Letter from the International Maritime History Association

Next port of call: Tallinn, Estonia

Dear colleagues,

It has already been two years since our last International Congress of Maritime History in Busan, South Korea. This also means that it is only two years until our next Congress, which will be held in Tallinn, the capital of Estonia. Please mark your calendar for Monday, 29 May 2028 through Thursday, 1 June 2028 for the main Congress, to be held at the Estonian Maritime Museum. In addition, the Åland Maritime Museum has invited us for a pre-conference meeting in Mariehamn, the capital of the Åland Islands, and we are hoping to be able to develop a package deal that will allow maritime historians from all over the world not only to come to the main Congress in Tallinn, but also to join the pre-conference meeting in Mariehamn. Thus, it might be an idea to mark your calendar not only for the Congress itself, but also for a potential visit to the Åland Islands before. Travelling to the Baltic Sea in late May and early June means travelling to a region with an enormous rich and varied maritime history at a time of year when the sun will set only for a short time during the night. In other words, it will be an ideal location and time for us.

Although I would prefer to continue writing about our upcoming Congress, I think I should switch gear and continue with something else we need to think about at this time.

The world has changed significantly since our last meeting in Busan, and we need to assume that the period until the opening of our next Congress will see many additional changes that nobody can predict today. We are witnessing a world in which active wars are going on in several places; major international shipping routes have been interrupted, with unforeseeable consequences for maritime trade; and there have even been attacks on university campuses that are located far away from these theatres of war and shipping routes.

For further reading, please follow the link – https://doi.org/10.1177/08438714261459704

Letter by

Ingo Heidbrink