Tomas Balkelis

PhD Humanities

Senior Researcher

Born in 1970 in Lazdijai. In 1994, completed bachelor's studies at Vilnius University. In 1997 – master's studies at Brandeis University (USA). In 2004, defended a doctoral dissertation in history at the University of Toronto (Canada). In 2004–2009, worked at the universities of Manchester and Nottingham in Great Britain. In 2009–2013, was a postdoctoral fellow of the European Research Council at University College Dublin (Ireland). In 2013–2015 – head of the Global Grant project “Forced Migrations of the Population in Lithuania” at Vilnius University. In 2015–2016 – visiting researcher at Stanford University (USA). Since 2012, expert of the Research Council of Lithuania. Since 2018, expert of the COST program (EU). Since 2016, has been working at the Lithuanian Institute of History.

Main research interests:  Nationalism, national movements, national identities Forced population migrations The First World War in Lithuania Paramilitarism and the social history of war

Key publications:

Monographs:

• Lemtingi metai: Lietuva, 1914-1923. Karas, revoliucija ir tautos gimimas, Vilnius: Tyto Alba, 2019
• War, Revolution and Nation-Making in Lithuania, 1914-1923, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2018
• Moderniosios Lietuvos kūrimas, Vilnius: LLTI, 2012
• The Making of Modern Lithuania, London: Routledge, 2009

Edited volumes:

• Red. su Andrea Griffante, Shaken Lands: Violence and the Crisis of Governance in East Central Europe, 1914-1923, Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2023.
• Red. su Violeta Davoliūte, Narratives of Exile and Identity: Soviet Deportation Memoirs from the Baltic States, Budapest: CEU Press, 2018.
• Red. su Violeta Davoliūte, Population Displacement in Lithuania in the 20th Century: Experiences, Identities and Legacies, Leiden: Brill, 2016
• Red. su Violeta Davoliūte, Maps of Memory: Trauma, Identity and Exile in Deportation Memoirs from the Baltic States, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2013

Book chapters:

• “Aušra - lietuvių tautinio sąjūdžio kalvė“ in Mėnraštis Aušra (1883-1886): reprintinis leidinys, sud. Gytis Vaškelis, Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas, 2023, pp. 89-121.
• “The Conflict over Vilnius, July to September, 1920” in Nationen und Grenzen: Bildung neuer Staaten in Ost- und Mitteleuropa nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, edited by Maciej Krotofil and Dorota Michaluk, Leck: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht Verlage, 2022, pp. 147-171.
• Balkelis, Tomas and Violeta Davoliūtė, “Legislated History in Post-Communist Lithuania” in The Palgrave Handbook of State-Sponsored History After 1945, edited by Berber Bevernage and Nico Wouters, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, pp. 121-136.
• „From Self-Defense to Revolution: Lithuanian Paramilitary Groups in 1918-1919″ in War, Revolution, and Governance: The Baltic Countries in the Twentieth Century, eds. Amir Weiner and Lazar Fleishman, Boston: Academic Studies Press, 2018, pp. 1-17.
• Co-author with Violeta Davoliūtė, “Introduction” in Population Displacement in Lithuania in the 20th Century: Experiences, Identities and Legacies, eds. Tomas Balkelis, Violeta Davoliūtė, Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. 1-20.
• “Forging a ‘Moral Community’: the Great War and Lithuanian Refugees in Russia” in Population Displacement in Lithuania in the 20th Century: Experiences, Identities and Legacies, eds. Tomas Balkelis, Violeta Davoliūtė, Leiden: Brill, 2016, pp. 42-61.
• “Memories of the Great War and the Polish-Lithuanian Conflict in Lithuania” in Eric Lohr, Vera Tolz, Alexander Semyonov and Mark von Hagen, eds. The Empire and Nationalism at War (Russia’s Great War and Revolution, 1914–22) Bloomington: Slavica Publishers, 2014, pp.. 241-257.
• “Piliečiai kareiviai: Paramilitariniai judėjimai Baltijos šalyse po Pirmojo pasaulinio karo” in Robert Gerwarth, John Horn (red.) Karas taikos metu: paramilitarizmas po Pirmojo pasaulinio karo, 1917-1923, Vilnius: Mintis, 2013, pp. 154-175.
• “Turning Citizens into Soldiers: Baltic Paramilitary Movements after the Great War” in Robert Gerwarth and John Horn (eds.) War in Peace: Paramilitary Violence after the Great War, 1917-1923, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012, pp. 126-45.
• “Nation-State, Ethnic Conflict and Refugees in Lithuania, 1939-1940” in Omer Bartov and Eric D. Weitz (eds.), Shatterzone of Empires: Coexistence and Violence in the German, Habsburg, Russian, and Ottoman Borderlands, Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2012.
• “(De)Mobilisation of Lithuanians: From Imperial Soldiers to National Guardians” in Nir Arielli and Bruce Collins (eds.), Transnational Soldiers: Foreign Military Enlistment in the Modern Era, London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2012.
• “DP stovyklų palikimas: lietuvių karo tremtiniai Vakaruose 1944-1954 m.” in Carl H. Frederiksson and Almantas Samalavičius (red.) Europos istorijos: Rytų ir Vakarų patirtis, Vilnius: Kultūros barai, 2010, pp. 269-306.
• “Living in the DP Camp: Lithuanian War Refugees in the West, 1944-1954” in Baron, Nick and Gatrell Peter (eds.) Warlands: Population Resettlement and State Reconstruction in the Soviet-East European Borderlands, 1945-1950, London: Palgrave, 2009, pp. 25-47.
• “Tadas Blinda: lietuviškojo Robino Hoodo mito pėdsakais” in Samalavičius, Almantas (red.) Europos kultūros profiliai: atmintis, tapatumas, religija, Vilnius: Kultūros barai, 2007, pp. 91-131.
• “The Lithuanian Government and the Return of WWI Refugees to Lithuania, 1918-1924” in: Baron, Nick and Gatrell, Peter (reds.), Homelands: War, Population Displacement and Statehood in the East-West Borderlands, 1918-1924, London: Anthem Press, 2004, pp. 74-98.

