Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories 9789048553853

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Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity

Heritage and Memory Studies This ground-breaking series examines the dynamics of heritage and memory from a transnational, interdisciplinary and integrated approach. Monographs or edited volumes critically interrogate the politics of heritage and dynamics of memory, as well as the theoretical implications of landscapes and mass violence, nationalism and ethnicity, heritage preservation and conservation, archaeology and (dark) tourism, diaspora and postcolonial memory, the power of aesthetics and the art of absence and forgetting, mourning and performative re-enactments in the present. Series Editors Ihab Saloul and Rob van der Laarse, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands Advisory Board Patrizia Violi, University of Bologna, Italy Britt Baillie, Cambridge University, UK Michael Rothberg, University of Illinois, USA Marianne Hirsch, Columbia University, USA Frank van Vree, NIOD and University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity Localized Politics of European Memories

Edited by Kirsti Salmi-Niklander, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti

Amsterdam University Press

Cover illustration: Rumbula Forest Memorial, Riga Source: Photo Kirsti Salmi-Niklander Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6372 675 7 e-isbn 978 90 4855 385 3 (e-pdf) doi 10.5117/9789463726757 nur 686 © The authors / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2022 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher.



Table of Contents

Acknowledgements 7 Approaching Localized Politics of European Memories

Kirsti Salmi-Niklander, Ulla Savolainen, Riikka Taavetti, Sofia Laine, and Päivi Salmesvuori

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I  Politicized Memories and Pasts 1 Mitigating the Difficult Past?

27

2 Remembering the ’68 Movement in Germany

55

3 Queering Victimhood

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On the Politics of Renaming the Estonian Museum of Occupations Kirsti Jõesalu and Ene Kõresaar

A Left Counter-Memory? Priska Daphi and Jens Zimmermann

Soviet Legacies and Queer Pasts in and around Jaanus Samma’s “NSFW. A Chairman’s Tale” Riikka Taavetti

4 Social Memories of Transformative Events in Post-Communist Latvia 99 Ethnic and Generational Dimensions Laura Ardava-Āboliņa and Jurijs Ņikišins

5 Ishans and Murids before, in and after the Gulag

Strategies of Adaptation to the 1948 Repressions in the Perm Region Gulsina Selyaninova

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II  Friction and Diversity 6 Between Closure and Redemption

Internment Memory and the Reception of the Compensation Law Ulla Savolainen

145

7 Imprisonment Trauma in the Period of the Stalinist Repressions 167 Anna Koldushko

8 Fragmented Construction of Cultural Memories in Turkey

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9 Survival Strategies Constructed through Material Aspectsof Everyday Life in Postwar Soviet Society

213

10 Living Together

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About the Authors

251

How Women Acting in Civil Society Perceive the Kurdish Issue Serpil Açıkalın Erkorkmaz and Dilek Karal

Anastasia Kucheva

Memory Diversity in Latvia Zane Radzobe and Didzis Bērziņš

Index 255 List of Images and Tables Images Image 3.1 Image 3.2

Jaanus Samma: “The Rise and Fall of the Chairman,” 2015 84 Photo by Anna-Stina Treumund Jaanus Samma: “Props,” 2015 86 Photo by Anna-Stina Treumund

Tables Table 4.1 Events most often mentioned as worst and best from the 20th-century history of Latvia Table 4.2 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 18-29 years Table 4.3 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 30-44 years Table 4.4 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 45-59 years Table 4.5 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 60-74 years Table 4.6 Best event in Latvian history: age group 18-29 years Table 4.7 Best event in Latvian history: age group 30-44 years Table 4.8 Best event in Latvian history: age group 45-59 years Table 4.9 Best event in Latvian history: age group 60-74 years

106 109 110 110 111 112 113 113 114

Acknowledgements This volume is based on the ERA-NET RUS.Plus research project LIVINGMEMORIES – Living together with difficult memories and diverse identities (2015-2017), funded by European Commission and the national research funding institutions: Academy of Finland, Estonian Ministry of Research and Education, Federal Ministry of Culture and Research (Germany), Latvian Academy of Sciences, Russian Foundation of Humanities (RFH) and the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK). Dr Kirsti Salmi-Niklander (University of Helsinki) was the coordinator for the project and team leaders were Priska Daphi (Goethe University Frankfurt), Ene Kõresaar (University of Tartu), Gulsina Selyaninova (Perm National Research Polytechnic University), Hülya Şimga supported by Dr Gulru Göker (Koç University), and Vita Zelče (University of Latvia). We are very pleased that Amsterdam University Press has decided to publish our volume in the “Heritage and Memory”-series. We are grateful to the contributors for smooth co-operation and patience in the editorial process. We appreciate the insightful comments of the editors and peer reviewers, which helped us to improve the final version of the volume. Special thanks to Karina Lukin and Barbara Törnquist-Plewa for their supportive comments, and Susanna Jurvanen for assistance in the final editing process.



Approaching Localized Politics of European Memories Kirsti Salmi-Niklander, Ulla Savolainen, Riikka Taavetti, Sofia Laine, and Päivi Salmesvuori

Introduction During the past four decades memory has probably become the most influential and widely adopted term to describe the complex of temporal, ethical, aesthetic, intellectual, material, and political manifestations and uses of the past in present. This collection focuses on localized politics of memories in various European contexts. It will attend to diverse memories related to the historical events and time periods in Estonia, Russia, Latvia, Finland, Germany, and Turkey by focusing on the interplay, tension, and negotiation between various scales of memory (see De Cesari & Rigney 2014). The term “politics of memory” often refers to the quiddity and instrumentality of memory. Jan Kubik and Michael Bernhard (2014) argue that a political science interpretation of the politics of memory is limited to the analysis of deliberate actions to make us remember in a certain way. Emphasized here is the manipulation of memory, particularly by states and other official actors. (For a discussion of Kubik and Bernhard’s model from a Baltic perspective in particular, see Pettai 2016.) In an introduction to politics of memory and life writing in Eastern Europe, Simona Mitroiu (2015, 8, 16) argues that the concept of memory politics refers to state involvement in analyzing and preserving the past, as well as to systems of justice and “political responsibility for the past.” In this volume, however, we understand the concept of politics more broadly. In our utilization, “politics” in “politics of memory” refers to politicization, of becoming political and contested. In relation to memory, this politicization means that the past is opened as debated (Palonen 2003). These competing interpretations of the past also have political connotations for

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_intro

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struggles over possible futures. Processes of politicization occur on different levels, from everyday interaction and diverse cultural representations to politics of the archive and politics as legal processes. In the chapters included in the present volume, the politicization of memories takes place on multiple analytical levels: those inherent to the sources; how the collections utilized, archived, or presented are gathered; and those involved with re-evaluating existing research. Moreover, politics of memory is the topic of study in a number of the analyses that address the processes of remembering, how memories become contested, and how they are debated in different contexts and between various scales. While memory studies has developed into a thriving multidisciplinary field of scholarly discussion since the beginning of the so-called “memory boom” after the 1980s (see, e.g. Winter 2006), the concept of “politics of memory” has been more of a popular concept rather than one receiving focused academic attention. Politics of memory has been utilized as a practical and inclusive shorthand for the various ways in which representations of the past influence the present, as well as for the ways in which the past is used, created, and referred to in various social and political contexts in order to achieve something in the present. Due to its inclusive and flexible quality and the opportunities it offers to combine diverse approaches toward memories that originate from different national and discipline-based understandings, the term “politics of memory” is also at the center of this collection. We perceive politics of memory as a concept that allows analyzing memories on personal, group-level, national and transnational scales. Moreover, the concept enables scrutinizing the contrasting, contested, or sometimes even conflicting interpretations of the past that the individuals or communities may hold (e.g. Bell 2006). This collection continues the discussion with regard to the dynamics of memory between various scales (e.g. Rothberg 2009; De Cesari & Rigney 2014). As Chiara De Cesari and Ann Rigney (2014) have noted, the field of memory studies tends to implicitly assume hierarchical relations between diverse scales of memory. On the one hand, individual, local, and “grassroots” memories are considered as small-scale and highly specialized or particular and often heterogeneous memories. On the other hand, collective, public, official, and global memories, are perceived as homogeneous and broader configurations that inevitably operate as umbrellas for the heterogeneous set of individual memories on various grassroots localities. De Cesari and Rigney argue that analysis and critical rethinking of scales of memory enable theorizing the dynamics of memory beyond these spatial trajectories as a process that takes place in the dynamic interplay between scales and at

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their intersections. In what follows, we approach the localized politics of memories as well as dynamics of memory between various scales through the concepts of diversity, friction, and fragmentation.

Diversity Memory plays a crucially important role in the identity processes of both individuals and communities. The selection, cultivation, manipulation, and presentation of elements of the relevant past through various mnemonic practices participate in a making of the present and the future. In the modern period, one of the most significant and self-evident frameworks for mnemonic practices and identity formations has been the trope of the “national.” (See, e.g. Bell 2006.) Through practices more often naturalized than not, individuals and communities – including scholarly ones – have built their understandings of the past on the basis of the image of nation as a territorially, ethnically, and culturally bounded entity. Since the 1980s, questioning of the self-evident nature of national frames has become the new norm, at least among academia in the West. Indeed, new communication technologies and global capitalism have made the national framework redundant in many ways, and large-scale migration, both voluntary and forced, has undermined its entitlement and naturalness. In the field of memory studies as well, a strong critique of methodological nationalism (e.g. Wimmer & Glick Schiller 2002) has been accompanied by the turn toward the “transnational” and “transcultural.” Instead of analyzing memory with regard to national frameworks, the focus of analysis has shifted to the dynamics between various frameworks of memory and to the movement of memory (see, e.g., Rothberg 2009; Erll & Rigney 2009; Assmann & Conrad 2010; Erll 2011; Bond & Rapson 2014; De Cesari & Rigney 2014; Bond, Craps, & Vermeulen 2017; Erll & Rigney 2018). With this transnational turn as a backdrop, the analytical focus of the present collection is more clearly targeted toward different national contexts and intersections of various other categories with the national in them. We call for an understanding of the national not as a framework of memory that is bounded and stable – let alone somehow more natural than others – but as a problematized category that is overlapping with several other categories. Memories, understood as (re)mediated “texts” (incorporating various kinds of cultural modalities and forms besides written texts), indeed circulate (Rigney 2005), travel (Erll 2011), and exist multidirectionally (Rothberg 2009) across and between national as well as other kinds of borders and scales, and the

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idea of nation as an imagined and socially as well as politically constructed community (Anderson 1983) is widely accepted among academia. That said, the national still remains as one of the important frameworks according to which various pasts as well as their relevance with regard to the present and future are negotiated. Moreover, the concept of politics of memory is typically utilized when addressing conflicts over representations of the past by dominant and subordinate groups in a certain society (e.g., de Grua 2016), often conceived as national. In the chapters of the collection, the national is presented and discussed in relation to a diversity of adjacent, opposing, and intersecting categories such as religion, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality, as well as between individual, group, local, transnational, and global scales. Geographically speaking, the emphasis of the collection is on local contexts in different parts of Europe. Indeed, most of the cases discussed are located to Europe’s east. Overall, however, the chapters form a highly heterogeneous range of studies focusing on diverse historical, political, and geographical contexts. Therefore, we call for nuanced localization when addressing memory cultures. As stated earlier, the focus on transnationality and the dynamics of memories across national borders and between various categories should not entail that localized specificities are forgotten or bypassed, but on the contrary. We emphasize the importance of careful temporal and spatial contextualization when addressing the diversity of memories and memory cultures, as well various scales connected to them. Even though the definition of a clear temporal focus is always difficult when discussing memory and memories, the general time span of the chapters extends from the Second World War to the present. We acknowledge, however, that memories are not limited to this period but echo layers of earlier remembrances and histories. Whilst the aftermath of the Second World War is reflected in all of the cases in one way or another, none of the chapters has the memory of the Holocaust as its primary focus, even as the Holocaust has often been conceived as the heart of the study of cultural memory in Europe (e.g. Bell 2006). Especially in the context of the Baltic states, the memory of the Holocaust is discussed as a contrast to the memory of the Soviet and other state-socialist repressions (see especially Kõresaar & Jõesalu and Radzobe & Bērziņš). In fact, many of the cases discuss the borders between East and West, and sometimes the borders of Europe. We believe that this diversity in the case studies not only justifies but also requires turning the focus from memory alone to the plurality of memories and memory cultures. Indeed, the chapters in this collection reflect a range of political, societal, and cultural contexts which also have an effect on the expressions and practices of remembrance.

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Friction The chapters of this collection discuss case studies that reflect different local contexts in terms of political, societal, and cultural frameworks as well as different understandings of the qualities, roles, and functions of the past in present. Even though memory always has a political dimension, we can safely say that “politics of memory” finds its expression in different ways in democratic societies on the one hand and authoritarian societies on the other. Also, the possibilities to critique and deconstruct memory vary, depending on a society’s political system. That said, rather than evaluating divergent memory cultures on normative scales of democratic and authoritarian, free and restricted, or healthy and pathological, an analytically more fruitful approach would be perhaps to turn the focus to the differences of memory cultures and the entailing regimes or ideologies of memory (see Radstone & Hodgkin 2003; Savolainen, forthcoming), as well as to the negotiations and frictions that occur when these different ideologies collide. Compared to the memory cultures of Russia and Turkey, for example, the memory cultures of the so-called democratic West might appear to us as more permissive. Yet, even though corollaries of the countering of the official or hegemonic memory might not be as severe in democratic societies as they may seem in more authoritarian ones, we should remain critical with respect to the assumed permissiveness of Western memory cultures, not to mention the assumed universality of Western ideas with regard to memory. Analyzing global connections and how values and norms considered as universal are received by local communities, anthropologist Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2005) coins the term “friction” to illustrate diverse and conflicting social engagements that produce the global world. Applying Tsing’s metaphor, Rosalind Shaw (2007) introduces the concept of “memory friction” to describe productive tensions that occur when culture-dependent ideologies, practices, and mechanisms of dealing with the past – considered as “universals” – are transported to another cultural context. Shaw’s ethnographic case study concerns the frictions that emerged when the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Sierra Leone, which was based on the Western idea of redemptive remembering and the healing power of truth-telling, engaged with local understandings of the best practices of dealing with a difficult past, themselves based on ideas of forgetting and conscious silencing (see also Kennedy 2018). Universal memory pure of cultural values, ideologies, and politics is non-existent. This means that local regimes of memory are different, and so are their influence and authority.

