Suicide is the most extreme form of self-destructive behaviour. The mystery of suicides attracted mankind to search causes of suicide mortality at all times and in all societies. During the last 50 years most research into suicide has been conducted in countries with steady democracy and market economy, and where no dramatic societal changes have taken place. In contrast, in the present issue the reader will find an insight into the sociological and psychological aspects dealing with suicide frequency in the Baltic countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which have experienced dramatic social upheaval during the last 30 years. The falls and rises of suicide curves coincide with the rapid socio-political and economic changes calling for high adaptation capacity in all post-soviet countries. It is found that suicide in Eastern European countries varied widely and the same causes cannot apply to all of them, however, the relation between suicide mortality and social processes is obvious. This book presents a collection of ideas and explanations from well-known researchers about suicide in the Baltic countries on the background of the former Soviet Union, its satellites and Western Europe.

Baltic suicide paradox

Airi VÃÂ¤rnik

Merike Sisask

Peeter VÃÂ¤rnik

Tallinn University Press

Russian Diaspora Culture: Emigration and Myth (Russian Edition)

Collection of articles

Gooti arhitektuur ja skolastika Gothic architecture and scholasticism (in Estonian)

Erwin Panofsky Preface by Pierre Bourdieu. Translated from English by Ene-Reet Soovik and from French by Kaia Sisask

The Unpredictable Workings of Culture belongs to Juri Lotman's late period. Previously published in Italian and Russian, this work is appearing now for the first time in English translation. The book's general thematics link it to Lotman's two other final monographs, Universe of the Mind and Culture and Explosion, already well-known to Anglophone readers. All three of these books are dedicated to questions that occupied this scholar and thinker during the last years of his life: first, the need for a common approach to natural, social, and spiritual phenomena; second, the problem of evolutionary and explosive processes in the history of culture; and, third, the question, closely linked to the previous two, of art as a workshop of unpredictability. Lotman's friends and colleagues brilliant representatives of the Tartu-Moscow Semiotic School point out the special style and tone of this work: While I was reading the book, I had the sensation I was speaking with Lotman. I could hear his intonations; I could see his face turned toward me. I used to have the same feeling when I listened to his lectures. It seemed that he wasn't speaking to us all at the same time but rather to each one of us individually (Boris Uspensky). This book is an outstanding example of Lotman's style. Here Lotman expresses his most cherished thoughts with a clarity and in a form that make them accessible to a wide audience, offering rare and fascinating examples to illustrate his points (Vyacheslav Ivanov).

The Unpredictable Workings of Culture

Juri Lotman

The Modern Tallinn Old Town is usually described as a town with medieval architecture. When taking a closer look one might notice that the buildings with gothic facades the once single-family dwellings are not really prevalent in the cityscape. Furthermore, the notion of the few centuries following Middle Ages in Reval were lacking in architecture and art. Actually, the dwellings changed drastically after the golden era of the Hansa Union in the 15th century Tallinn: New windows were carved into the pointed gables and modern colourful details were added, and several rich townsmen remodelled their houses radically by losing the gables entirely and making the roofs slant towards the street. The biggest visual changes made in the 16th 18th century happened to the courtyards of the buildings and the interior of the dwellings: the living quarters were made wider by adding rooms towards the street and the courtyard and by making use of the space used as storage rooms until then, the entire living space became more functionally bounded, the rooms became lighter, more comfortable, beautiful and more richly furnished. Thus, the city was constantly changing through its buildings, even though the street fabric largely remained the same. Were the Tallinn dwellings restructured during the first centuries of the early modern period, why and how, are the main focus points of the book Presenting Yourself. The Tallinn Citizen and Their Dwelling during Early Modern Period. Why and how did the owners have their building walls embellished with stone carvings and paintings, and when and how did the white-pillared order architecture from antiquity make its way to Tallinn? How did the old and new architecture and art forms relate to each other, and why did the owners feel the need to constantly re-embellish and embellish their houses? Why did they need to change the plan of the dwelling as well and how was it done? What did the entire family, including the helping staff, do it those rooms? What kind of furniture and decorations did they get and why did they spend money on this? What did they paint on the ceilings and walls, and why? How and where did they gain the knowledge and pressure to execute the visual changes? One of the most important conclusions of the research is that the wealthy Tallinn citizen, either a merchant or a nobleman, was an international man , who developed and embellished his home because it was a matter of standing, which during the early modern period included paying attention and money to the exterior things.

Presenting Yourself. The Tallinn Citizen and Their Dwelling during Early Modern Period (in Estonian)

Krista Kodres

The diametric model of the mind and of mental illness is based on Hans Asperger s depiction of autism as a deficit condition where our ability to understand other people s behaviour in terms of intention, emotion, and meaning, is concerned: what it calls mentalism. According to the model, psychosis is a state of hyper-mentalism in which intention metastasizes into paranoia, emotion into mania, and meaning into delusions of all kinds. The most important insight of the diametric model is that perceived reality is complex in the sense in which complex numbers are: comprising a real part based in the physical world of cause and effect but also an imaginary part in a mind which has free will. The book develops this model of the mind by showing how it resolves most of the paradoxes of IQ and AI, along with giving a unique insight into modern society. It then goes on to give an up-to-date account of the imprinted brain theory which provides its neuroscientific basis and argues that literacy and fiction in particular plays a key role. Finally, the diametric model is presented as a new paradigm for psychiatry, psychology, and the social sciences

The Diametric Mind Insights into AI, IQ, the Self and Society: a sequel to The Imprinted Brain

Christopher Badcock

Before Tito: The Communist Party of Yugoslavia during the Great Purge (1936-1940)

Stefan Guzvica

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