Articles: 

• "Humanitarian crisis in German occupied Vilnius, 1916-1917", First World War Studies, vol. 13, issue 1, pp. 67-83, 2022.
• “The Logic of Violence in the Polish-Lithuanian Conflict, 1920-1923” in Nationalities Papers, Vol. 49, Nr. 5, 2021, pp. 911-925.
• “A Dirty War: the Armed Polish-Lithuanian Conflict and its Impact on Nation-Making in Lithuania” in Acta Poloniae Historica, Nr. 121, 2020, pp. 227-259.
• “Deutsche Freiwilligenverbände in Litauen 1919” in Annaberger Annalen, Nr. 27, 2019, pp. 88-104.
• "Nation-Building, Revolution, and the Advance of the Red Army into Lithuania, 1918-1919" in Plural: Journal of History and Geography, Vol. 6, Nr. 1, 2018, pp. 77-98.
• Teminio žurnalo numerio redaktorius, “War, Revolution and Terror in the Baltic States and Finland after the Great War”, Journal of Baltic Studies, Issue 1, Volume 46, 2015.
• “Introduction: War, Revolution and Terror in the Baltic States and Finland after the Great War” in Journal of Baltic Studies, Issue 1, Volume 46, 2015, pp. 1-9.
• “Demobilization and Remobilization of German and Lithuanian Paramilitaries after the First World War” in Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 50 (1), 2015, pp. 38-57.
• “Abrindo portas para o Ocidente: Migrações lituanas e judaicas a partir das províncias lituanas, entre 1867 e 1914” in WebMosaica: revista do Instituto Cultural Judaico Marc Chagall, Vol. 7, Nr.1 (Jan-Jun) 2015.
• “From Defence to Revolution: Lithuanian Paramilitary Groups in 1918 and 1919” in Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis, vol. 28, 2014, pp. 43–56.
• “Demobilisierung, Remobilisierung: Paramilitärische Verbände in Litauen 1918–1920” in OstEuropa, 64. Jahrgang /Heft 2–4/Februar–April 2014, pp. 197-221.
• “In Search of the People: The Lithuanian Intelligentsia and the Emergence of Mass Politics in the 1905 Revolution” in Nordost-Archiv: Revolution in Nordosteuropa, Vol. 6, 2011, pp. 105-126.
• “Opening Gates to the West: Lithuanian and Jewish Migrations from the Lithuanian Provinces, 1867-1914” in Ethnicity Studies, 2010, Nr. 1-2, pp. 41-66.
• “Tado Blindos mitas“ in Kultūrologija, vol. 17, 2010, pp. 77-93.
• “Social Banditry and Nation-Making: the Myth of a Lithuanian Robber” in Past and Present, Vol. 198, Nr. 1, 2008, pp. 111-145.
• “War, State, Ethnic Conflict and the Refugee Crisis in Lithuania, 1939 – 1940” in Contemporary European History, Vol. 16, Nr. 4, 2007, pp. 461-477.
• “Karo pabėgėlių krizė ir etninis konfliktas Lietuvoje 1939-1940 metais“ in OIKOS: Lietuvių migracijos ir diasporos studijos, Vol. 4, 2007.
• “Lietuvos vyriausybė ir karo pabėgėlių repatriacija, 1918-1924” in OIKOS: Lietuvių migracijos ir diasporos studijos, Vol. 2, 2007, pp. 18-38.
• “Provincials in the Empire: the Making of the Lithuanian National Elite” in Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, Special Issue: Nation and Empire, 2005, pp. 4-24.
• “Lithuanian Children in the Gulag: Deportations, Ethnicity and Identity in the Memoirs of Children Deportees, 1941–1952” in Lituanus, Vol. 51, Issue 3, 2005, pp. 40-75.
• “The Lithuanian National Intelligentsia and the Women’s Issue, 1883-1914” in Canadian Slavonic Papers, Vol. 46, September – November 2004, pp. 267-89.
• “Nation Building and WWI Refugees in Lithuania” in Journal of Baltic Studies, Winter 2003, Vol. 34, Nr. 4, pp. 432-456.

Contacts:

Email: tomas.balkelis@gamail.com

ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7712-4234