This issue of Revista Română pentru Studii Baltice şi Nordice [The Romanian Journal of Baltic and Nordic Studies, RRSBN] crowns a year of steady progress in terms of number and quality of the programs and actions run by The Romanian Association for Baltic and Nordic Studies (ARSBN). The highlights of this year have been the first international conference for Baltic and Nordic Studies in Romania entitled Romania and Lithuania in the Interwar International Relations: Bonds, Intersections and Encounters, the opening of the exhibition dedicated to the 90th anniversary of the establishment of the Romanian-Finnish diplomatic relations (exhibition which has travelled since its first opening about 850 miles) and of the first Lithuanian exhibition displayed in a Romanian art gallery and the awarding of the title of Doctor Honoris Causa of Valahia University to Dr. Vladimir Jarmolenko, the Ambassador of Lithuania to Bucharest and Honorary Chairman of our Association. Besides, the members of the Association have been involved in research whose results have been disseminated in books, international and national conferences, thus contributing to the spreading of knowledge and the encouragement of debates on subjects close to its aims.
The second issue of RRSBN also brings a novelty in the meaning that 2010 is the first year when the journal is published biannually as it will appear henceforth. Having been projected at the end of 2008, its first volume was published in November 2009.
The articles published in this issue bring forth new documentary evidences and fresh interpretations upon a variety of topics regarding the history, the history of international relations or the history of commercial bonds of Baltic and Nordic European nations, in some cases in connection to the developments in the Black Sea area.
In spite of the array of topics, some sections can be however distinguished. The first one encompasses the two articles signed by Costel Coroban and Veniamin Ciobanu regarding the role of Sweden in the international relations at the beginning of the 18th and of the 19th centuries when this power had to cope with its declining role in the international relations. After its defeat in the Battle of Poltava, Sweden gradually came to be regarded as the minor actor in the international diplomatic game in comparison with its more powerful neighbors of Britain, Russia or Napoleon’s France. The first article describes how Sweden tried to rise again to the status of Great Power with the financial support of the Jacobites and what were the international implications of the plot in which Swedish emissaries have allowed themselves to be engaged in Britain. Integrating a number of nine important archival documents, the second article proves the wide interest of Sweden regarding the international circumstances leading to the downfall of Imperial France in its attempt to adopt a wise foreign policy to compensate through the annexation of Norway for the loss of Finland to Tsarist Russia in 1809. Thus, Sweden was also looking to the developments of the Eastern Question and to the policies of Britain, France and Russia with regard to the Ottoman Empire.