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In terms of friction, the concepts of “trauma” and “reconciliation” as well as the ways in which they are discussed in several chapters of this collection (Savolainen; Selyaninova; Kucheva) serve as prominent examples. As several scholars (e.g., Radstone 2007; Craps 2013; Kennedy 2018; Bell 2006; Rigney 2018; 2020) have noted, multiple problems and peculiarities point to “trauma” as a phenomenon and analytical concept and to trauma theory as a methodological apparatus. In addition to obvious problems with the term, which stem from Western-centric premises (see Craps 2013), “trauma” easily adapts as a flexible concept with the power to explain various phenomena being either a result or a manifestation of trauma. It may also lead to the creation of unproblematized parallels between the operations of individual cognition or the psyche and societal and political processes of managing the past. The hegemonic position of trauma as an explanation of memory and forgetting may also lead to simplification of various and culture-specific mechanisms related to remembering and forgetting. At the same time, in many cases the relativist reframing of “trauma” as a “merely” social construction or dismissing it altogether may come across as an arrogant and unethical standpoint. In addition to explaining the influence of a fearsome past in the present, “trauma” can also serve as a frame that enables discussion of difficult memories and contested histories. Moreover, “trauma” may also function as a powerful label with the potential to provide previously overlooked memories or ignored perspectives with relevance. In memory discourse, the concept of “reconciliation” connects to discussions about the aftermath of various societal upheavals at the time of transition. “Reconciliation” is then often framed as a method for achieving societal stability and justice as a condition of a brighter future and as an alternative to continuing instability, chaos, and inequity. Without questioning the desirability of these goals in any way, positing “reconciliation” as the key for peace and justice nonetheless calls for critical consideration. In fact, a too straightforward and totalizing pursuit for reconciliation may lead to an ignoring of non-conciliatory experiences and viewpoints and a loss of the productive potential of these critical voices (see also Rigney 2012; Savolainen 2018; 2020). Indeed, when embraced uncritically, rather than being a method of justice and hope, “reconciliation” may turn into a restrictive, normative, and controlling regime of memory. In many ways, this collection is a frictional site representing various memory ideologies. By ideology, we do not refer to coherent and systematic political doctrine. Instead, memory ideology refers to any collection of theories, beliefs, assumptions, and feelings concerning the role of the past with respect to the present (see Savolainen, forthcoming). Instead of curbing

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either the more normative or the more relativist perspectives, we have chosen to incorporate them in this collection in order to showcase the diversity of the analytical approaches with regard to memories.

Fragmentation This collection continues the discussion on the interplay of scales of memory (De Cesari & Rigney 2014). The contributions all discuss the interplay of various scales, but the overall emphasis of the collection is on the memories and perspectives of individuals and local communities as well as their relations, tensions, and interplay vis-à-vis the collective, public, or official dimensions of memory. This focus is manifested in the contributions primarily through the strong emphasis on the interview materials, namely oral history interviews as objects of analysis. As products of communicative and interpersonal contact, interviews mediate individuals’ memories and experiences as well as views and understandings of the past in the present. However, as already noted by Maurice Halbwachs (1992), individuals’ memories cannot be separated from social, collective, or public memory. Many of the investigations in this collection (Daphi & Zimmermann; Savolainen; Selyaninova) utilized oral history interviews emphasizing the multiplicity and possible contradictory nature of personal memories. As a field, oral history research has dedicated itself to the analysis of individual voices and memories of laypeople from the 1940s on (Perks & Thomson 2016; Abrams 2016). Despite extensive amounts of research of oral recordings, narratives, and histories related to various historical events in various contexts, as a research branch oral history has to some extent suffered from excessive descriptiveness, lack of theoretical rigor, and sometimes even naïvely positivistic persuasions. Indeed, the field has to some extent downplayed the role of cultural frames and patterns that guide individual representation of personal experience and link it together with the cultural (Hamilton & Shopes 2008). Further still, although the field has produced a significant body of practical methodological knowledge on interviewing techniques (see e.g. Thompson & Bornat 2017 [1978]; Ritchie 2003; Yow 2005), the predefined principle to focus only on interviewing and audio recordings has hampered the successful fulfillment of one of the main missions of the field – the aim to understand and acknowledge people’s memories and various practices of memory and history production. Quite obviously, these are not only represented orally.

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The Nordic and Baltic field of oral history research, however, forms a somewhat different domain. Investigation of reminiscence writings, autobiographies, and other forms of written remembering in addition to recorded interviews from the methodological perspectives of oral history research characterize the Nordic and Baltic field of oral history research. A departure from strictly oral materials has indeed led to fruitful methodological and theoretical discussions within the field (see, e.g., Fingerroos & Haanpää 2012; Heimo 2016; 2017). Moreover, internationally speaking, while cultural memory studies and oral history research have largely developed separately (Hamilton & Shopes 2008), in the Nordic and Baltic academic context these approaches have been entangled (Heimo 2016; 2017; Kõresaar 2016; Kõresaar & Jõesalu 2016; Kuusisto-Arponen & Savolainen 2016; Savolainen 2017; 2020; Taavetti 2018). In many ways the current collection stems from this entangled field. Moreover, in the context of post-authoritarian societies, personal memories have formed an essential aspect of building the national past. For example, after the restoration of independence in the Baltic states in the early 1990s, national histories have been built on the compilation of written life stories and oral histories (on the case of Estonia, see Kõresaar & Jõesalu 2016). These developments illustrate the intertwined nature of the various scales of remembering, which we take as a point of departure in this collection. A shared starting point of the contributions included in this collection is that various scales of memory are inherently connected together and exist only through their mutual relationship, even if a conflicted one. We however want to point out that this does not mean bypassing any of the scales, quite the opposite. Instead, we want to highlight that the deep understanding of multi-scalar dynamics of memory necessitates paying careful and close attention to the specificities of each localized context. It also entails accepting that memory cultures may appear to be highly fragmentary conglomerations with various incommensurate dimensions. Thus, in order to take into account the fragmentary nature of local memory cultures, instead of referring to “memory” in the singular in the title, we have chosen to discuss “memories” in the plural. By resisting and evaluating the appeal to move toward the ideals of coherence and uniformity, we hope that this collection functions as a critical contribution to inquiries focusing on various localized memories and their dynamics vis-à-vis multiple scales. We address remembering and its political dimensions as dynamic processes in which memories are created in the interplay between the individual, the collective as well as local, (trans)national, and global dimensions and various social and political formations.

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Chapters in the collection The book consists of two parts. The chapters in the first part tackle the issues of politicized memories and pasts in Estonian, German, Russian, and Latvian contexts. Kirsti Jõesalu and Ene Kõresaar explore the public reception to a recent attempt of the Estonian Museum of Occupations to omit the term “occupation” from its name. The theoretical background is the politics of naming, which provides possibilities for discussing the various scales of memory. Renaming of the museum invoked a debate in Estonian society, which reflected a tension and a clash between national and cosmopolitan memory. In particular, replacement of “occupation” with “freedom” was interpreted as a shift from a national to a Russian interpretation of memory. Moreover, as the authors argue, the debate manifested a deep interconnectedness of the scales of individual, cultural, private, public, and political remembering in contemporary Estonia. Their conclusion is that Estonian society insists on holding on to national interpretations of the difficult past rather than opening up to new perspectives. The contribution by Priska Daphi and Jens Zimmermann also attends to politics of memory by examining the tension and negotiation between activists’ memories and public memories around the “68 movement” in Germany. This period of violence and civil disobedience still constitutes a controversial issue in German public discourse. The chapter focuses on the memory culture of the German Occupy movement (2011-2016), and activists’ memories and reflections are compared with media analysis. In the chapter, the relation between these scales of activists’ memories and public memories is conceptualized through the notion of counter-memory that implies the presence of multiple interpretations of the past that might also be mutually competing and opposite. Their conclusion is that the Occupy activists share a partial counter-memory of ’68. Riikka Taavetti’s chapter addresses the localized politics of memories by analyzing queer memories in Estonian present-day discussion. She examines an art exhibition by the contemporary Estonian artist Jaanus Samma, titled “Not Suitable For Work. A Chairman’s Tale,” based on the life story of a Soviet Estonian man who was prosecuted in the mid-1960s for homosexual acts. Taavetti analyzes the reception to two presentations of this exhibition, first at the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015, and later at the Museum of Occupations in Tallinn in 2016. These contexts framed the exhibition with questions of victimhood from different angles: namely, human rights violations of people persecuted because of their sexuality and Soviet repression in Estonia. Taavetti’s chapter exposes the dynamic

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interaction of various divergent spatial, temporal, and interpretive frames in the formation of memories and interpretations of the past. The fourth chapter focuses on post-Soviet Latvia. The authors, Laura Ardava and Jurijs Ņikišins examine the diversity of social memories of transformative events, analyzing their ethnic and generational dimensions. They question how social memories manifest themselves in Latvian society across age and ethnic groups. The authors provide a comparison of social memories across major ethnic and generational groups, drawing on evidence from recent national surveys. They also touch on the attribution of memory conflicts to the media space in Latvia, as well as Russia’s impact on it. In the conclusion, Ardava and Ņikišins discuss the possible future dynamics of social memories and their implications for the coexistence of diverse social memory groups within Latvia. They conclude that nearly three decades after the fall of the Soviet Union, profound opinion cleavages are still persistent, revealed as differences in value judgments about major historical events of the 20th century that had a transformative effect on Latvian society and are manifest across generations, as various age groups choose different events as the “worst” or the “best” ones. By means of oral history, Gulsina Selyaninova investigates the sociocultural trauma resulting from repressions associated with the “Anti-Soviet Ishanism Establishment Case” of 1948 in the Perm region (Soviet Union). She investigates Muslims who had been sentenced as Ishanism devotees before, during, and after the Gulag. Oral interviews allowed the lives of the arrested people to be traced, but also those of their families and people who were more or less close to them. The chapter confirms the fact that the Muslims arrested in 1948 were indeed followers of the tradition of Ishanism. The study identifies how the society – and ishans and murids themselves – managed to adapt to the consequences of the arrests and demonstrates how silences work in diverse scales in the process of remembering and negotiating a difficult past. The concepts of friction and diversity unite the chapters of the second part. Geographically, the cases cover Finland after the Second World War, the Soviet Union before and after the war, and contemporary Turkey and Latvia. Ulla Savolainen approaches the reception of the compensation law for the internment of German and Hungarian citizens in Finland (1944-1946) from the perspective of oral history interviews of former child and youth internees. The interviews are analyzed in relation to and as reflecting the wider framework of cultural memory, namely the paradigm of redemptive remembering. With attention to methodological sensitivity, Savolainen argues that the interaction between interviewer and interviewees can be

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characterized as negotiations about the aims of the interview. She claims that victims’ dissatisfaction with the compensation law can stem from a sense of being excluded from the processes of how the law was defined rather than from its contents per se. Savolainen’s contribution demonstrates the frictions involved in the processes of compensating past injustices. Anna Koldushko considers the problems of sociocultural trauma caused by the repressions of the 1930s in the Urals. According to Koldushko, the traumatic experience of the repressions was characterized as a personal trauma. The motivation for analyzing the traumatic experience of the Stalinist repressions is born out of the necessity to explain the individualization of this trauma and to address the problem of commemorative practices of Soviet society. She discovers the elements of experience of frictional justice in the insufficient degree of reflection on the trauma by both the victims and their relatives. The chapter employs a narrative approach, which allows diagnosis of the main components of the trauma. In Turkey, the lack of resolution of the “Kurdish question” for more than thirty years has been a major source of grievance affecting the lives of many, particularly women. The chapter, written by Serpil Açıkalın Erkorkmaz and Dilek Karal, focuses on the fragmented cultural memories of women in Turkey on the Kurdish issue. The authors examine the patriarchal character of Turkish modernization and the construction of women’s identities, and they seek the historical roots of social schisms among women in Turkey. The authors analyze how women’s cultural memories shape their perception of “threat” regarding the Kurdish issue. The authors contend that identity as a composition of ideological, religious, and ethnic differences is the major determinant of women’s segmented cultural memories in Turkey on the Kurdish issue and gender roles. These differences also affect an individual’s perception of threats from other social groups in society. Anastasia Kucheva looks into the diversities of survival strategies in postwar everyday life in Soviet society. Kucheva considers the Second World War and its impact on Soviet society within the framework of the currently relevant problem of cultural trauma. The novelty of the study is how it changes the prospects of studying the consequences of the Second World War for Soviet society. Analysis of archive materials and interviews collected by the author made it possible to reconstruct the everyday life of Soviet people. Kucheva studies adaptation models formed in such spheres of life as procuring food, non-food items, and accommodation. Kucheva analyzes reflections on the war experience, revealing how the people who survived the war have perceived the influence of certain experiences on their present lives.

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The concluding chapter, authored by Zane Radzobe and Didzis Bērziņš, explores the memory diversity of Latvians and Russian speakers in Latvia in the 20th century. The research deals with memory policies and the practices of the groups, drawing conclusions on how the ritualization of memories is used to establish competing discourses of national history and identity. The ritualistic practices of memory are analyzed as a chain of counter-memory practices. The authors conclude that resistance against the official discourse of history is an ongoing process.

References Abrams, Lynn. Oral History Theory. Second edition. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, 2016. Anderson, Benedict. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1983. Assmann, Aleida & Sebastian Conrad (eds.) Memory in a Global Age: Discourses, Practices and Trajectories. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010. Bell, Duncan. “Introduction: Memory, Trauma and World Politics.” Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relationship between Past and Present. Ed. Duncan Bell. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 1-29. Bond, Lucy & Jessica Rapson (eds.) The Transcultural Turn: Interrogating Memory between and beyond Borders. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. Bond, Lucy, Stef Craps & Pieter Vermeulen (eds.) Memory Unbound: Tracing the Dynamics of Memory Studies. Oxford: Berghahn, 2017. Craps, Stef. “Beyond Eurocentrism: Trauma Theory in the Global Age.” The Future of Trauma Theory. Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism. Eds. Gert Buelens, Samuel Durrant & Robert Eaglestone. London & New York: Routledge 2013. 45-61. De Cesari, Chiara & Ann Rigney (eds.) Transnational Memory: Circulation, Articulation, Scales. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2014. De Grua, David W. Surviving Wounded Knee: The Lakotas and the Politics of Memory. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016. Erll, Astrid. “Travelling memory.” Parallax 17.4 (2011): 4-18. Erll, Astrid & Ann Rigney. Mediation, Remediation, and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2009. Erll, Astrid & Ann Rigney (eds.). Special Issue: Cultural Memory Studies after the Transnational Turn. Memory Studies 11.3 (2018). Fingerroos, Outi & Riina Haanpää. “Fundamental Issues in Finnish Oral History Studies.” Oral History 40.2 (2012): 81-92.

