Int'l conference of historians of Baltic countries to open in Moscow.

MOSCOW, June 28 (Itar-Tass) - Central House of Journalists in Moscow
is due to become the venue of an international conference of historians
from the Baltic littoral countries.
It is titled 'Baltic Neighborhood: Russia, Sweden and the Baltic
States against the Background of Epochs and Events from the 17th through
to the 20th Centuries'.
The conference is destined to highlight the little-studied aspects of
a problem that is quite pressing for contemporary Europe - the different
people's mutual perception of one another.
"The dialogue of historians is a dialogue of experts that embraces
besides the professional area the issues that cause divisions among
nations," says Yuri Sizov, the president of the Yantarny Most /Amber
Bridge/ international association that organized the conference.
"The specialists will then be able to transfer the professional
concord to the attitudes of the people in the street and to the sphere of
political interrelation," he said.
Taking part in the conference are acclaimed historians, scholars of
international relations, experts, and representatives of Baltic littoral
countries - Latvia, Norway, Sweden, and Estonia. Russia is represented by
Dr Alexander Chubarian, the director of the Institute of General History
that reports to the Russian Academy of Sciences.
"It's inadmissible to turn history into a political weapon, a hostage
of today's life," Dr Chubarian told Itar-Tass. "When we do this, we
transmit the existing reciprocal animosity to the young generations of
people."
"I'm absolutely confident that tolerance offers the only way to mutual
co-existence," he said, adding that it is the historians who have the duty
to 'clear the field of mines' and to put up notice boards saying 'All
Mines Removed'.
"The best way towards the improvement of relations appears when
professionals speak up because the events that occurred many long years
ago should be a matter of concern for historians, not politicians," Dr
Chubarian said.
"Our objective is to clear the political field of the attempts to
utilize history for the purposes of political wildcatting," he said. "A
nationalization of history or its politicizing won't bring about anything
good and will only distort the course of events in retrospect."
"History should teach us tolerance toward one another and that's what
I'm calling for," Dr Chubarian said.