The Baltic Diaspora Conference in Panevėžys

In May 2019, the Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė Panevėžys County Public Library together with Vilnius University Faculty of Communication organized the 20th international conference dedicated to the Baltic diaspora documentary heritage from 1944 to 2018. This year, the annual event earmarked the Year of World Lithuanians.  

Jolanta Budriūnienė, head of the National Library of Lithuania Documentary Heritage Research Department, presented the paper in the conference

The organizers of the conference proposed more than ten subtopics, highlighting theoretical and methodological issues when dealing with the documentary heritage, cultural and scientific diaspora figures and their legacy, typology of publications and their repertoire, memory institutions and collections, archives, video and audio, as well as preservation, actualization, and digitization initiatives, new media, and the use of the diaspora documentary heritage for cultural communication.

The conference was carried out in two sections: “Archives, Collections and Obstacles in Getting Them (Back)” and “Cultural Press and Literary-Historical Reminiscences.” 25 presentations were presented at the event. For the first time, the conference expanded its geographic boundaries becoming international. Participants from Estonia and Latvia attended the conference.