sum-up of Antarctic activities in 2023

2023 is soon drawing to close and it is time to look back to the year of Antarctic activities as well. It is probably right to say that the less is published on the blog, the more is going on, as all the energy goes to the world outside the www.

In May and early June this year, I had the honour to participate in the Estonian delegation to the Antarctic Treaty Consultative Meeting (ATCM) held in Helsinki. From the same month I serve also as the Estonian contact point to the Antarctic Treaty.

Antarctic Treaty meetings are prime scientific diplomacy, so researchers have also been present at its diplomatic meetings, but it was a pleasure to see Estonia re-emerge at the ATCMs and signal that we are still committed to and interested in rules-based international order and environmental protection of the Antarctic environment. One of the important messages that Helsinki ATCM tried to signal was the urgency of climate change in Antarctica and the fact that what happens in Antarctica impacts the entire world, and it felt good to see that much of the research that we have been doing is relevant this global diplomatic system. Also, after all these years of going through tens and thousands of documents from and about the ATCMs in all imaginable archives around the globe, it felt really nice to see this system in action.

Climate Change and Cultural Heritage in Antarctica, XXV Science Afternoon of the U.S. Embassy in Estonia and the Estonian Academy of Sciences "Polar Research in Estonia" held on September 20, 2023

Estonia is a non-consultative member of the Antarctic Treaty, but has not ratified the Environmental Protocol yet. To draw attention to the polar research in Estonia and remind the decision-makers of the necessity to join the Environmental Protocol in order to be able to partake in the decision-making in Antarctica, the Estonian Academy of Sciences and the Embassy of United States of America in Estonia organised XXV Science Afternoon,"Polar Research in Estonia" on September 20, 2023.

You should be able to come to my talk by clicking on the picture. Polar science is by its nature big science, requiring big infrastructure and big money - things that Estonia does not have much of. Transition from being a part of Soviet Union’s Antarctic program with bottomless resources and from the optimistic economic growth of the early 2000s has not been painless. In short-term project-based international science where most of Estonian scientists need to work with time-limited grants in other countries’ programs to be able to do Antarctic science, it is hard to foster the next generation of Antarctic scientists and to even say where Estonian Antarctic science ends and others’ starts. None of my work would have been possible without the scholars in Argentina and Sweden whom I work with. However, conscious efforts in fostering a new generation is something that the Polar Research Committee of the Estonian Academy of Sciences will need to work with in the coming years.

Presenting the role of environmental NGOs in Antarctic mineral negotiations at the SCAR Standing Committee on Antarctic Humanities and Social Sciences (SC-HASS) conference in Lisbon as well as the European Society of Environmental History biannual conference in Bern almost feel like non-events in this line but were very giving. Another talk that gave me a lot of joy was a presentation in Swedish at the S A Andrées Polardagar at Grenna Museum and Polar Centre. It is not that often I get to speak to the Swedish audience outside the university and it feels good to give back to the people whose taxes have financed my research for many years. On the request of the tireless Håkan Joriksson who runs the museum and the polar days, I spoke on the past, present and future of the Antarctic Treaty to a very passionate crowd of Antarctic aficionados.

Environmental History Today on air again

During the season 2023-2025 I have the honour to serve as the Chair for the Council of Regional Representatives for the European Society of Environmental History (ESEH) and during this period, the CRR will be hosting the Environmental History Today seminar series. Each month, one region will be discussing what is going on in their environmental history - with book launches, presentations, round tables and whatever format the regions consider important. The seminar series is currently chaired by myself representing the Baltic States, Anna Olenenko from Ukraine and Nina Vieira from Portugal.

Today, the series has kicked off with the book launch by Viktor Pál, Tuomas Räsänen and Mikku Saikku. the next in line will be my very own Baltic region with a presentation by Karl Hein on Animal Rights in Interwar Estonia.

Environmental History Today seminar series on the ESEH web page

Public seminar on the history of epidemics at Estonian National Museum & Postimees

In the beginning of June I had the honour to speak at the Estonian National Museum at their public lecture day on epidemics, Jumala viha ja juudasitt. The public symposium was connected to the part of the permanent exhibition that speaks of health and disease in Estonian environmental history, which I once upon a time curated together with Liisi Jääts and the rest of the Estonian Centre for Environmental History, KAJAK. The epidemics section has for obvious reasons become popular over the last 1,5 years (I wrote about it once before), but 2021 was also 165 years from the first valioration in Tartu and 10 years from founding KAJAK, so the symposium was very timely. Apart from myself, the speakers lineup included soon-to-be president of Estonia but then the director of the Estonian National Museum, Alar Karis, curator of the environmental history section of the exhibition, Liisi Jääts, as well as Lea Leppik, Reet Hiiemäe and Ken Kalling - all researchers who have dedicated a considerable amount of their careers to studying Estonian medical history.

