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.