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A Baltic-Scandinavian-American Nexus: The Journey of Estonian Refugees of the 1905 Revolution
21 May 2025, 5:30 pm–8:00 pm
How Estonian refugees of the 1905 Revolution evaded Russian gendarmes, Swedish police, and American spies – and went on to join another revolution.
Event Information
Open to
- All
Availability
- Yes
Organiser
-
School of European Languages, Culture and Society
Location
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Gustave Tuck Lecture TheatreSouth Wing, Wilkins BuildingGower StreetLondonWC1E 6BT
This lecture examines how Estonian refugees of the 1905 Revolution escaped abroad through clandestine routes and navigated subsequent challenges in other countries, not least from authorities who suspected them of plotting bank robberies or planning the assassination of Tsar Nicholas II. Focusing on revolutionary networks connecting the Baltics, Scandinavia, and the United States, it investigates how the refugees maintained ideological commitments, experienced further radicalisation in 1917, and in some cases returned home for renewed revolutionary activism. Their experiences reveal overlooked transnational revolutionary connections linking Eastern and Northern Europe with America, illuminating a complex but neglected dimension of early 20th-century history.
Photo credit: The Third Congress of the Estonian Communist Party, September 1922 Grupivõte, TLM Fn 9039:5, Tallinna Linnamuuseum, http://www.muis.ee/en_GB/museaalview/2760521
About the Speaker
Mart Kuldkepp
Professor of Estonian and Nordic History at School of European Languages, Culture and Society
Mart Kuldkepp is Professor of Estonian and Nordic History at SELCS/EISPS, UCL, specialising in Scandinavian and Baltic history, politics, foreign policy, and early 20th-century revolutions and wars. He earned his PhD at the University of Tartu in 2014. His recent books include Nordic Estonia: Birth of a Nation State (2024, in Estonian), exploring Estonia’s Nordic identity before World War II, and The Shortest History of Scandinavia (April 2025).
More about Mart Kuldkepp