Call for Papers – Voltaire in the Baltic World: Circulations, Receptions, Legacies

Voltaire in the Baltic World: Circulations, Receptions, Legacies

5-6 March 2026, University of Tartu, Estonia

In connection with an upcoming exhibition on Voltaire at the University of Tartu’s Museum of Art, and in collaboration with the Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, we invite proposals for the international conference Voltaire in the Baltic World: Circulations, Receptions, Legacies, to be held 5-6th March 2026 at the University of Tartu, Estonia.

Although Voltaire famously never travelled further east than Berlin, his works and image circulated widely in the Russian Empire, particularly among Baltic German elites in the late eighteenth and nineteenth century. From busts by Houdon and Bartolozzi engravings to valuable editions of Voltaire’s works and letters in university archives, the conference will explore the cultural and intellectual paths that brought French Enlightenment ideas to the Baltic sea region, and what they meant in their local contexts. How was Voltaire read and interpreted by local intellectuals, Baltic German elites, Russian officials, and others? What role has art and book collecting played in shaping his legacy? How were these materials and ideas preserved, lost or reinterpreted through reform, war, and later Soviet occupation? What Voltaire do we find in the Baltics in the twentieth and twenty-first century?

This conference takes as its starting point the visual and textual afterlives of Voltaire in the region – artworks, printed books, manuscripts, and the ephemera held in museums and libraries – and asks more broadly how material culture and ideas are connected, how they influence one another, and how together they can reveal other historical narratives. We welcome proposals from scholars working in intellectual history, literary studies, art history and Enlightenment studies more broadly, as well as connected disciplines, including but not limited to, theology, the history of the book, international relations, and museum studies. Interdisciplinary and cross-regional perspectives are especially encouraged.

We welcome proposals on topics including:

• Voltaire’s influence in Baltic German intellectual circles
• The circulation of French books and ideas in the Baltic sea region, and local reception
• The relationship between intellectual history and material culture
• Provenance histories of Enlightenment-era collections
• Art and book collecting in the Baltic sea region under the Russian Empire
• The role of libraries, museums, and private collections in preserving and influencing Enlightenment legacies
• Voltaire in translation: linguistic and ideological adaptations
• The reception of French Enlightenment ideas in the Baltics in the early 20th century, following the collapse of the German and Russian empires after WWI
• The Soviet and post-Soviet reception of French Enlightenment ideas

The conference will be held at the University of Tartu’s Museum of Art, in the university’s historic main building, and there will be an opportunity to visit the exhibition on Voltaire and to see other treasures from their collections. This conference is held in partnership with the Voltaire Foundation, University of Oxford, and forms part of a wider research initiative on French Enlightenment legacies in the Baltic sea region.

The conference committee includes Sophie Turner, Pärtel Piirimäe, Tanel Lepsoo, and Kadi Kähär-Peterson.

Papers should be in English. Please send a 250-word abstract and a brief bio to the organisers by 20th October. Results will be communicated by 31th October. Abstracts, and all inquiries, should be directed to: balticvoltaire@gmail.com

Selected papers will be invited for inclusion in a special monograph with a leading publisher dedicated to this topic.

We look forward to welcoming you to Tartu in March 2026!