The 8th ENCOUNTER Conference – Manors at War
Svidja Manor
The 8th ENCOUNTER Conference entitled Manors at War was held in Finland 13-15th June. The conference was arranged and hosted by KAMU Espoo City Museum, Espoo. The program offered a comprehensive list of presentations dealing with the difficult but sadly current topic of the conference. Among these were keynote on day 1 Professor Mattias Legnér from Uppsala University set the stage with his thought-provoking presentation entitled “Uses and abuses of heritage in Scandinavia: The Second World War”, while Professor Paul Zalewski from the European University Viadrina, Frankfurt/Oder) – keynote on day 2 – introduced the audience to the history of the Prussian manorial landscape and the various effects war and accompanying social changes had on this landscape.
Svidja, interior
Associate Professor in cultural heritage and participative spatial planning at Wageningen University and Dr. Elyze Storm-Smeets presented the results and insights gained from her comprehensive study of Dutch country houses during World War II, while MA Morten Baarvig Thomsen from the Historic Collection from The Occupation in Esbjerg, Denmark showed how some Danish manors were used with the aim of resocializing both various victims of war as well as criminal refugees in the aftermath of World War II.
Backby Manor
Professor Georg Haggrén from the University of Turku, Kasper Kepsu, lecturer in Nordic history at Turku Akademi, and Apo Roselius from the University of Oulu gave an in-depth presentation of Esbogaard Manor and its long and fascinating history which was shaped by several wars and regional conflicts. Senior curator Tryggve Gestrin from the Espoo City Museum presented the conference attendees to Esbogaard and its surroundings as well as the manorial landscape of the Espoo area. From medieval Svidja to Träskända thoroughly rebuilt in the 1920s, the Finnish hosts showed a variety of manorial heritage relevant to the theme of the conference.
Träskända
The 8th ENCOUNTER conference was well-organized, and its clear focus led to many rewarding discussions amongst researchers and museum professionals – discussions that will undoubtedly be continued now, that we have all returned to our national research environments.
See the program here: The 8th Encounter International Conference – Manors at war (espoo.fi)
See blog post about the conference here: Naapurin suusta: Manors at war, 3- day International Conference organized by KAMU Espoo City Museum as the 8th ENCOUNTER conference. | Espoon kaupunki