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Halbwachs, Maurice. On Collective Memory. The Heritage of Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992. Hamilton, Paula & Linda Shopes. “Introduction: Building partnership between oral history and memory studies.” Oral History and Public Memories. Eds. Paula Hamilton & Linda Shopes. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. vii-xvii. Heimo, Anne. “Nordic-Baltic Oral History on the Move.” Oral History 44.2 (2016): 37-58. Heimo, Anne. “The Italian Hall Tragedy, 1913. A Hundred Years of Remediated Memories.” The Twentieth Century in European Memory. Transcultural Mediation and Reception. Eds. Barbara Törnquist-Plewa & Tea Sindbæk Andersen. Leiden: Brill, 2017. 240-267. Kennedy, Rosanne. “Reparative Transnationalism: The Friction and Fiction of Remembering in Sierra Leone.” Memory Studies 11.3 (2018): 342-354. Kõresaar, Ene. “Life Story as Cultural Memory: Making and Mediating Baltic Socialism since 1989.” Journal of Baltic Studies 47.4 (2016): 431-449. Kõresaar, Ene & Kirsti Jõesalu. “Post-Soviet Memories and ‘Memory Shifts’ in Estonia.” Oral History 44.2 (2016): 47-58. Kubik, Jan & Michael Bernhard. “A Theory of the Politics of Memory.” Twenty Years After Communism: The Politics of Memory and Commemoration. Eds. Michael Bernhard & Jan Kubik. Oxford & New York: Oxford University Press, 2014. 7-34. Kuusisto-Arponen, Anna-Kaisa & Ulla Savolainen. “The Interplay of Memory and Matter: Narratives of Former Finnish Karelian Child Evacuees.” Oral History 44.2 (2016): 59-68. Mitroiu, Simona. “Life Writing and Politics of Memory in Eastern Europe: Introduction.” Life Writing and Politics of Memory in Eastern Europe. Ed. Simona Mitroiu. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. 1-22. Palonen, Kari. “Four Times of Politics: Policy, Polity, Politicking, and Politicization.” Alternatives 28.2 (2003): 171-186. Perks, Robert & Alistair Thomson. The Oral History Reader. Third edition. London: Routledge, 2016. Pettai, Eva-Clarita. “Debating Baltic Memory Regimes.” Journal of Baltic Studies 47.2 (2016): 165-178. Radstone, Susannah. “Trauma Theory: Contexts, Politics, Ethics.” Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory 30.1 (2007): 9-29. Radstone, Susannah & Katharine Hodgkin. “Regimes of Memory: An Introduction.” Regimes of Memory. Eds Susannah Radstone & Katharine Hodgkin. London & New York: Routledge, 2003. 1-22. Rigney, Ann. “Plenitude, scarcity and the circulation of cultural memory.” Journal of European Studies 35.1 (2005): 11-28.

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Rigney, Ann. “Reconciliation and remembering: (how) does it work?” Memory Studies 5.3 (2012): 251-258. Rigney, Ann. “Remembering Hope: Transnational Activism Beyond the Traumatic.” Memory Studies 11.3 (2018): 368-380. Rigney, Ann. “Mediations of Outrage: How Violence Against Protestors is Remembered.” Social Research: An International Quarterly 87.3 (2020): 707-733. Ritchie, Donald A. Doing Oral History: A Practical Guide. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Savolainen, Ulla. “Tellability, frame and silence: The emergence of internment memory.” Narrative Inquiry 27.1 (2017): 24-46. Savolainen, Ulla. “Miksi historian hyvitykset epäonnistuvat? Törmäävät muistikäsitykset ja hyvityksen moraali.” Historiallinen aikakauskirja 116.1 (2018): 56-68. Savolainen, Ulla. “Points and Poetics of Memory: (Retrospective) Justice in Oral History Interviews of Former Internees.” Memory Studies 13.6 (2020): 1020-1035. Savolainen, Ulla. “Memory Ideologies of Two Presents: Aatami Kuortti’s Testimonies of the Gulag and Soviet Terror of Ingrian Finns.” Poetics Today (Forthcoming). Shaw, Rosalind. “Memory Frictions: Localizing truth and Reconciliation in Sierra Leone.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 1 (2007): 183-207. Taavetti, Riikka. Queer Politics of Memory: Undisciplined Sexualities as Glimpses and Fragments in Finnish and Estonian Pasts. Helsinki: University of Helsinki, Faculty of Social Sciences, 2018. Thompson, Paul & Joanna Bornat. The Voice of the Past: Oral History. Fourth edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2005. Wimmer, Andreas & Nina Glick Schiller. “Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences.” Global Networks 2.4 (2002): 301-334. Winter, Jay. “Notes on the Memory Boom: War, Remembrance and the Uses of the Past.” Memory, Trauma and World Politics: Reflections on the Relationship between Past and Present. Ed. Duncan Bell. Basingstoke; New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006. 54-73. Yow, Valerie Raleigh. Recording Oral History: A Guide for the Humanities and Social Sciences. Walnut Creek, CA: AltaMira Press, 2005.

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About the authors Kirsti Salmi-Niklander is a senior lecturer in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki. She was the coordinator for the ERA-NET RUS. Plus-project LIVINGMEMORIES – Living together with difficult memories and diverse identities 2015-2017. Her fields of interest include oral history, vernacular literacy and working-class culture. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0552-1801 Ulla Savolainen (PhD, title of docent) works as a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Cultures. She is a folklorist specializing in cultural memory studies, oral history, and narrative research. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7995-416X Riikka Taavetti is a university lecturer in political history at the University of Helsinki. Her current work in SEXDEM research project addresses the political debates on homosexuality in Estonia and Sweden (the late 1980s2010s). Taavetti’s research interests include history of sexuality, politics of memory and oral history. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9601-2206 Sofia Laine (PhD, title of docent) is a Research Manager (fixed term) in Youth Research and Development Centre Juvenia at South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences. Her multidisciplinary research has focused on young people’s political and cultural engagements, volunteer work and art education. Her previous edited book focused on young refugees and youth work in Europe (Youth Partnership, Youth Knowledge #24). [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4153-8344 Päivi Salmesvuori (ThD, title of Docent), is senior researcher in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. She has researched issues of gender, power, authority and religion from the Middle Ages to the present day. She is interested in enhancing the cooperation between Academia and policy makers. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7948-8883

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Mitigating the Difficult Past? On the Politics of Renaming the Estonian Museum of Occupations Kirsti Jõesalu and Ene Kõresaar Abstract This chapter discusses the possibility of transforming the memory culture of the communist past in contemporary Estonia by focusing on the name debate of the Estonian Museum of Occupations. Within the theoretical frame of the politics of naming, the main issues, actors and mnemopolitical contexts of the debate are analyzed. The name debate remained within the boundaries of the Estonian-speaking community, reflecting its deep symbiosis of individual, communicative, cultural and political remembering, as well as the ubiquity of Russia as its significant Other. Estonian society persisted in keeping the remembrance of the difficult past intact rather than opening up to new approaches. Still, there was a strong potential in this debate to positively repoliticize memory. Keywords: politics of memory, naming, museum, national narrative

Introduction On February 17, 2016, the Estonian Museum of Occupations invited friends and institutional representatives “on a trip through the next couple of years, through the time when the building will be re-born inside and outside.” The museum proposed to “ponder the question of how to maintain freedom and how to stand for freedom.”1 The organizers promised to answer some questions about the future of the museum, about the new permanent exhibition, 1

Email invitation from February 2, 2016.

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch01

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and about the people behind the new ideas. The expected change of name – from the Museum of Occupations to the Museum of Freedom – was not disclosed beforehand, but it was the name change that activated a broader discussion about remembering in Estonian society. The event took place in the building of the Museum of Occupations located in the city center of Tallinn, close to Toompea Hill. The main actors on the podium were the President of Estonia, Toomas Hendrik Ilves (2006-2016), a member of the board of the museum and start-up entrepreneur Sten Tamkivi, and the managing director of the museum, Merilin Piipuu. The first part of the event was dedicated to the question of fundraising and the role of civil society related to it: the goal of the museum was to fund a new permanent exhibition and reconstruction of the building. First, Ilves and Tamkivi discussed the topic of fundraising, based on examples from the U.S. and Estonia, stressing the initiative of citizens in “public” matters. The new name – the Museum of Freedom – was first mentioned by President Ilves while talking about the fate of the founder of the museum, Olga Kistler-Ritso (1920-2013). Officially, the name change was announced by Piipuu, who opened up the plan of the museum to change its name in 2018 to the Museum of Freedom Vabamu. In her announcement, she relied on the speech made by President Lennart Meri at the opening of the museum in 2003. Through stressing the value of freedom for a society like Estonia, she introduced new central concepts for the museum besides occupations, such as freedom, resistance and recovery. The event generated no controversy; only a couple of questions were asked by people in the audience (see also Weekes 2017). Within a week, however, a discussion arose surrounding the planned name change, which turned out to be indicative of the state of how the Soviet regime is remembered in Estonia, and the potential of the name change to affect the current memory culture. At the end of this debate, the museum decided to keep the name “Museum of Occupations” at that time and, after renovation and reopening the new exhibition, it would take the name “Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom.” Analyzing the public reception of this recent attempt by the Estonian Museum of Occupations to omit the term “occupation” from its name, this chapter aims at discussing the possibility of transforming the memory culture of the communist past in contemporary Estonia. Within the theoretical frame of the politics of naming, the main issues raised during the debate about the idea of Vabamu will be analyzed, as well as the actors and mnemopolitical contexts behind them. First, the politics of the term “occupation” will be explained in the context of Estonian political identity and Baltic-Russian and European relations. Next, the main issues raised

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during the debate over the name Vabamu will be analyzed in light of the following questions: What was the purpose of the name change? Whom was the museum aiming at? Who were the main critics? Which templates from the current memory regime and which mnemopolitical frameworks were actualized? Finally, conclusions will be drawn as to the potential of the museum to introduce changes to Estonian memory culture, as well as the main factors influencing its success. The sources for this analysis consist of texts from the mainstream and social media. In addition to media analysis, we twice interviewed the museum’s managing director, Merilin Piipuu. We were also invited to participate in the meetings of the museum’s advisory council. In addition, we participated in museum events and followed its temporary exhibitions.2

Occupation: The politics of naming The reaction that followed the publication of the plans for the name change of the Museum of Occupations showed the importance of the politics of naming in the mnemonic landscape. As Kearns and Berg (2002) suggest, names constitute a part of a symbolic and material order that provides normality and legitimacy in the politics of representation. The naming of places is a key component in the politics of identity in contemporary societies: “a practice of norming with claims of ownership, power and control” (Berg & Kearns 1996, 99). Through the act of naming and replacing political symbols, people engage in political acts that invest events, objects and sites with positive and negative connotations. Naming is thus implicated in the ideological processes involved in the formation of “imagined communities” (Anderson 1991), such as nations. Historical events and individuals are present in everyday life in the form of streets and various kinds of public institutions. In this way, a member of a national group is reminded of her/his role in the world of nations, creating a sense of continuity. The manipulation of language as a means of both creating and destroying the sense of identity and solidarity is very old (Brodsky 2001, 420).

2 Research for this chapter was funded by the institutional research grant IUT34-32 from the Estonian Ministry of Research and Education, and by the Estonian Research Council grant (PRG1097). We are grateful to Piipuu for commenting on our interpretation of the Vabamu debate during an earlier stage of writing this chapter.

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Names articulate a collective memory agenda. Research has focused extensively on the renaming of places after revolutionary social change (see Vukov 2007; Palonen 2008; Light & Young 2014). Such renaming is intended to institutionalize a new political agenda by shaping the meanings of everyday practices. Names can often become realms of memory (Nora 1989) and are thereby integrated into the politics of defining what is historically significant and worthy of public remembrance (Alderman 2002). In that way, names and naming relate to the construction of political discourses and identities. At the core of Estonian political identity since the post-communist turn, as well as that of other Baltic countries, lies the concept of “occupation.” This term relates to all of the central elements of the Estonian post-communist narrative: the events of the Second World War, the role of the Red Army, assessment of the Soviet regime and its collapse, and the termination and restoration of independence. The fundamental principle of Estonian statehood is the doctrine of legal continuity, which construes Estonia as a restored state fifty years after the Soviet takeover and occupation of the country in 1940. According to this doctrine, established on legal, institutional and commemorative levels following the collapse of the USSR (Tamm 2013), the Baltic states may have ceased to exist de facto but they continued to exist de jure, as the change in power was not considered legitimate in the Baltics or abroad (Ehin & Berg 2009, 9). Thus, as the USSR was collapsing, Estonia and other Baltic countries claimed that they were not creating new states but rather restoring their independence (Muižnieks 2011, 13). The politics of memory of the communist past in the Baltic states, which some researchers have conceptualized as the “Baltic model” of dealing with the past (Troebst 2007; Zhurzhenko 2007), was characterized by radical externalization of the Soviet regime, presenting it as an alien phenomenon imposed by a foreign force. On the levels of communicative, cultural and political memory, the communist decades were synonymous with suffering at the hands of the Soviet regime: 1940 marked military occupation and forced annexation, while 1944 was not known for liberation but the replacement of one occupying regime by another. In both cases, the Soviet takeover was followed by a wave of deportations and killings. The subsequent years of late socialism were seen as a continuation of oppression and persecution, accompanied by growing fears around the Estonian nation’s options for long-term cultural survival (Kõresaar 2004; Smith 2008). In the official sphere of memory politics, this discourse proved to be persistent, whereas a more ambivalent treatment of the Soviet experience has been applied in communicative and cultural memory since the end of the 1990s (Jõesalu & Kõresaar 2013).

