The Barents Encyclopedia Project

The Barents Encyclopedia Project was initiated during the International Polar Year 2007?2008 and work in the project is intended, as the name suggests, to result in the publication of an encyclopedia dealing with pertinent issues in the Barents Region. According to current plans the encyclopedia is going to be published in 2011 in the form of a printed volume as well as in electronic format (a website available on the Internet). More than fifteen years have now passed since the signing, in January 1993, of the Kirkenes Declaration that successfully established an organization for international cooperation between the northernmost counties of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. Through the Kirkenes Declaration an entirely new kind of interregional cooperation was created that reached across national boundaries. Two formal organizations were established, the Barents Euro-Arctic Council (BEAC) operating at the central governmental level, and the Regional Counc
il, engaging officials working in regional administrations and other organizations at the regional level. This was an innovative organizational solution that made it easier to promote interregional activities and engage the local population in new kinds of transboundary collaborative projects. The long-existing historical relations between people living in these northern territories have been largely neglected in official nation-state oriented historical narratives. Thus, one of the objectives with the Barents Encyclopedia is to connect the past with the present dynamic development in the region, thus filling a gap in European history and, hopefully, in the process promoting the world?s interest in the Northern Dimension.