Deep Baltic – Inside the lands between

Latest Articles

Interviews deepbalticApril 16, 2026 0

From Kalniņš to Bergs (and Back): Latvian Surnames Over Time

Surnames are something that all of us in Europe have (now), but there’s a huge amount of variation both in the date of adoption and the forms they take across…Continue Reading →

Estonia deepbalticFebruary 10, 2026 0

The War on Estonia's Forests: A Village Without Leaves

“Let us be masters in our own country, not avaricious colonists, who leave a ravaged country behind them…” the late Estonian president, Lennart Meri, said in a speech on 24…Continue Reading →

Author deepbalticFebruary 3, 2026 0

Our Languages and Us – Latvian, Russian, Gagauz, English...

by Vilis Kasims, RIGA Once I was sitting and reading on the Number 3 trolleybus, on the way back from university. It was afternoon, the weather was nice; I wanted…Continue Reading →

Feature Article deepbalticDecember 19, 2025 0

Amerikonka: Life Between Lithuania and America

"To be called an Amerikonka was not exactly a compliment. Neither my husband nor I aspired to become Americans or run away from Lithuania."Continue Reading →

Feature Article deepbalticDecember 17, 2025 0

The Quiet Courtesies of Riga: Learning to Share Space in a Small Capital

"For someone arriving from a city where queues are either aggressively policed or completely absent, this gentler discipline can be disorienting"Continue Reading →

culture

How Latin Became the Literary Language of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania

"In the 15th century a story first appears that the Lithuanians were descended from a group of Roman soldiers who…

"Yelling Hysterically and Incoherently": Chaos and Culture in '90s Riga

"What they were recording was the feeling of our times – that no one had any expectations of the future…

Death in Reval: The Tallinn of Werner Bergengruen

One of the reasons for Bergengruen’s obscurity in Germany today might be that his writing is rich and sometimes too…

Birutė Pūkelevičiūtė: A Prescient, Once Sidelined Lithuanian Poet

"“[C]rude, tropically hot … menacingly rapturous”— a review by a Lithuanian critic that anathematized émigrée poet Birutė Pūkelevičiūtė"

BAXT: Andrew Miksys's Pictures of the Roma in Lithuania

Baxt is a Romani word thought to have Persian origins, its possible meanings covering a range of nuances from luck…

The Third Star Shining: Making Culture in Latgalian

by Will Mawhood Travel much in the small towns and countryside of Latvia’s lake-splashed eastern borderlands, and you’ll almost definitely…

Travel

The Quiet Courtesies of Riga: Learning to Share Space in a Small Capital

"For someone arriving from a city where queues are either aggressively policed or completely absent, this gentler discipline can be…

Dreaming by the Sea: Latvia's Coast Off-Season

"The people of those landscapes, both from Tranströmer's coast and from our own, have been looking at the surface of…

Paper, Beer and Lighthouses: Industrial Heritage in Estonia and Latvia

Industrial heritage is part of our cultural patrimony, helping us to reach a broader understanding of history and the development…

In Search of Šmakovka: a Latvian Region’s Four Moonshine Museums

Latgalian homebrew is known by many names, and its history reveals many of the things that set this region apart

What I Saw Walking the Baltic Way Thirty Years On

"I undertook this journey with the aim of seeing what was left of that famous human chain on the ground"

Traces of the 1980 Moscow Olympics in Tallinn

Estonia's capital hosted the sailing events for the 1980 Olympics, leading to a burst in construction

Interviews

From Kalniņš to Bergs (and Back): Latvian Surnames Over Time

Surnames are something that all of us in Europe have (now), but there’s a huge amount of variation both in…

Through the Gaps in the System: Arvo Pärt and the Soviet Underground

"Pärt is still widely regarded as an isolated, solitary figure who appeared out of nowhere in 1980s Berlin, his crystalline…

Storks and Larches: Looking for the Baltic Germans' Traces

British-born, Latvian-based writer Mike Collier's latest novel attempts to reconstruct a world that existed not too long ago

Goodbye Eastern Europe? An Interview with Jacob Mikanowski

"That’s what I’m pushing again – to say: no, this is a unique and uniquely rich human landscape that has…

Imagining Lithuania’s Wolf Children: An Interview with Alvydas Šlepikas

"They went through the circles of hell in their childhood, and maybe that is why it was so difficult to…

Mapping Folklore: Mythical Creatures of the Baltics and Beyond

Vilnius University Press's "Mythical Creatures in Europe" map collects creatures from every corner of the continent