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The “occupation paradigm” (Zhurzhenko 2007) also lies at the center of Estonian/Baltic-Russian relations. At the level of basic concepts underlying their national identity and collective memory, Estonian and Russian narratives are antagonistic (Ehin & Berg 2009, 10). Since 1992, Russia has used the Soviet past for its own project of nation-building. This project has included the claim that in 1940, instead of an occupation of the Baltic States there was voluntary incorporation, and that 1944 witnessed liberation (Doronenkova 2011). Throughout the 1990s a range of contentious issues dominated BalticRussian relations, in which the naming of the communist past was constantly raised. With the enlargement of the European Union and Russia’s growing power and ambitions, old tensions have grown and new ones have emerged, which have expressed themselves in a symbolic struggle over the Soviet past (Ehin & Berg 2009, 5-7; Mälksoo 2009; Zhurzhenko 2007; Onken 2007). Tense relations since the beginning of the 1990s, coupled with Moscow’s “compatriots” politics regarding the near abroad, have fueled continued perceptions within the Baltics of an external Russian threat (Smith 2008). For their part, the Baltic states have acted as critics of the nature of democracy and human rights in Russia, and have sought to counter Russia’s historical positioning of itself as the “liberator of Europe” (Mälksoo 2009). Last but not least, the “occupation paradigm” gained a further geopolitical dimension after the “Color Revolutions” in Georgia (2003) and Ukraine (2004). This marked a shift to anti-communist/anti-Russian national narratives. In 2006, inspired by the example of respective museums in Tallinn and Riga, the Museum of Soviet Occupation was opened in Tbilisi as part of the Georgian National Museum. Approximately a year later, a Museum of Soviet Occupation was opened in Kiev as a successor of the permanent exhibition on “communist inquisition” of the Memorial Society (the exhibition opened in 2001). In 2015, after the annexation of Crimea in 2014 and during the ongoing war in East Ukraine, Ukraine enacted a law on banning Soviet symbols and criminalized denial of the criminal character of the Soviet regime. The same year, further plans were made by the city council of Kiev to open a museum park devoted to “Soviet occupation” (Radio Free Europe 2015). Due to differences in historical memory, however, the externalization of communism according to the “occupation paradigm” is difficult to fully apply in Ukraine (Zhurzhenko 2007). Moldova, in turn, opened a permanent exhibition entitled “Soviet Occupation” at the National Military Museum in Chisinau in 2016 (Ministry of Defence 2016). What the politics of the term “occupation” demonstrates is the importance of linguistic definitions in a broader struggle over the representation of

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the past (Ashplant, Dawson & Roper 2004, 54-60). Defining, and thereby legitimizing, the meaning of an event inevitably influences the ways it can be remembered and commemorated.

From museum as memorial to dynamic museum: The Estonian Museum of Occupations The Estonian Museum of Occupations was initiated by the Kistler-Ritso Estonian Foundation, founded by the Estonian émigré Olga Kistler-Ritso in 1998. After years of academic research and collecting objects to establish and build up its permanent exhibition,3 the museum was opened to the public in 2003. The museum first opened under the name the Museum of Occupations of the Recent Past [Eesti Lähimineviku Okupatsioonide Muuseum], which was shortened during the following years to the Museum of Occupations.4 Symbolically, the first director of the museum was a former Soviet-era dissident and prisoner of conscience, Heiki Ahonen. Through the aim and nature of its exhibition, the Museum of Occupations belonged to a wave of cultural institutions dedicated to the experience of communism in Eastern Europe since the beginning of the 1990s (Knigge & Mählert 2005). The main aim of the museum was to display “an objective cross-section of life in the Estonian society during the three occupation periods” (leaflet quoted in Kuusi 2008, 106). To this end, the chronology of the occupations of Estonia in 1940-1991, the national resistance movement, and the return of independent statehood were displayed. The past was presented in the permanent exhibition predominantly as a trauma narrative focusing on the atrocities committed by the Soviet regime, which also served as a framework for looking at the Nazi occupation (Mark 2008; Radonić 2017, 280). In its limited space, items representing Soviet everyday life were also exhibited. Since its opening the exhibition has received somewhat contradictory responses: while critics agree that by focusing on the political history of the occupation the museum is implicitly excluding those who were not directly victims of Soviet repression (Velmet 2011; Mark 2008; Kuusi 2008; 3 On academic research on the Soviet occupation and annexation organized by the Kistler-Ritso Foundation, as well as on collecting objects via public press announcements and grassroots networks, see Ahonen 2005. 4 One of the names the museum used in between was the Museum of Occupation and the Museum of the Fight for Freedom (see Kuusi 2008).

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Ein studentischer Erfahrungsbericht 2005, 198), others have pointed out that the objects in the exhibition were selected and displayed in a way that allowed for an individualized and emotional interaction with the Soviet past, including nostalgia (Kuusi 2008; Ein studentischer Erfahrungsbericht 2005, 205). The aim of the Museum of Occupations was to educate and to commemorate, thus targeting three groups of visitors: 1) young people with no experience of life under the Soviet regime, 2) the generations who lived through the occupations, and 3) foreign visitors with no previous knowledge of Estonia’s recent history (Ahonen 2005, 113). While immediately after the opening the director could report lively interest among all three groups (despite some discomfort felt by older generations) (Ahonen 2005, 115), by 2009 visitors were almost solely tourists and schoolchildren from nearby neighborhoods (Velmet 2011, 199). By 2015, only 10% of visitors (approximately 2,000 people) were local.5 In spring 2015, the election of a new managing director and the appointment of new supervisory council members took place (Teder 2015). The new managing director (born in 1989) has a background in ethnology and political science, as well as extensive experience working in civil society organizations. The newly appointed manager of exhibits Sander Jürisson (born in 1986) is a historian with a particular focus on oral history and exile studies. Both leaders of the museum have transnational experience of studying and practicing abroad, and as museum professionals they are deeply embedded in cosmopolitan discourses of memory and history. They started to implement changes to reform the museum in accordance with the long-time expectations of the Kistler-Ritso Foundation, the major funding body of the museum (Sikk 2012). The goal of the new management was to modernize the museum in educational, museological and organizational ways. Thus, the museum planned to change from a museum as a repository of traces of the past to a participatory museum that is active in civil society. The aim of the museum was to take a more active stance toward the challenges that Estonian society is facing, in particular dwelling more on the integration of Estonian- and Russianspeaking communities. The museum undertook a paradigm shift to attract a younger audience and enlarge its target demographic. The change was manifested in a new name: the Museum of Freedom (Vabamu for short). The reorganization was announced publicly in February 2016. The opening of the new exhibition was 5

Piipuu at the meeting of the museum’s advisory council on January 7, 2016.

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planned for 2018 to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Republic of Estonia, and its main focus will be on regaining and maintaining freedom and civil rights in Estonia.6 The change in the name was intended to signify a shift in the understanding of freedom and civil rights in comparison to the first exhibition: while in the former, civil rights were understood on a collective level (as the right of national self-determination), the curators of the new exhibition were stressing individual rights and freedom. The new exhibition will be organized around four keywords: occupation, resistance, freedom and recovery. The exhibition will present atrocities committed during the occupations, the mass escape to the West in 1944 and life in Estonian émigré communities after the Second World War, everyday life during the Soviet time, regaining independence, and different freedoms. The main goal of the future exhibit is to mediate the past through personal stories and to accentuate the civil courage exhibited under the occupations. With these changes in its concept and name, the museum is following the lead of such prominent institutions as the Museum of Tolerance, the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, and the Jewish Museum in Berlin.7 The new conception of the museum seeks to follow more global patterns of approaching the past through contemporary democratic values.8 The name change and plans for the future exhibition indicate profound transformation going on at the Museum of Occupations in terms of both international museology trends and memory work.

Debating the name change By announcing its plans for the name change, the Museum prompted a heated debate in society about the place and meaning of the (Soviet) military occupation, suffering and survival in Estonian memory. “Placing” freedom in a museum (Museum of Freedom) seemed to many people to be a semantic problem. This opinion was also expressed by people who overall were not as critical of the renewal of the museum. Especially in social media, many 6 The new permanent exhibition “Freedom Without Borders” was opened in July 2018 while this chapter was completed in early 2018. Therefore, future tense is used in this chapter when referring to the new exhibition. See on changes in representation of the Second World War and the communist past in Vabamu’s new permanent exhibit in Kõresaar, Jõesalu 2021. 7 Communication with the manager of the exhibits Sander Jürisson on May 10, 2017. 8 The plans of the museum can be compared to those of the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia envisioning the construction of its extension as the “House of the Future” (Nākotnes Nams). See http://okupacijasmuzejs.lv/lv/nakotnes-nams/.

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ironic derivations of the name Vabamu were created. A heritage specialist wrote on Facebook, for instance: “at first sight, Vabamu reminds me of a sink (valamu): down into the cellar/out of sight” (Feb 27, 2016, see also meme made by Allah Pugatchova 2016). The name change plans of the museum reactivated many earlier tropes and topics which had been used in Estonian post-Soviet memory work. For half a year, from February until August 2016, over 60 stories – opinion pieces, news items and comments – were published in Estonian mainstream media outlets, accompanied by lively discussions (mainly in March-April 2016) on social media. The first reports reflected the position of the museum. But on February 21, the former anti-Soviet dissident Enn Tarto publicly stated that he was against the name change (Ojakivi 2016). Mari-Ann Kelam, a communist-time exileEstonian now living permanently in Estonia, expressed her worries about how the new name would be understood internationally (Põld 2016b). The national conservative populist party (EKRE) leader Mart Helme immediately voiced his dissatisfaction (Einmann 2016). The first in-depth criticism was published by the Canadian-Estonian Marcus Kolga on the English language portal of Estonian Public Broadcasting (Kolga 2016a). A couple days later, the managing director Piipuu replied to Kolga on the same English language portal (Piipuu 2016a). Over the following weeks many other opinion pieces and statements followed. One high point was the commemoration of the mass deportation of March 25; in connection with that day, many people openly expressed their views, including the Memento Union, an organization of repressed people. In discussions, the following voices were heard: 1) opinions of repressed people (e.g., the Memento Union) and of Soviet-era dissidents in the form of open statements and comments in the media, 2) politicians, mainly from national conservative parties (e.g., Conservative People’s Party of Estonia (EKRE) and Pro Patria and Res Publica Union (IRL),9 3) opinions from wellknown Estonian cultural figures and other opinion pieces, 4) members of the Estonian émigré community, 5) the managing director Merilin Piipuu and the chairwoman of the Kistler-Ritso Foundation Sylvia Thompson, 9 The Minister of Culture Indrek Saar (Social Democrats), had been asked to take a standpoint in parliament. Saar took a neutral position, stating that it was up to the museum to decide on its name and expositions. On the other hand, the Ministry of Culture had not, by the end of the name debate, allocated funds for the renovation of the museum; the decision to support the new exhibition came in August 2017 after the opening of the museum branch in former KGB cells (Kultuuriministeerium 2017). In the discussions initiated by the museum, representatives of the Reform Party were invited to join in.

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the daughter of the founder, voicing the intentions of the museum, and 6) public discussions initiated by the museum itself.10 The debate unfolded exclusively in Estonian and English-speaking media related to Estonian exile communities in the U.S. and Canada. The Russian-speaking media in Estonia merely followed the news concerning the Vabamu case, and no separate discussions were held (Alekseev 2016; Karaev 2016). Due to the lack of discussion in the Russian-speaking media, 68% of Estonian Russians could not answer the question in the poll conducted in June 2016 regarding whether they supported the museum’s name change. Still, according to the same poll, Estonian Russians tended to be more positive toward omitting “occupation” from the name (Uuring 2016), which is connected with their ambivalent attitude toward the Soviet military annexation of Estonia and its place in the Estonian national narrative. In the following pages, the main topics raised during the debate will be analyzed, with a few exceptions. Especially in radical conservative online forums, the case of the Museum of Freedom/Vabamu was linked to the current migration crisis and the recent cohabitation law in Estonia. This discussion is not central to our chapter. More personal political motives of some speakers will be omitted. Instead, the major topics of the debate will be given and analyzed in the context of the politics of naming and memory of the 20th century in Estonia.

Victims and the politics of recognition The symbolic absence of generations of victims at the public event of the museum on February 17, 2016 was noticed by the audience and publicly denounced (Kolga 2016a). As the following debate demonstrated, groups that directly experienced repression and persecution under the Soviet regime felt strongly marginalized from the process of transformation initiated by the museum. Victims’ organizations, represented by the Memento Union’s chairman Leo Õispuu, loudly expressed their opinions. On the day of commemoration of the March 25 deportation, Õispuu gave an emotional speech at the museum, which was extensively covered in the media, arguing that repressed people had been left out of the plans for the change (Haravee 2016; 10 The museum initiated three debates on the topic “How to remember? The story of Estonian people from occupation to freedom.” at the museum, which were livecast over Estonian National Broadcasting. The topics were: Occupation (on April 11, 2016), Resistance (on May 4), and Recovering (on June 3). Participation in the debates was by invitation only.

