Aurimas Švedas belongs to the new generation of historical researchers that has matured since the restoration of Lithuania's independence, and which is creating a new narrative of the history of Lithuania for the 21st century.
He defended his dissertation on the Soviet historiography of Lithuania and became a laureate of the dissertation competition of the Lithuanian Union of Young Scientists.
He currently teaches Introduction to History and Anthropology at Vilnius University, lecturing on contemporary historiography and its problems, as well as on the paradigms of narrative history. Aurimas Švedas is interested in the historiography, theory and methodology of history, the genesis and dissemination of historical images in the field of artistic imagination in the 20th and 21st centuries.
Aurimas Švedas believes that today historians no longer occupy a privileged position in the formation of images of the past in collective memory. Today, historians are only one of the voices shaping historical culture. Not the loudest, by the way. He jokes that today's historians are like firefighters who extinguish the fires that have broken out in public memory and reflection.
The historian studies the fate of personalities belonging to Lithuania's cultural elite during the Soviet era. Aurimas Švedas, who is an important contributor to oral history, has prepared a series of interviews with the most prominent cultural and public figures. His interviewees include historian Edvardas Gudavičius, painter and sculptor Petras Repšys, and Germanist Irena Veisaitė. The book of conversations
"Irena Veisaitė. Life Must Be Transparent" was selected as the 2018 Book of the Year for journalism and documentary.
