I have been given a grant by American Public University to go to Riga to research an article on post-Soviet memorial culture there for the volume The Transformation of Memorial Landscapes in Europe since the Fall of Communism. I proposed an article entitled Out from under Moscow's Finger focusing on three memorials in or near the city of Riga:

• the Soviet victory memorial in the Pardaugava quarter ("Moscow's Finger")
• the newly expanded memorial to the mass murder of Jews at Rumbula
• and one other, perhaps the Ratu Laukums with the examples of the Occupation Museum, the Schwarzhäupterhaus and the as-yet-untouched memorial to the Latvian Riflemen

I am still exploring the options. I might make the whole ambiguity surrounding the history of 1905 and 1917-1919 in Latvia a section of its own. I expect the study to rely to heavily on some key secondary literature already published or available as MA theses.

I will also take the opportunity in Riga to "collect" all possible markers in the city for sites-of-memory.de.

I have been given a grant by American Public University to systematically expand the sites-of-memory.de webpage in the region of eastern France and/or western Germany.

I will now be deciding which regions and themes to concentrate on. Against the backdrop of my recent visit to Hamburg, I would like to systematically expand the coverage of memorials and mass graves having to do with Allied bombing during World War Two. I may take advantage of the grant, however, to explore and collect markers, cemeteries and battlefields from the Franco-Prussian and/or World War One in the west.