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Rohemäe 2016; Pöördumine 2016). Õispuu claimed symbolic ownership of the topic of the Soviet occupation in Estonia for his organization: “The repressed people regard this [the occupation] as their topic; one must consider that!” According to him, the name change was equivalent to depriving the museum of its function as a place of commemoration of the atrocities of the 20th-century occupations. This would be the “elimination of ‘occupation,’” he argued on the commemoration day (Õispuu 2016). Prominent Soviet-era dissidents (Tarto and Lagle Parek) expressed their disapproval as well (Ojakivi 2016; Põld 2016a; Põld 2016b.) As the debate on the name change vividly revealed, the repressed considered the Museum of Occupations their symbolic place (see also Sepp 2016). For the repressed, the museum’s idea of Vabamu was part of the complex context of their politics of recognition since the end of the 1980s (Anepaio 2002). Just as the museum went public with the idea of Vabamu, another debate was going on regarding establishing a memorial to the victims of communism in Tallinn. In this debate, too, the Memento Union saw its position weakened. The planning of the memorial had started years before, passing through several preliminary phases and leading to agreement on a suitable location. Until the memorial was finished, the Museum of Occupations symbolically took its place. As Õispuu stated: “as long as we have only this museum dedicated to the occupations, its present name must remain” (Haravee 2016). Just a day before the commemoration of the 1949 deportation, the state announced a design contest for a memorial for the victims of communism and a monument for officers to be erected in Maarjamäe (Tallinn) as a part of the 100th-anniversary program of the Republic of Estonia. Maarjamäe is the home of the Estonian History Museum, but it is also known for its Soviet-era memorials to the Victims of the Great Patriotic War and to Soviet revolutionary soldiers fallen in Estonia in 1918-1919, as well as for a symbolic cemetery for the German war dead, established as a commemoration site after 1991, where Estonians who had served in the German armed forces were also included. The area is supplemented by a collection of Soviet-era sculptures in the backyard of the History Museum. For the victims’ organizations, this memorial complex embodied the “backyard of occupants,” and they have opposed the idea of adding a memorial of victims of communism to it from the beginning. Aside from the location of the memorial, a list of names to be displayed on the memorial constituted another conflict for the formerly repressed people. According to the plans of the preparatory committee, nearly 20,000 individuals who were victims of the communist regime would be listed on

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it.11 This number, based on the calculation of lives lost due to communist crimes, was considered too small by the Memento Union. Õispuu bitterly noted that the “victim is a corpse,” meaning that nowadays in Estonia those who survived are not recognized as victims (2016). Thus, the formerly repressed people’s strategy of opposing the idea of Vabamu should be understood in the broader context of their politics of recognition in the field of commemorating the victims of communism. The main partner in their fight for recognition has been the state. Therefore, it is not surprising that Õispuu more than anyone argued that the state was responsible for restoring the status quo of the Museum of Occupations (Rohemäe 2016). The idea of the state playing a greater role regarding the museum is not a new one; in fact it was expressed as early as 2003 by the first director, Heiki Ahonen (Sildam 2003). Õispuu, in turn, agitated for the state to nationalize the Museum of Occupations, to replace both the board and the management, and to rehire its first director to “restore the museum’s dignity” (2016). While agreeing that “occupation” was not the best choice in the name of the museum, Õispuu argued for the change of the name to “Museum of Victims of Communist Terror” or “International Museum of Victims of Communism,”12 which is in accordance with the paradigm of anti-communism.

Occupation and freedom discourse in transnational comparison From the beginning, the discussion of Vabamu occurred in an international context, referring primarily to neighboring Russia and secondarily to the global memory of the Holocaust (Levy & Sznaider 2002). The name change was perceived as acceptance of the politics of Russia, not only regarding the Baltic states but also in the larger geopolitical context (Ojakivi 2016; Einmann 2016; Kolga 2016a). The problem of the assessment of the events of 1940 and 1944 has been treated as a question of state security in Estonia, especially since the Bronze Soldier crisis in April 2007 and the cyberattacks that followed (Herzog 2011). The conflict between Georgia and 11 The name-checking was organized by the Estonian Institute of Historical Memory, a statesupported memory institution (http://www.mnemosyne.ee). Memorial to Estonia´s Victims of Communism 1940-1991 was opened in 23 August 2018. 12 Apart from what Õispuu had suggested in spring 2016, an idea of establishing the museum of Red Terror in a former prison in Tallinn was announced at the initiative of Minister of Justice, Urmas Reinsalu (IRL, Res Publica Union) in February 2018. See more https://patareiprison.org/ en.

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Russia (2008) and Russian military intervention in Ukraine since 2014 have further increased geopolitical anxieties in Estonia. The further militarization of Russia and strengthening of the NATO allied presence in the Baltic states have also led to a continually tense state of security. Given this level of security threat in the background, giving up the word “occupation” in the name of the museum was seen as a sign of the successful politics of Russia and the Finlandization of Estonia by both radical conservatives (e.g., Helme) and global human rights activists (e.g., Kolga): Does the renaming and new direction of the Museum signal a new political correctness in Estonia – a pseudo-Finlandization – that avoids acknowledgment of the occupation to appease its Eastern neighbor? […] It’s commonly understood that one of Vladimir Putin’s primary foreign policy objectives over the past decade has been to deny the Soviet “occupation” of the Baltic states. […] With this latest move, it seems that e-Estonia’s leaders have succeeded in gifting Putin a great leap forward in forgetting the crimes of the Soviet occupation in Estonia. (Kolga 2016a)

The “Russian argument” united different groups of critics, since it has been continuously active in discussions about the present and the future of memory culture in Estonia since the restoration of independence. Older and younger generations did not differ in their belief that Estonia needs to retain its memory, as it is situated in the area potentially threatened by Russia. A similar argument was made by the representatives of the museum at the beginning of the debate. The managing director of the museum argued for the use of “freedom” as a main keyword: A better way [to make the younger generation come to the Museum] is to connect the occupations with freedom – something that we take for granted today and sometimes do not even recognize. Moreover, the fragility of freedom becomes even more apparent when looking at the unpredictable actions of our eastern neighbour. (Piipuu 2016a)

As a reaction to conservative politicians’ attempts to use the debate for political gain, however, she declared the museum a non-political place (BNS 2016). Instead, the museum recognized Russian tourists and Russians living in Estonia as major target groups to reach out to.13

13 Conversation with Piipuu on December 8, 2016.

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Comparisons with the commemoration of the Holocaust were also used as an argument by both sides. Opponents of change immediately took up the example of Holocaust museums around the world as models for representing the traumatic past. The most frequently used argument was that one can never imagine that a Holocaust museum would change its name (e.g. Helme and Tunne Kelam). A parallel was drawn with Israel, which “lives in a permanent state of threat” and keeps commemorating the suffering of Jews to show that “plans to destroy their state have never disappeared from the world” (Helme in Einmann 2016). Thus, the commemoration of both the Holocaust and victims of Soviet repression would help to remind the rest of the world of the fragile situation of statehood. There is a significant shift, however, in how the Holocaust has been referred to in connection with Stalinist repressions in this debate. In the first decades of independence, politicians and the wider public in the Baltic countries reacted emotionally and defensively to the issue of the Holocaust and, particularly in Estonia, no discussion of the Holocaust took place (Pettai 2011, 160). Moreover, the growing transnationalism of memory of the Holocaust in the 2000s was perceived as competing with the commemoration of victims of the Stalinist terror.14 In the debate over the name Vabamu, however, these were not placed in contrast with each other; rather, the two were seen as being comparable in terms of national core traumas, a treatment that comes close to what is termed multidirectional memory (Rothberg 2009). While opponents of the name used international comparisons to emphasize the importance of remembering the history of suffering in similar contexts of threat, Piipuu stressed that suffering was not the only point of reference for identity for either Estonians or Jews: At the same time, we have to remember that not only suffering under occupations defines what it means to be Estonian, just as the Holocaust does not solely define the thousands of years of history of the Jewish nation. Suffering does not make us special, and suffering has characterized many nations in the world, in the past and today. What is special, however, is how we have survived hard times and put Estonia on the world map. (Piipuu 2016b)

14 For instance, to integrate Holocaust Memorial Day into Estonian memory culture, the Ministry of Education made a proposal to link the events of January 27 with the Day of Mourning and the Commemoration of Victims of Deportations on June 14 and March 25, respectively (Kaas 2002).

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Piipuu also applied the idea of “learned victimhood” based on examples of Jews and Estonians in her article in the Estonian cultural monthly Vikerkaar, while asking what else could be remembered besides suffering (Piipuu 2016c). From the beginning of the debate, the museum stressed the importance of multiple perspectives instead of “proclaiming the historical truth.”15 Moreover, by drawing on the example of the Holocaust in Jewish identity, the museum justified its inclination to move forward from the national narrative anchored in “occupation.”

Change as a problem of generational differences From the very beginning, the debate over the name Vabamu was connected to a sense of generational change in memory work. From the late 1980s onward, shifts in the meaning-making of the Soviet past in Estonia were related to different generational agents entering the field of public memory work (Kõresaar & Jõesalu 2016). Therefore, the extent to which new agents in the field of memory are perceived in generational terms indicates whether they are understood as a change in memory culture. In the Vabamu debate, the problem of generational differences was raised both by the museum and by its opponents in various ways. First, the problem of generations was raised by the museum by basing its new approach and name on the need to reach a younger audience. The museum’s orientation toward youth was publicly launched on February 17, 2016 and it has been active ever since. The shift to “tell the story of the occupations via the loss of freedom” was explained by a call to attract younger people to the museum (Piipuu 2016a). The museum’s new methods of displaying the past were further explained by the need to adjust to the current generational shift in society: When certain objects (e.g. a spoon) are displayed behind exhibition glass, this evokes memories in those who were in Siberia. […] young people, however, only see a spoon, with no emotional reaction whatsoever (Kistler Thompson in Tigasson 2016).

Younger generations with radically different experiential horizons than the victim generations thus served as a point of departure for the museum to 15 Under “proclaiming the historical truth” Piipuu meant presenting one version of the past as the only one (Piipuu’s speech on February 17, 2016, at the Museum of Occupations).

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accentuate present and future dimensions, both in its upcoming exhibition and in its name change.16 Exhibiting the past via the category of freedom means drawing more heavily on the present experiences and future expectations of young people, including a more individualized sense of freedom and a more global framework of experience than the victim generations have. For opponents of Vabamu, the museum workers themselves came to represent the younger generation, who had lost connection with the difficult past of Estonia. In particular, managing director Piipuu was attributed significance from the very start of the debate. Her youth, gender and previous career as a director of youth organizations served as a means of “othering” the museum personnel in both mainstream and social media. The active participation of an IT and start-up entrepreneur in the museum’s fundraising campaign, in addition to members of civil society, was questioned. A proposition by the supervisory council Tamkivi, known as a former leading figure of Skype, to consider Vabamu as a sort of “mental start-up” [mõttemaailma start-up] was labeled as “absurdist humour” for a museum dedicated to the memory of military occupations (Jõerüüt 2016). By generating the concept of a “start-up generation” (Kolga 2016b) guided by the “latest trendy start-up philosophies” rather than holding in high esteem the memory of military occupations “that caused the country to lose nearly a quarter of its population,” this new group’s right to act as a memory agent in remembering atrocities was questioned. Moreover, the shift to the discourse of freedom was associated by its opponents, particularly the Memento Union, with wishes to make a profit (Haravee 2016). In short, the museum’s supervisory council was accused of being blinded by the shiny image of Estonia as a leader in e-technology and shortsightedly letting this eclipse the more substantial narrative of Estonian suffering and survival (see Weekes 2017). Thus, Vabamu was perceived by opponents as a problem of generational differences: the proponents’ aims, (personal) backgrounds and experiences were interpreted as forming a disruption of intergenerational memory and solidarity, and as weakening the relationship to Estonia (Soidro 2016).17 The museum’s attempt to expand the boundaries of the permanent exhibition and its underlying narrative, the selection of temporary exhibits, musical and 16 The exact age range of the “young generation” was defined rather loosely by the Museum: from “people younger than 30-40 years” (Kistler Thompson in Tigasson 2016) to “schoolchildren” (Piipuu in several conversations). Whereas people in Thompson’s age group had different opinions, both for and against the name change, the opinions of schoolchildren were never voiced or even asked for in the newspapers. 17 In reality, however, there was no clear distinction between the proponents and opponents of Vabamu in terms of age cohorts, experience of the world, or fields of activity.

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other public events, recent educational programs and – last but not least – the museum’s language of change facilitated the opponents’ sense of generational conflict. These opponents did not deny that there were problems to overcome (Soidro 2016). In fact, they supported the need to renew the exhibition (Kelam 2016). What was decisively rejected, however, was the museum’s emphasis on the present and the future in its new permanent exhibition in order to bring the past closer to younger visitors. For some, seeing the past through present individualistic freedoms was equal to abandoning the idea of the nation-state and denying the national past (former dissident Eve Pärnaste in Pullerits 2016; Kolga 2016b. Maarja Vaino (b. 1976), an active conservative publicist and director of a literature museum, stated: It is important to keep in mind that caring for contemporary culture does not mean […] abandoning one’s own history. And openness, in turn, is not equal to focusing on the present, being ‘up-to-date’. As we know, only small children live only for the present, or people with memory issues or problems of adequately perceiving reality. (Vaino 2016)

A very popular education program of the museum targeted at children, “What makes a home?”, came to represent for the opponents the inevitable outcome of approaching the difficult past through an orientation to future generations. Such keywords as “child aversion” and “infantile” spread throughout the mainstream and social media to describe the future orientation of the museum in dealing with the difficult past. These keywords came to represent a change in dealing with the past that did not inspire “dignified reflection” (Kolga 2016b). The museum’s plan to make greater use of the underground level to display such topics as atrocities committed during the Nazi and Soviet occupations, the mass escape in 1944 and the life of Estonians living in exile, as well as in Soviet Estonia,18 was interpreted as “placing the occupation out of sight, in the basement.” An ironic pun in a local newspaper summarized the change as follows: If up to now one could say that the symbols of the museum were the freedom fighters Niklus and Tarto,19 in the future in highest probability

18 The underground location is much more suitable for the exhibition site than the current ground floor: the basement is a closed, dark room; as such, it is much better to accommodate an exhibition. 19 Mart Niklus and Enn Tarto, Soviet-era dissidents and prisoners of conscience.

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they will be replaced by Piip and Tuut [popular clowns from a children show]. (Soidro 2016)

Thus, the orientation to the future of the concept of freedom in Vabamu was perceived as a significant step away from the ethical foundation of the concept “Never Again!”, which was also closely connected to the future perspective. “Never Again!” was the guiding principle of the founding of the Museum of Occupations (Thompson 2016). The ethical regime of “Never Again!” defined the present in relation to a troubled past. While being universal, it also pointed to a particular: in the case of Estonia it said “never again” to communist (Russian) oppression (Baer & Sznaider 2016). As a regime of postmemory, “Never Again!” presumed an ethical relation to the victim, focusing both on the content of oppression as well as on the memory work required for later generations (Hirsch 1997). During the debate, the guiding concept “Never again!” was also referred to by Piipuu (2016a), yet Vabamu was still perceived by the opponents of the name change as initiating a significantly different relationship to the past.20 Speaking in support of displaying multiple perspectives instead of favoring the established narrative of victimhood and resistance was seen as a decline in the ethical stance toward the victim. Through associations with Estonia’s digital identity and “freedom of entrepreneurship,” as well as with play and fun, the name Vabamu seemed to trivialize trauma and treat the difficult past as just another aspect of everyday life. Although a similar dynamic shift in the work of postmemory had been a recent trend elsewhere in Europe, most notably in Holocaust cinema (Bayer 2010), in the Vabamu debate it was regarded as an unwanted step away from the present memory culture.

