Recent tensions accompanying the removal of the "Bronze Soldier" monument have revealed the political and social impact of places of memory in the Baltic Sea region, which are addressed here in broader historical and theoretical perspectives.

This book was published as a special issue of the Journal of Baltic Studies.

Jörg Hackmann is Alfred Doeblin Professor of East European History, University of Szczecin (Poland) and Visiting Scholar at the University of Chicago.

Marko Lehti is Senior Research Fellow at Tampere Peace Research Institute at the University of Tampere and Academic Director of the Baltic Sea Region Studies Master's Programme at the University of Turku.

1. Introduction: Contested and Shared Places of Memory: History and Politics in North Eastern Europe Jörg Hackmann and Marko Lehti 2. Collective Memories in the Baltic Sea Region and beyond: National-Transnational-European? Jörg Hackmann 3. Never Ending Second World War: Public Performances of National Dignity and Drama of the Bronze Soldier Marko Lehti, Markku Jokisipilä and Matti Jutila 4. 'Woe from Stones': Commemoration, Identity Politics and Estonia's 'War of Monuments' David J. Smith 5. Commemorating Liberation and Occupation: War Memorials along the Road to Narva Siobhan Kattago 6. An unfolding signifier: London's Baltic Exchange in Tallinn Stuart Burch 7. Why the Holocaust does not matter to Estonians Anton Weiss-Wendt 8. History as Cultural Memory: Mnemohistory and the Construction of the Estonian Nation Marek Tamm 9. Remembering and Forgetting: Creating a Soviet Lithuanian Capital. Vilnius 1944-1949 Theodore R. Weeks