Call for Papers

SUOMENLINNA - HELSINKI - FINLAND, 3-5 June 2024

The research program 'The Lost Navy: Sweden's "blue" heritage c. 1450-1850' invites you to submit an abstract for a paper to be presented at the international conference 'Warships Resting in Peace,' which will take place in Suomenlinna, Helsinki, Finland, on June 3-5, 2024.

Maritime and naval heritage around the Baltic Sea has many shapes. A few naval shipwrecks have been explored and studied extensively and sometimes displayed in heritage institutions. Many ships have been identified and located at sea and researched in some detail. Nevertheless, many more ships are still 'lost,' perhaps known from historical records but lost at sea and forgotten in historical narratives because they did not engage in battles nor went down in a spectacular disaster.

And maritime and naval heritage is not just ships. Objects and materials can tell us more about men and women who made or used them, and maybe preserved for future generations. To uncover the lost and forgotten navies around the Baltic Sea, we need a multidisciplinary approach and international collaboration. We need to employ new methods and find new ways to tell the stories of the naval past and of the maritime heritage in the Baltic.

The conference aims to bring together researchers from different disciplines, from maritime archaeology and naval history to ethnology and heritage studies and others. The conference organizer, The Lost Navy programme, is a Swedish-Finnish collaboration, yet we warmly invite researchers from all countries of the Baltic region and all others interested in the subject of Warships resting in Peace.

Conference topics that mainly interest us are shipbuilding and ship architecture, life-cycles of ships, maritime object biographies, working with objects and sources in naval history, ways of how to study and display maritime heritage, new methods in maritime archaeology, preservation of maritime heritage at sea and in museums, everyday life in the navy, navies and states.

The conference is organized in collaboration between Finnish Heritage Agency and the program The Lost Navy: Sweden's 'blue' heritage c. 1450-1850, funded by Riksbankens Jubileumsfond, Sweden. The research programme provides nine presentations for the conference.

Research program's description at Riksbankens Jubileumsfond

Abstract submissions must include: an abstract (2000 characters), the name and contact information of the author/authors, and a short biography (1000 characters).

Please submit your abstract to the address: WARPE2024@gmail.com

Contact information:

Minna Koivikko minna.koivikko@museovirasto.fi

Leos Müller leos.muller@historia.su.se

Important dates

31 December 2023: submission deadline

1 February 2024: decision response by the organizers

16 February: conference program on line

23 February 2024: opening of the registration

1 of May 2024: final conference program on line

1 of May 2024: final registration for the conference

3-5 June 2024: conference at Suomenlinna