Conclusion As the debate over the name change of the Estonian Museum of Occupations to the Museum of Freedom Vabamu vividly demonstrated, naming and renaming convey ideological messages about the past and the present. The debate pointed to renaming as an active and contentious process within the framework of the politics of memory. From the perspective of the Museum of Occupations, the attempt to adopt the name Museum of Freedom was also an attempt to extend the boundaries of the national suffering and survival 20 That a very different relationship to the past was initiated with the name change was also a standpoint of the proponents of Vabamu (Metlev 2016).

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discourse, which they felt had become restrictive and hegemonic. In the same vein, Vabamu was an attempt at a participatory turn in dealing with the difficult past by including experiences and expectations of different social groups. Addressing the hopes and freedoms of individuals instead of one or more collectives, the museum hoped to transgress the borders of the collective trauma narrative and bring the museum closer to the diversity of identities in contemporary Estonian society. In taking a pluralist position, the museum oriented toward transnational influences rather than the national mnemonic community. As Barbara Törnquist-Plewa (2016, 212) has demonstrated, a clash of cosmopolitan and national perspectives characterizes many of the 21st-century controversies dealing with the violent past of the last century in East and Central Europe. “Giving up ‘occupation’” was generally interpreted as a distancing from the core narrative underlying Estonian identity. It also triggered claims of ownership from the victim generations as a response to transferring the guardianship of the difficult past to an “e-generation with weakened ties to Estonia.” It could be argued that in some sense the debate exposed the varied understandings of 20th-century experiences, especially that of the Soviet occupation. Last but not least, the abandoning of the term “occupation” activated significant frameworks of remembering, such as the instability of EstonianRussian relations and memories of the Holocaust as an authoritative memory regime. A certain transnational dynamic can be seen in how the Holocaust memory regime was applied to the Vabamu debate. However, the resecuritization of the memory of (the Soviet) military occupations during the debate points to one of the main reasons why the 20th-century past is still predominantly seen as deeply troubled – the so-called Russian threat. The “Russian threat” is perceived as an existential threat: namely, “memory must be defended” to meet the challenge of sustaining the Estonian state’s intactness and the consistency of its identity (Mälksoo 2015). In June 2016, a poll conducted among 807 people asked: “Do you support the renaming of the Museum of Occupations to Vabamu?” The poll showed that only 10% of Estonian citizens supported the name Vabamu; the support of Estonians was four times smaller than that of Estonian Russians (Uuring 2016). This corresponds to findings of the 2011 survey “Me, the World and the Media” [Mina, Maailm, Meedia], which showed that about 70% of Estonians found it important to have collective moments of commemorating victims of the recent difficult past (including about 58% of those between the ages of 15-29) (Melchior 2015, 162-164). These numbers show a widely perceived moral obligation to safeguard the current

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memory regime, even in a time of relative security. According to Melchior, Estonians’ interest in the nation’s past is directly related to connections with family stories. This makes national historiography, as a form of cultural memory, highly emotional and personal (Melchior 2015, 295). The term “occupation” is one of the central symbols of this entanglement. Even if in 2011 over 40% of Estonians shared the viewpoint that dragging along the past may become an obstacle to Estonia’s future (Melchior 2015, 163), the Vabamu debate clearly demonstrates that endangering of the central mnemonic symbols triggers old fears and activates a moral obligation for securing the common past. That the debate over Vabamu was first and foremost about the name and what it signified was further revealed by the fact that the museum’s new approach to civic education via temporary exhibitions during and immediately after the name debate multiplied the number of visitors. During the first four months of the debate over Vabamu, there were more visitors to the museum than during all of 2015. Nearly half of them were young students (Ernits 2016). When the museum decided to keep “occupation” in its future name, the discussion stopped. Moreover, when the Ministry of Culture announced its financial support for the new exhibition in August 2017, no reaction followed. In retrospect, the museum admitted that they had had little understanding of just how “stressed” the field of commemoration really was.21 Since April 2016, there has been a search for a compromise between the museum’s plans and public expectations. While at the beginning of the debate the museum tended to detach itself from the narrative of suffering, by spring 2016 it preferred to talk about extending the narrative of suffering to groups who previously had been left out of the exhibition.22 Even before its new exhibition, the museum opened a debate about what creates Estonian memory. There was a strong potential in this debate to positively repoliticize memory (Mälksoo 2015) and to increase society’s self-reflexivity.

21 From a conversation with Piipuu on October 13, 2016. 22 Conversation with Piipuu on December 8, 2016 at the OM, while discussing Piipuu’s paper at Stanford University Libraries in the US “From the narrative of suffering to the value of freedom: What does it mean to rebuild a museum within the memory landscape of a former Soviet Union republic?” November 7, 2016, organized by the CREES Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies. In an opinion piece published in a local newspaper, the managing director also gave assurances that there would be no “ideological change”; instead, the museum wanted to change the way stories were told (Piipuu 2016d).

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References Web pages Allah Pugatchova (Aapo Ilves) 2016 (Feb). Accessed February 25, 2021. http:// pugatchova.blogspot.com/2016/02/. Museum of Soviet Occupation in Georgia, Tbilisi. Accessed October 15, 2017. http:// museum.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=53. Patarei Prison. Exhibition “Communism is Prison”. Tallinn, Estonia. Accessed December 21, 2020. https://patareiprison.org/en. The Future of the [Latvian Occupation] Museum, Riga, Latvia. Accessed December 21, 2020. http://okupacijasmuzejs.lv/lv/nakotnes-nams/.

Newspaper and magazine articles Alekseev, Anton. “Dlja privlechenija molodezhi Muzej okkupacij planiruet rasshirit’sja i smenit’ nazvanie.” Rus.err.ee April 11, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://rus.err.ee/227503/dlja-privlechenija-molodezhi-muzej-okkupacijplaniruet-rasshiritsja-i-smenit-nazvanie. BNS 2016 = “Direktor: poliitika ei tohiks mõjutada okupatsioonimuuseumi nime.” Postimees March 10, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.postimees. ee/3613503/direktor-poliitika-ei-tohiks-mojutada-okupatsioonimuuseumi-nime. Einmann, Andres. “Helme: okupatsioonide muuseumi nimemuutus saadab maailmale vale sõnumi.” Postimees February 22, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https:// www.postimees.ee/3592705/helme-okupatsioonide-muuseumi-nimemuutussaadab-maailmale-vale-sonumi. Ernits, Rutt. “Okupatsioonide muuseum lõi viie kuuga aastase külastusrekordi.” Kultuur.err.ee June 20, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://kultuur.err.ee/312679/ okupatsioonide-muuseum-loi-viie-kuuga-aastase-kulastusrekordi. Haravee, Juhan. “Okupatsioonide muuseumi nimevahetus tekitab pahameelt.” SL Õhtuleht March 5, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.ohtuleht.ee/721202/ okupatsioonide-muuseumi-nimevahetus-tekitab-pahameelt. Jõerüüt, Jaak. “Idee toppida vabadus ühte muuseumisse ja hakata seda seal arendama on absurdne.” Postimees April 4, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://arvamus.postimees.ee/3642085/jaak-joeruut-idee-toppida-vabadusuhte-muuseumisse-ja-hakata-seda-seal-arendama-on-absurdne. Kaas, Kaarel. “Holokaustipäev toob küüditatute mälestamise.” Postimees November 8, 2002. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.postimees.ee/1978481/ holokaustipaev-toob-kuuditatute-malestamise.

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Karaev, Nikolaj. “Vlast’ #4. Okkupacija, svoboda, demagogija.” Rus.postimees. ee March 13, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://rus.postimees.ee/3615195/ vlast-4-okkupaciya-svoboda-demagogiya. Kelam, Tunne. “Okupatsioonide muuseumist ei peaks saama paik, kuhu noored lähevad mõnusalt aega veetma.” Postimees February 26, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://arvamus.postimees.ee/3597669/tunne-kelam-okupatsioonidemuuseumist-ei-peaks-saama-paik-kuhu-noored-lahevad-monusalt-aega-veetma. Kolga, Marcus. “Welcome to the e-Occupation Museum.” ERR News February 22, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://news.err.ee/117677/marcus-kolga-welcometo-the-e-occupation-museum. 2016a. Kolga, Marcus. “Welcome to Estonia’s E-Occupation Museum.” Up North March 17, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://upnorth.eu/welcome-to-estonias-eoccupation-museum/. 2016b. Kultuuriministeerium 2017 = “Kultuuriministeerium toetab Okupatsioonide muuseumi uuendamist 600 000 euroga.” Kultuuriministeerium August 21, 2017. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.kul.ee/et/uudised/kultuuriministeeriumtoetab-okupatsioonide-muuseumi-uuendamist-600-000-euroga. Metlev, Sergei. “Eesti ühiskonna arusaam vabadusest on muutumas.” Õhtu­leht August 16, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.ohtuleht.ee/753810/ sergei-metlev-eesti-uhiskonna-arusaam-vabadusest-on-muutumas. Ministry of Defence of Republic of Moldova. “An Exhibition Dedicated to Soviet Occupation Period Opens at Military Museum.” Ministry of Defence March 26, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. http://www.army.md/?lng=3&action=show&cat =122&obj=3759#.WScwlrFh2Rs. Ojakivi, Mirko. “Enn Tarto on okupatsioonide muuseumi nimemuutmise vastu.” ERR Uudised February 21, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.err.ee/554849/ enn-tarto-on-okupatsioonide-muuseumi-nimemuutmise-vastu. Piipuu, Merilin. “Remembering the Occupations Will Remain at the Heart of the Museum.” ERR News February 25, 2016. Accessed December 21, 2020. https:// news.err.ee/117695/merilin-piipuu-remembering-the-occupations-will-remainat-the-heart-of-the-museum. 2016a. Piipuu, Merilin. “Okupatsioonide Muuseumi tegevdirektor | Okupatsioonidest vabaduseni” SL Õhtuleht March 8, 2016: 8. 2016b. Piipuu, Merilin. “Mis mahub kannatuste vahele? Marginaalia Eesti lähiajaloos.” Vikerkaar 7-8 (2016): 96-101. 2016c. Piipuu, Merilin. “Mäletada ja teenida vabadust? Kuidas?” Virumaa Teataja September 6, 2016: 2. 2016d. Põld, Andres. “Lagle Parek: okupatsioonis on lihtsam, vabaduses aga parem elada!” SL Õhtuleht April 16, 2016: 6-7. 2016a.

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Põld, Anna. “Okupatsioonide muuseumi nimevahetusega kardetakse muuseumi algse idee kadumist.” Delfi February 28, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https:// www.delfi.ee/artikkel/73784551/okupatsioonide-muuseumi-nimevahetusegakardetakse-muuseumi-algse-idee-kadumist. Pöördumine = “Pöördumine Okupatsioonide muuseumi nime küsimuses.” Kultuur & Elu 2 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. http://kultuur.elu.ee/ke524_Okupatsioon​ ide_muuseum.htm. Pullerits, Priit. “Eve Pärnaste: varasemast leebem, aga ikka võitluslik.” Postimees April 30, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.postimees.ee/3673447/ eve-parnaste-varasemast-leebem-aga-ikka-voitluslik. Radio Free Europe. Kyiv City Council Approves Open-Air Museum of Soviet ‘Occupation.’ July 15, 2015. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.rferl.org/a/ ukraine-kyiv-museum-soviet-occuptaiton/27149365.html. Rohemäe, Maria-Ann. “Kommunismiohvrid taunivad Okupatsioonide muuseumi uut nime.” ERR Uudised March 27, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.err. ee/556857/kommunismiohvrid-taunivad-okupatsioonide-muuseumi-uut-nime. Sepp, Heili. “Ajaloost, mälust ja märkidest.” Eesti Ekspress April 6, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://ekspress.delfi.ee/artikkel/74114363/heili-sepp-ajaloostmalust-ja-markidest. Sikk, Rein. “Kadri Viires hakkab okupatsioonide muuseumi äratama.” Eesti Päevaleht March 14, 2012. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://epl.delfi.ee/artikkel/64068043/ kadri-viires-hakkab-okupatsioonide-muuseumi-aratama. Sildam, Toomas. “Okupatsioonide muuseum võtab ette lähiajaloo uurimise.” Postimees June 28, 2003: 3. Soidro, Mart. “Hundid söönud, lambad murtud?” Saarte Hääl March 1, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.meiemaa.ee/index.php?content=artiklid&sub=2& artid=69022. Teder, Merike. “Okupatsioonide muuseum laiendab fookust.” Õhtuleht April 2, 2015. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://kultuur.postimees.ee/3143545/okupatsioonidemuuseum-laiendab-fookust. Tigasson, Külli-Riin. ““Vabamu” kõlab nagu “Kumu”! Miks peab okupatsioonide muuseumist saama Vabamu? Ekspress kohtus okupatsioonide muuseumi asutaja Olga Kistler-Ritso tütre Sylvia Kistler Thompsoniga.” Eesti Ekspress April 20, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://ekspress.delf i.ee/artikkel/74272035/ vabamu-kolab-nagu-kumu. “Uuring: Vabamu nime toetab vaid 10 protsenti Eesti kodanikest.” ERR Uudised June 22, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.err.ee/562183/ uuring-vabamu-nime-toetab-vaid-10-protsenti-eesti-kodanikest.

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Vaino, Maarja. “Avatus ei tohiks tähendada suletust mineviku ees.” ERR Uudised. Kultuur February 25, 2016. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://kultuur.err.ee/310792/ maarja-vaino-avatus-ei-tohiks-tahendada-suletust-mineviku-ees.