While we did quite extensive background research into different disease statistics, epidemics, treatment methods and public health campaigns on Estonian territory for the exhibition, I do not consider myself a major specialist in the field. My talk was more about wider history of ideas concerning disease and treatment which also provides the narrative roadmap for the exhibition from the folkloric disease conception, God’s will or miasmas to pathogen-based health care with sterilisation as an ideal. It also served as a popular reminder of how common epidemics have been here and how little traditional great herbalists could help in the event of an epidemic. Something which is increasingly forgotten, particularly among the new spirituality seekers. I also concentrated on the difference between biomedical, phenomenological and social definition of disease and the impact that the discrepancy between the three may have on how people react vis-a-vis epidemics and public health measures.

The talk and in fact the whole symposium can be watched at the website of the Estonian National Museum and parts of it were published in the Estonian daily Postimees. Which parts, I do not really know because the published version is behind the paywall and the public part includes the end of the manuscript I sent in. At least this time the title was not changed beyond recognition!

Public symposium on epidemic in Estonian history at Estonian National Museum.

Our exhibition at the Estonian National Museum in focus again

Reconstruction of the plague doctor mask and a modern protective gear for infectious diseases. Perhaps it is good that the museum is closed right now - these protective suits are a very priced commodity right now.

During 2015-2016, I had a privilege to work together with my colleagues from KAJAK, the Estonian Centre for Environmental History, and Estonian National Museum on a part of their new permanent exhibition on humans and environment. The part that I was responsible for, was a display on health and environment in Estonia in a historical perspective. Then it was a nerd choice in many ways - today it is in focus again. From the beginning of the epidemics, the images of our plague mask replica started spreading on social media. Yesterday, Alar Karis, the director of the Museum published a blog post on our materials related to small-pox mortality and early vaccination in Estonia.

Small-pox part of the display was in many ways exciting. Materials on small-pox vaccination campaigns were in many ways abundant but to grasp and visualise the context in many ways rather difficult as they principally consisted of books filled with the names of the vaccinated. But then there was an original knife for vaccination, as well as books that instructed how to do it - vaccination was carried out by local pastors, making thus sure that the vaccines also reached the remotest parts of the country. To convey that feeling and the process, we even staged a short film (freely watchable on youtube). Arguments against people who did not want to vaccinate their children remain eerily relevant for today. For a long time, we were searching for a photo of somebody with small-pox scars, but even Stalin’s photos are all retouched. In the end, University of Tartu’s History Museum found a scary series in their collection where you can see the deterioration of a small-pox patient day by day.

A man with small-pox on the 4th and 8th day of being at Tartu University Hospital in 1920s(?). I’m not sure he had a 9th day… TÜ Muuseumi fotokogu, nr ÜAM F 445:107/5 F

Choosing diseases that would be displayed at the exhibition was not so easy either. 1812 plague was something that we definitely wanted to include, but finding original objects from a disease outbreak more than 200years ago that had killed close to 80% of the population in some parts of Estonia, is very challenging. Since everybody was busy with surviving, nobody had time to actually keep track of how many people died, and most objects were destroyed, our knowledge is very scarce. In the end, the plague outbreak was represented with a short film of the archaeological excavation of Tallinn’s Santa Barbara graveyard and a running list of people who died of plague in Tallinn that keeps running and running without an end in sight. And the mask, of course, even though we have no historical documents that prove that exactly this was the design used in Estonia at that time.

This is not all of what we managed to fit into the small space dedicated to environmental history of epidemics in Estonia. There is water contamination by disposed medicine, development of quinine, emergence of sterilisation and hospital hygiene, and folk medicine, among other things. In the course of preparing it, I got to see the amazing medical and pharmaceutical collections of the Tartu University History Museum and stocked up a whole pile of material on other diseases that never made it to the exhibition and keep waiting for me to write about them.

Variatsioonid variolatsiooni teemal ehk „ilusad tüdrukud saavad paremini mehele kui rõugearmilised"

ERMi direktor Alar Karis. Ajal, mil uus viirushaigus on alustanud inimkonna proovile panemist, on arusaadavalt huvi selle teema vastu kõrgendatud. Selles blogiloos ongi jutuks nakkushaigused, täpsemalt võitlus rõugete vastu. Karmim haigus, mis omal ajal eestlasi maha niitis leetrite, düsenteeria, koolera, tüüfuse, sarlakite, malaaria ja rõugete kõrval, oli kindlasti katk.

Cold War memories revisited in the Estonian island lockdown

BBC has prepared a video clip about the island of Saaremaa and I discuss on the Cold War Coasts blog why this brings back the memories of the Cold War.

Estonia's 'corona island' a flashback from the Cold War

BBC.com featured today a video piece on "Estonia's 'corona island'", as they put it, that is, island Saaremaa that finds itself completely cut off from the mainland under the harsh COVID-19 measures taken in Estonia. Whether or not it is nice to label an island a 'corona island' because there are many diagnosed cases, is...