From June 27 to July 1, 2006 the Estonian Literary Museum, the National Archives of Estonia and the Karl Ristikivi Society conducted in Tartu, at the Estonian Literary Museum, an international conference on the Baltic archives abroad. The main aim of the conference was to get an overview of the major problems and achievements in the preservation of the cultural heritage of the Baltic diaspora, and to enliven contacts between the national memory institutions abroad and at home bringing them closer to each other to plan future cooperation.

The participants of the conference were people working for the institutions responsible for the preservation of the Baltic cultural heritage in either the Baltic States or other countries of residence, i.e the representatives of both the Eastern and the Western diaspora - all in all more than a hundred people from ten countries. The program of the conference included, alongside with plenary sessions and discussions, visits to the memory institutions in Tartu and Tallinn, and a cultural program with film shows, exhibitions, etc.

Now, a year later, a collection of the conference papers is ready for its publication. The texts give an idea about the rewards and complications of the preservation and research of the memory documents in the Baltic archives abroad. The decades' long volunteer work of the Baltic exile communities has resulted in numerous archives assembling in great quantities material of significance. Likewise, a lot of work has been done in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The problems, however, stand out as vividly, waiting still to be solved as the points of view or approaches may differ. The memorandum adopted by the conference lists the tasks the participants considered important. One of the major among these is cooperation and the assembly of relevant information. The present collection of articles and papers testifies to our persistence in staying the course - it is a token of progressive cooperation and a voluminous source of information for those interested in the Baltic archives abroad. We hope that the milestone inspires us pursue our course thriving so that the information portal Baltic Heritage Network would be publicly accessible by the end of the year 2007.

I am grateful to all those who have helped to compile the collection: the authors, the translators and the editors, the proof-readers and the layout masters. My special thanks to the colleagues from the Latvian State Archives Digna Berze and Jolanta Feldmane who initiated the translation of the material into Latvian. We are also grateful to the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research and the Compatriot Program.

Piret Noorhani
Estonian Literary Museum
August 4, 2007

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