Sources Ahonen, Heiki. “Wie gründet man ein Museum? Zur Entstehungsgeschichte des Museums der Okkupationen in Tallinn.” Der Kommunismus im Museum: Formen der Auseinandersetzung in Deutschland und Ostmitteleuropa. Eds. Volkhard Knigge & Ulrich Mählert. Köln: Böhlau, 2005. 107-116. Alderman, Derek H. “Street Names as Memorial Arenas: The Reputational Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King in a Georgia County.” Historical Geography 30 (2002): 99-120. Anderson, Benedict R. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso, 1991. Anepaio, Terje. “Reception of the Topic of Repressions in the Estonian Society.” Pro Ethnologia 14 (2002): 47-65. Ashplant, Timothy G., Graham Dawson & Michael Roper. “The Politics of War Memory and Commemoration: Contexts, Structures and Dynamics.” Commemoration of War. Eds. Timothy G. Ashplant, Graham Dawson & Michael Roper. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publisher, 2004. 3-85. Baer, Alejandro & Natan Sznaider. Memory and Forgetting in the Post-Holocaust Era: The Ethics of Never Again. London: Routledge, 2016. Bayer, Gerd. “After Postmemory: Holocaust Cinema and the Third Generation.” Shofar: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Jewish Studies 28.4 (2010): 116-132. Berg, Lawrence D. & Robin A. Kearns. “Naming as Norming: ‘Race’, Gender, and the Identity Politics of Naming Places in Aotearoa/New Zealand.” Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 14 (1996): 99-122. Brodsky, Patricia Pollock. “The Power of Naming in the Postunification Attack on the German Left.” Nature, Society, and Thought 14.4 (2001): 419-500. Doronenkova, Kristine. “Official Russian Perspectives on the Historical Legacy: A Brief Introduction.” The Geopolitics of History in the Latvian-Russian Relations. Ed. Nils Muižnieks. Riga: Academic Press of the University of Latvia, 2011. 21-30. Ehin, Piret & Eiki Berg. “Incompatible identities? Baltic-Russian Relations and the EU as an Arena of Identity Conflict.” Identity and Foreign Policy: Baltic-Russian Relations and European Integration. Eds. Piret Ehin & Eiki Berg. Farnham, England; Burlington, VT: Ashgate Publishing Ltd., 2009. 1-14. “Ein studentischer Erfahrungsbericht. Kommunismus zum Anfassen? Museen zur Geschichte der kommunistischen Diktaturen in Ostmitteleuropa.” Der Kommunismus im Museum: Formen der Auseinandersetzung in Deutschland

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und Ostmitteleuropa. Eds. Volkhard Knigge & Ulrich Mählert. Köln: Böhlau, 2005. 193-223. Herzog, Stephen. “Revisiting the Estonian Cyber Attacks: Digital Threats and Multinational Responses.” Journal of Strategic Security 4.2 (2011): 49-60. DOI: 10.5038/1944-0472.4.2.3. Hirsch, Marianne. Family Frames: Photography, Narrative and Postmemory. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1997. Jõesalu, Kirsti & Ene Kõresaar. “Continuity or Discontinuity: On the Dynamics of Remembering “Mature Socialism” in Estonian Post-Soviet Remembrance Culture.” Journal of Baltic Studies 44.2 (2013): 177-203. Kearns, Robin A. & Lawrence D. Berg. “Proclaiming Place: Towards a Geography of Place Name Pronunciation.” Social & Cultural Geography 3.3 (2002): 283-302. DOI: 10.1080/1464936022000003532. Knigge, Volkhard & Ulrich Mählert. Der Kommunismus im Museum: Formen der Auseinandersetzung in Deutschland und Ostmitteleuropa. Köln: Böhlau, 2005. Kõresaar, Ene. “The Notion of Rupture in Estonian Narrative Memory: On the Construction of Meaning in Autobiographical Texts on the Stalinist Experience.” Ab Imperio 4 (2004): 313-339. Kõresaar, Ene & Kirsti Jõesalu. “Estonian Memory Culture Since the Post-communist Turn: Conceptualizing Change through the Lens of Generation.” Generations in Estonia: Contemporary Perspectives on Turbulent Times. Eds. Raili Nugin, Anu Kannike & Maaris Raudsepp. Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 2016. 128-156. Kõresaar, Ene & Kirsti Jõesalu. “From Museum as Memorial to Memory Museum: On the Transformation of the Estonian Museum of Occupations.” Occupation and Communism in Eastern European Museums Re-Visualizing the Recent Past. Eds. Peter Apor & Constantin Iordachi. London: Bloomsbury Academic, 2021. Kuusi, Hanna. “Prison Experiences and Socialist Sculptures: Tourism and the Soviet Past in the Baltic States.” Touring the Past: Uses of History in Tourism. Discussion and Working Papers n:o 6. Eds. Auvo Kostiainen & Taina Syrjämaa. Savonlinna: The Finnish University Network for Tourism Studies (FUNTS), Matkailualan verkostoyliopisto (MAVY), 2008: 105-122. Levy, Daniel & Natan Sznaider. “Memory Unbound: The Holocaust and the Formation of Cosmopolitan Memory.” European Journal of Social Theory 5.1 (2002): 87-106. DOI: 10.1177/1368431002005001002. Light, Duncan & Craig Young. “Habit, Memory, and the Persistence of Socialist-Era Street Names in Postsocialist Bucharest, Romania.” Annals of the Association of American Geographers 104.3 (2014): 668-685. Mälksoo, Maria. “The Memory Politics of Becoming European: The East European Subalterns and the Collective Memory of Europe.” European Journal of International Relations 15.4 (2009): 653-680. DOI: 10.1177/1354066109345049.

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Mälksoo, Maria. “‘Memory Must Be Defended’: Beyond the Politics of Mnemonical Security.” Security Dialogue 46.3 (2015): 221-237. DOI: 10.1177/0967010614552549. Mark, James. “Containing Fascism: History in Post-Communist Baltic Occupation and Genocide Museums.” Past for the Eyes: East European Representations of Communism in Cinema and Museums after 1989. Eds. Oksana Sarkisova & Péter Apor. Budapest: CEU Press, 2008. 335-369. Melchior, Inge. Guardians of Living History. The Persistence of the Past in Post-Soviet Estonia. Diss. Amsterdam: Vrije Universiteit, 2015. Muižnieks, Nils. “History, Memory and Latvian Foreign Policy.” The Geopolitics of History in the Latvian-Russian Relations. Ed. Nils Muižnieks. Riga: Academic Press of the University of Latvia, 2011. 7-18. Nora, Pierre. “Between Memory and History: Les Lieux de Mémoire.” Representations. Special Issue: Memory and Counter-Memory 29 (1989): 7-24. Õispuu 2016 = Leo Õispuu speech at the commemoration event on March 25, 2016 at Museum of Occupation on the commemoration day of deportation in 1949. Accessed March 28, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z64vSFGKkeo. Onken, Eva-Clarita. “The Baltic States and Moscow’s 9 May Commemoration: Analysing Memory Politics in Europe.” Europe-Asia Studies 59.1 (2007): 23-46. Palonen, Emilia. “The City-Text in Post-Communist Budapest: Street Names, Memorials, and the Politics of Commemoration.” GeoJournal 73 (2008): 219-230. DOI: 10.1007/s10708-008-9204-2. Pettai, Eva Clarita. “Establishing ‘Holocaust Memory’: A Comparison of Estonia and Latvia.” Historical Memory Culture in the Enlarged Baltic Sea Region and its Symptoms Today. Eds. Oliver Rathkolb & Imbi Sooman. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2011. 159-174. Radonić, Ljiljana. “Post-Communist Invocation of Europe: Memorial Museums’ Narratives and the Europeanization of Memory.” National Identities 19.2 (2017): 269-288. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Smith, David J. “Woe from Stones: Commemoration, Identity Politics and Estonia’s ‘War of Monuments.’” Journal of Baltic Studies 39.4 (2008): 419-430. Tamm, Marek. “In Search of Lost Time: Memory Politics in Estonia, 1991-2011.” Nationalities Papers 41.4 (2013): 651-674. DOI: 10.1080/00905992.2012.747504. Thompson, Sylvia. Speech at the Estonian Independence Day Celebration Sunnyvale, California. February 27, 2016. Accessed December 21, 2021. https://www. cultures-of-history.uni-jena.de/fileadmin/editorial/articles/Weekes_Vabamu/ thompson_speech.pdf. Törnquist-Plewa, Barbara. “Local Memories under the Influence of Europeanization and Globalization: Comparative Remarks and Conclusions.” Whose memory? Which Future? Remembering Ethnic Cleansing and Lost Cultural Diversity in

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Eastern, Central and Southeastern Europe. Ed. Barbara Törnquist-Plewa. New York: Berghahn Books, 2016. 208-226. Troebst, Stefan. “‘Budapest’ oder, ‘Batak’? Varietäten südosteuropäischer Erinnerungskulturen.” Zwischen Amnesie und Nostalgie: Die Erinnerung an den Kommunismus in Südosteuropa. Eds. Ulf Brunnbauer & Stefan Troebst. Köln: Böhlau, 2007. 15-26. Velmet, Aro. “Occupied Identities: National Narratives in Baltic Museums of Occupations.” Journal of Baltic Studies 42.2 (2011): 189-211. DOI: 10.1080/01629778.2011.569065. Vukov, Nikolai. “Protean Memories, ‘Permanent’ Visualizations: Monuments and History Museums in Post-Communist Eastern Europe.” The Burden of Remembering: Recollections and Representations of the 20th century. Eds. Ene Kõresaar, Epp Lauk & Kristin Kuutma. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2007. 139-159. Weekes, Lorraine. “Debating Vabamu: Changing names and narratives at Estonia’s Museum of Occupations.” Cultures of History Forum April 25, 2017. Accessed March 1, 2018. http://www.cultures-of-history.uni-jena.de/debates/estonia/debatingvabamu-changing-names-and-narratives-at-estonias-museum-of-occupations/. Zhurzhenko, Tatiana. “The Geopolitics of Memory.” Eurozine May 10, 2007. Accessed March 1, 2018. https://www.eurozine.com/the-geopolitics-of-memory/.

About the authors Kirsti Jõesalu is an ethnologist, working as a researcher and lecturer at Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her main fields of research are the social memory of socialism and oral history. Her most recent project (together with Kõresaar) investigates Baltic museums from the perspective of mnemonic pluralism. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1756-047X Ene Kõresaar is Professor of Oral History and Memory Studies, Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her research interests include World War II and socialism, post-communist memory politics, oral history, commemorative journalism and museums. Her most recent project (together with Jõesalu) investigates Baltic museums from the perspective of mnemonic pluralism. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9611-0460

2

Remembering the ’68 Movement in Germany A Left Counter-Memory? Priska Daphi and Jens Zimmermann

Abstract The chapter analyses the politics of memory around the ’68 movement in Germany, a phase of intense mobilizations that still constitutes a controversial issue in German public discourse. Bringing together social movement and memory studies, the chapter explores in how far activists of a recent left movement – the German anti-austerity movement Block – share a counter-memory of this contentious past. For this purpose, the chapter compares public and activists’ memories of ’68 based on media analysis and interviews with Blockupy activists. The analysis shows that Blockupy activists only partially share a counter-memory of ’68 as their memories are similar to public memories in several respects with the exception of their emphasis on ’68’s thematic legacy of anti-fascism and internationalism. Keywords: counter-memory, public memory, politics of memory, ’68 movement, Blockupy movement, anti-austerity movement

Introduction The ’68 movement marks a phase of intense and diverse mobilizations that left considerable traces in the German political landscape. As the first broader left-wing movement in post-war Germany, the movement constituted a crucial testing ground for extra-parliamentary politics and new repertoires of protest, including sit-ins as well as militant actions. Despite

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch02

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being more than 50 years ago, the ’68 movement remains a prominently and controversially discussed issue in German public discourse until today (von Lucke 2008a; 2008b). Interpretations of the movement’s long-term legacies differ considerably, ranging from a positive liberal framing of ’68 as the democratic and emancipatory awakening of German society to the more negative conservative reading as the starting point of (left-wing) political violence and the erosion of traditional values (von Lucke, 2008a; Mittler & Wolfrum, 2008). This chapter explores the role of present-day left-wing movements in this “politics of memory” around ’68. In particular, we are interested in how far left-wing movements today share a counter-memory of ’68, a memory that “does not fit the historical narratives available” (Medina 2011, 12) and that differs from – and may influence and challenge – public memory. With this analysis the paper seeks to contribute, on the one hand, to the emerging body of research on memories of ’68 in Germany. This literature so far has largely focused on personal memories of former activists or broader public memories of ’68 in media and political discourses but has overlooked how present-day activists remember ’68. On the other hand, the chapter aims to contribute to the growing literature about the interconnections between memories and social movement and in particular research on how movements challenge and shape existing memories of a particular past. The chapter’s analysis will in particular explore how activists of the German anti-austerity movement Blockupy remember ’68 – a prominent recent left-wing movement in Germany with certain overlaps in goals – and will compare their memories to those in major media outlets in Germany. Drawing on interviews with Blockupy activists and a media analysis of three German newspapers, the paper will show that the Blockupy activists only share a partial counter-memory of ’68, as several elements overlap between the movement’s memory and public memory. In the following, we will first provide an overview of the ’68 movement in Germany and existing research about memories of this contentious past. A second part will elaborate our conceptual approach, detailing the concept of counter-memory and contextualizing the chapter’s analysis within the broader literature on the interconnections between memory and social movements. The third part will briefly outline the analytical focus and data used in this chapter’s analysis. In a fourth part we will analyse activists’ and media memories of ’68, pointing out both similarities and differences.

