES Annual Convention (virtual), 14 November 2020.
• Panellist, "Memory Politics in Ukraine and Lithuania: A Comparative Perspective," ASEEES Annual Convention (virtual), November 2020.
• "The Holocaust and Testimony to Communal Violence in Lithuania after WWII," The Second World War in the Collective Memory and Politics of the Former Eastern Bloc Countries, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warsaw, 22 October 2020.
• Guest lecture, "Multidirectional Memory: Lithuanian Jews and the Soviet Deportations of June 1941," School of Humanities, Tallinn University, 20 February 2020.
• "Sexual Violence in the Accounts of Ethnic Lithuanians and Jews Deported in June 1941," ASEEES Annual Conference, San Francisco, 26 November 2019.
• "Writing about the Traumatic Past from Inside and Outside the Lithuanian Scholarly Tradition," Yale Baltic Studies Visiting Fellows Reunion Conference, Yale University, 20–21 November 2019.
• Keynote lecture, "Perpetrator Postmemory and Populism: Debate and Controversy over Collaboration with Nazi Germany in East Central Europe," History Matters Series, Wesleyan University, 19 November 2019.
• "The Burden of Collaboration and the Memory of WWII in Lithuania," Seminar Series, Imre Kertész Kolleg, Jena, 17 December 2018.
• "Memory Reforged: Propaganda and Culture in the Baltic States under Hitler and Stalin, 1939–53," AABS Conference, Stanford University, 1–3 June 2018.
• Keynote address, "Memories of Displacement and Urban Culture in Postwar Lithuania," Third Conference on Baltic Urban History, Klaipėda University, 18–20 April 2018.
• "Colonialism and Collaboration in Lithuania during WWII," Second Annual Tartu Conference on Russian and East European Studies, Tartu, 4–6 June 2017.
• "After WWI. Displacement in Lithuania in the 20th Century," Migrazioni forzate sul Baltico all'alba dello stato-nazione in una delle periferie d'Europa, University of Padova, 15 May 2017.
• Roundtable on "Budapest 1956 and Its Repercussions in the East," Centre d'études des mondes russe, caucasien et centre-européen, CNRS, Paris, 29 November 2016.
• "Forced Modernisation in 20th Century Lithuania," Transformations of Statehood and Their Impact on Societies in 20th–21st Century Central Europe, Technische Universität Berlin, 3–4 November 2016.
• "Native Narratives: Soft Power and Cultural Collaboration in Lithuania under Nazi Rule," American Association for Baltic Studies Conference, Philadelphia, 27 May 2016.
• "The Culture of Collaboration: Lithuanian Intellectuals under German Occupation (1941–1944)," European Studies Council, Yale University, 26 April 2016.
• "Memory of WWII in Lithuania: Victims, Heroes and Beyond?" Commemoration without Borders – European Commemoration II, Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen, Berlin, 15 December 2015.
• "Building a Soviet Intelligentsia in Lithuania after WWII: A Generational Approach," European Studies Council, Yale University, 18 November 2015.

Organized conferences

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  • EUROPAST Final Conference, The Past and Future of Public History, TSPMI, Vilnius University, 9–10 October 2025.
• EUROPAST Berlin–Potsdam Summer School, Competition and/or Co-existence?, Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF), Potsdam/Berlin, 23–27 June 2025.
• EUROPAST Workshop, Democratising Museums: Deliberative Democracy in Memory Spaces, National Museum of Lithuania, Vilnius, 16 June 2025.
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  • EUROPAST Lecture by Michael Bernhard, TSPMI, Vilnius University, November 2024.
• EUROPAST Mid-Project Conference, Public History and Community-Based Research, University of Luxembourg, 5–6 July 2024.
• EUROPAST Summer School on the Use of Digital Tools and Methods, University of Luxembourg, 1–4 July 2024.
• EUROPAST Workshop, Contested History in Museums, Vilnius, 29 September 2023.
• EUROPAST Workshop, From Memory to Museums: Challenges of Presenting Soviet History, Vilnius, 14 August 2023.
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  • EUROPAST Summer School on Public History Theory and Practice, Lund University, 19–23 June 2023.
• International Workshop, "Oral History and Late Socialism in the Baltics: New Sources, Methodologies, Theories," (Post)Soviet Memory Studies Center, TSPMI, with Prof. Ainė Ramonaitė, October 2020.
• Inter-institutional seminar, "Forced Displacements, Collective Memory and Baltic Diaspora," Lithuanian Institute of History (with Saulius Grybkauskas, LII), December 2019.
• Inter-institutional conference, "Imperijos tabolarum: ką randa Lietuvos mokslininkai Rusijos valstybiniuose archyvuose?", Lithuanian Culture Research Institute (with Lina Kaminskaitė-Jančorienė, LKTI), May 2019.
• Inter-institutional conference dedicated to the Ethnologie Française special issue "Une anthropologie face à l'histoire," TSPMI (with Prof. Ainė Ramonaitė), December 2018.
• AABS International Conference, Stanford University, Co-Chair of the History and Memory division (WWII and post-WWII), June 2018.
• International interdisciplinary workshop, "Rethinking History of Displacement in the Baltics," Latvian Oral History Researchers Association, University of Latvia, Riga (with Inta Mieriņa), November 2017.
• International Interdisciplinary Conference, "Population Displacement: Lithuania and Europe from World War One to World War Two," VU Department of History (with Tomas Balkelis, LII), May 2015.