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The ’68 movement in Germany The ’68 movement in West Germany constitutes a phase of mobilizations which peaked between mid-1967 and 1969 (Rucht 1998).1 In particular the year 1968 saw a high density of political actions largely led by student activists. Emerging in the context of “the global 1960s”, the ’68 movement in Germany was strongly influenced by transnational developments (e.g. Brown 2013; Horn 2007; Frei 2008; Slobodian 2012). In university cities like Berlin, Berkeley, Paris and Rome, students challenged the state and society, demanding improvements in civil rights, democratic participation and disarmament. Nonetheless, ’68 in Germany had a couple of distinct features that set it apart from mobilizations elsewhere: First, while the German ’68 movement shared the “global 1960s” focus on issues of civil rights, international solidarity and peace (see e.g. Slobodian 2012), some issues were country-specific. In particular, the German ’68 movement was strongly concerned with crimes of the Nazi era and the older generation’s complicity in them as well as remaining authoritarian tendencies in German institutions (Brown 2013; Rucht 1998). Second, German ’68 mobilizations also had far fewer ties with labour movements and trade unions than ’68 movements in other countries (e.g. in Italy and France) and hence issues of labour rights and social security were less prominent (Rucht 1998; della Porta 1995). As in other countries, the ’68 movement in Germany was a highly heterogeneous movement with more or less loose connections between the different spectrums (Rucht 1998). Furthermore, as in other countries, two phases of the ’68 movement in Germany can be distinguished. The first phase of the ’68 movement in Germany was centrally characterized by student mobilizations and lasted until the end of 1968. In the mid-1960s, Germany saw an increasing number of protests against authoritarian structures and norms in German institutions, including in universities. Confronting German society with its Nazi past, the West German movement demanded an open debate about “fascist tendencies” in German institutions and societal life. Alongside trials about the Nazi atrocities in the early 1960s, this analysis developed against a background of growing distrust in political institutions in the context of restrictions on 1 This overview of the ’68 movement will largely focus on the mobilizations in West Germany. In East Germany mobilizations also took place around the year 1968 (see, e.g., Gehrke 2008), but these remained much smaller in scale than the protests in West Germany and had a different thematic focus and actor constellation. Accordingly, most studies about memories of ’68 focus on West Germany, with a few exceptions (e.g. von der Goltz 2013).

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civil rights at the same time, for example, through restrictions of the free press (e.g., in the so-called “Spiegel Affair”) and the planned introduction of the emergency act in the summer of 1968, which sparked massive protests (see e.g., Fichter & Lönnendonker 2008). In addition, the war in Vietnam became a significant topic and was framed by students as an “imperialistic aggression” (Gilcher-Holtey 2005, 35-48). Various decisive events marked this first phase of the ’68 movement, in particular in the years 1967 and 1968. In particular, West Berlin became a central site for the first mobilizations of students applying new repertoires of political action like sit-ins, go-ins and civil disobedience. A turning point in the development of the German student movement was the shooting of the student Benno Ohnesorg on June 2, 1967 in West Berlin by a policeman during a rally against the visit of the Shah of Iran. Confirming the students’ distrust in political institutions, this event considerably increased confrontations with the police. Another critically important event was the fatal attack on one of the student movement’s leading figures, Rudi Dutschke, on April 11, 1968, which led to massive demonstrations. As the attacker claimed to have been inspired by the tabloid newspaper BILD, its publishing house Springer became one of the main targets of the student movement. The second phase of the ’68 movement is located between 1969 and the late ’70s and largely characterized by growing divides. The end of the year 1968 constituted a crucial breaking point in the organizational and ideological structure of the ’68 movement. The 1970s were a period of differentiation between the remains of the student movement and the German left. While all groups criticized the political and capitalist system, they were highly divided in relation to the theoretical analysis, aims and practical means used to oppose authoritarian and imperialist structures. The groups’ intense rivalry created a climate of political hostility that considerably restricted the capacity for broader mobilization. Roughly speaking, four different strands of activist groups can be identified in this period, with each following different approaches and activities (Koenen 2002, 39-51). The Socialist German Student Union (SDS), which had split from the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in 1961 and played a central role in the mobilizations till 1967, dissolved in 1970 as a result of mounting tensions between its different factions. In particular, divides deepened between the “anti-authoritarians,” who sought non-hierarchical organization, and the “traditionals,” who situated themselves more in the tradition of the labour movement and favoured more hierarchical forms of organization (and in the following years founded the so-called “K-Gruppen” communist groups; see, e.g., Steffen 2002). The second strand, the “anti-authoritarians,” an

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influential group already in the early years of the ’68 mobilizations, relied on anarchist theory and focused more on subcultural issues like sexuality, as well as individual autonomy (Kießling 2006).2 A third strand of activists involved in the ’70s mobilizations were the Trotskyist groups, which overall had only little relevance for the German left. The fourth strand of activism was comprised of militant and armed groups like the Red Army Faction (RAF; see Aust 2008), the 2 June Movement (Wunschik 2006) and Revolutionary Cells (Kraushaar 2006), who operated largely between 1970 and the mid-1980s. Influenced by the concept of “guerrilla urban warfare” (Gierds 2006), they adopted militant repertoires, including bombing and assassination. The militancy of the RAF and other militant groups and the state’s counter-terrorism measures were an intensely debated and highly controversial issue, which left a considerable imprint on the interpretation of the German ’68 movement in the following years and on its political outcomes. Existing research on memories of 1968 The protests of ’68 in Germany have received much scholarly attention (particularly the protests in Western Germany) covering different disciplines such as cultural studies, history, and social movement studies. However, until recently, research about the memory of ’68 has remained rare (Gassert 2010) – particularly if compared to scholarly work on memories of ’68 in other countries (on Italy, see e.g. Passerini 1996; Foot 2010; Hajek 2013b; Zamponi 2018; della Porta 2018; on France, see Gordon 2010; Neveu 2014; Ross 2008). More distant research into ’68 and its commemoration overall is a “relatively new phenomenon” (Cornils 2016, 9) as former ’68 activists strongly influenced the interpretation of this past for a long time. Scholarly analyses of ’68 in Germany instead have largely focused on the movement’s dynamic of mobilization, including its most prominent ideologies and leaders (e.g. Slobodian 2012; Nehring 2014; Rucht 1998), its international connections (e.g. Brown 2013) and its internal culture and practices (see e.g. Mausbach 2002; Fahlenbrach et al. 2008; Reichardt, 2014). However, more recently, a growing body of literature examines memories of ’68 in Germany. These studies explore different dimensions of ’68 memories, including personal memories of former activists (e.g. von der Goltz 2013; Behre 2016), public memories in media and political discourses (e.g. von 2 These groups constituted crucial predecessors of the later autonomous movement (Katsiaficas 2006) and, to some degree, the new social movements (Reichardt 2014).

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Lucke 2008a; Bielby 2010; Mittler & Wolfrum 2008) as well as cultural memories in fiction and film (e.g. Rinner 2013). However, studies about how present-day activists remember ’68 are largely missing (but see Daphi & Zimmermann 2021). Since current social movements may challenge and shape overall memories of ’68 (see next section), this chapter will focus on how present-day left-wing social movements remember this past. Existing studies about public memories of the ’68 movement in Germany as formulated by present-day political elites and media show that memories have changed over the decades (von Lucke 2008a; 2008b; Mittler & Wolfrum 2008; Wolfrum 2001). In particular, conservative and liberal framings have competed over time with one or the other of these two views becoming more salient at certain periods. In the conservative view, the ’68 movement is seen to have promoted the decline of traditional values as part of the “modernization” of society (Mittler & Wolfrum 2008, 18). In contrast, according to the more positive left-liberal view, the ’68 movement is a central foundation of German civil society and democratization from below (Mittler & Wolfrum 2008, 21). Albrecht von Lucke (2008a; 2008b), for example, identifies five phases of the public memory of 1968. In the first phase, between 1968 and 1977, the reference to ’68 – or the generation of ’68 – was not only part of a positive personal and collective affirmation of left-wing intellectuals and activists, but it was also used by liberal media such as the newspaper Die Zeit as a positive reference to processes of democratization (von Lucke 2008a; 2008b). In a second phase, between the late 1970s and early 1980s, the militant actions of the RAF overshadowed such positive connotations of the term ’68, as the movement and its leaders were accused of being precursors of left-wing terrorism. At the same time, in this second phase the ’68 movement was increasingly understood to have initiated a cultural modernization which shaped the state and society. In a third phase, between the 1980s and early 1990s, the latter interpretation became the dominant memory of the ’68 movement and its activists (von Lucke 2008b). The reunification process gave birth to a fourth phase – from the mid-1990s to 2006 – with a shift to the right in German political culture so that the conservative frame of a value decline was prominent in the public discourse again. The fifth phase – from 2007 onwards – featured an additional negative connotation according to von Lucke (2008b), namely the idea that ’68 brought about a “new bourgeoisie,” a symbiosis of conservative and green-ecological values (von Lucke 2008b). These changing memories of ’68 reveal that debates about its interpretation are far from confined to the past. Unlike other countries, memories of ’68 in Germany continue to be a controversial issue in public debates

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(Brown 2013, 1; von Lucke 2008a). The continuing discussion about ’68’s central legacies also means that ’68 is being picked up in all kinds of current debates be it on university politics, environmental issues, or gender equality (Cornils 2016; von Lucke 2008a). In fact, scholars argue this contentious past has been discussed in so many different contexts that it is no longer “owned by a single memory group” (Hajek 2013a, 4). In this vein, it is not uncommon that various current waves of mobilization are compared to ’68 in public discourse – including the Blockupy movement. At the same time, current left-wing movements and the ’68 movement are several decades apart and organizational continuity is missing. The lack of organizational continuity on the left is centrally linked to the context of German reunification and the end of the Cold War, in which the German left was under considerable pressure to distance itself from communism and socialism and tried to renew itself by breaking up “old” organizational structures like traditional Leninist groups and by founding new ones. Accordingly, an infrastructure that could have facilitated the transmission of a specific memory of ’68 from one cycle of left-wing mobilization to the next is missing, drawing attention to the question: in how far do current left-wing movements form a memory of ’68 that is distinct from public memory? On what bases do present-day activists build their memories of ’68 and in how far are they affected by external influences? To answer these questions, the following analysis will explore in how far Blockupy activists form a counter-memory of ’68 that diverges from overall public memory of ’68. Politics of memory, counter-memories and social movements Memories of the past are always contested, especially memories of conflictive pasts (see introduction to this book). As the above section revealed, this is also the case for the ’68 movement in Germany. As the literature on politics of memory highlights, in memory-building different actors struggle to bring forth their version of events (e.g. Mitchell 2003; Mayo 1988). Drawing on the concept of politics of memory, this chapter follows a conflictive understanding of collective memory. As collective memory is not only shaped by particular social settings (Halbwachs 1980 [1950]) but also “speak[s] in the name of [a] collectivity” (Olick 1999, 345), it is subject to struggles over interpretation (e.g., Olick & Levy 1997; Jansen 2007). In such “politics of memory”, collective memory is closely intertwined with power: it is affected by, as well as affects, power relations (Assmann 2006; Mayo 1988; Savage 1994; Huyssen 2003). This means that memories on the one hand are “hegemonically produced and maintained” (Mitchell 2003,

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443), as those in more powerful positions have more leverage. On the other hand, such hegemonic memories will also be contested and reformulated by other actors. In order to understand these conflictive dynamics, the concept of countermemories promises important insights as it draws attention to groups formulating a different version of the past that challenges the mainstream. Accordingly, this chapter draws on this concept to analyse how present-day left-wing activists remember ’68. The concept of counter-memory (e.g., Olick & Robbins 1998; Molden 2016; Goldberg, Porat & Schwarz 2006; Tachibana 1998) describes memories that “do not fit the historical narratives available” (Medina 2011, 12). Counter-memories go “against the grain” of the hegemonic reading of the past (Medina 2011, 12). Hence, the concept of counter-memory entails the assumption that a hegemonic memory exists which others can and will oppose. Accordingly, the concept of counter-memory is founded on the theoretical writings of Michel Foucault (e.g., 1980), and it has recently been extended through the reflections of Antonio Gramsci’s and Ernesto Laclau’s hegemony theory (see Molden 2016; Medina 2011). In order to analyse counter-memories, social movements are worthwhile to consider as they are by definition collective actors that are characterized by their contentious nature: they challenge the status quo and enter conflictive relationship with their opponents (della Porta & Diani 2006). In this vein, social movements can be expected to challenge hegemonic memories of decisive events. And in fact, several studies examine how movements challenge public memories about past contentions and other historical events (e.g. Bosco 2004; Gutman 2017; Whitlinger 2019). Such contestation does not necessarily need to be direct and intended. For this reason, not every dimension of a counter-memory is directly addressed at the hegemonic memory. Rather, it may refer to it more implicitly or partially (see Ullrich, Daphi & Baumgarten 2014). Against this background, in this chapter we explore in how far contemporary left-wing movements in Germany have built a counter-memory, namely, a memory that opposes mainstream public memories of that period. In analysing this, the chapter can draw on the growing literature on the interplay of memory and social movements – especially a particular strand of this research. In recent years, scholarly interest in the links between social movements and memory has been growing considerably (e.g. Jansen 2007; Armstrong & Crage 2006; Gongaware 2011; Zamponi 2018; Zamponi & Daphi 2014; Daphi 2017a, della Porta et al. 2018). The growth of this literature draws on developments within both social movement studies and memory studies (see Daphi & Zamponi 2019): On the one hand, memory scholars

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have become increasingly interested in memories of agency, resilience and resistance, directing attention to the activating and potentially empowering potential of collective memory. (e.g. Merrill 2017; Reading & Katriel 2015; Jansen 2007; Rigney 2018; Bull & Hansen 2015). On the other hand, social movement scholars have become more and more interested in the role of collective memory in contentious politics (e.g., Armstrong & Crage 2006; Harris 2006; Farthing & Kohl 2013; Zamponi & Daphi 2014; Daphi 2017a) against the background of the cultural turn and its attention to meaning making (Baumgarten, Daphi, & Ullrich 2014), as well as spurred by the growing interest in continuities between cycles of mobilization and movements’ temporality (see Daphi & Zamponi 2019). Three strands of research on the links between memories and movements can be distinguished, each addressing this relationship from a different angle (for an overview see Daphi & Zamponi 2019): A first strand of research focuses on memories of movements and explores how certain past protests are remembered (or forgotten) in society (e.g. Hajek 2013b; Rigney 2018; Chidgey 2018; Cheng & Yuen 2019). A second strand of research explores movements about memory, analysing how movements shape and change existing memories of particular events (e.g. Bosco 2004; Gutman 2017; Whitlinger 2019). A third strand of the literature analyses memories in movements and is less interested in memory as an issue of contention (as research on movements about memory) but rather focuses on how memories of various pasts (including national events, as well previous protest) affect how movements mobilize, shaping for example recruiting processes, identity building or strategic decisions (e.g. Harris 2006; Baumgarten 2017; Jansen 2007; Zamponi 2018, Daphi 2017a, 2017b). This chapter will mainly contribute to the second strand of research. Even though Blockupy is not a movement whose primary goal is to challenge mainstream memory, the chapter draws on the second strand of research as it is focused on the question in how far this movement does challenge existing memories of ’68. This second strand of research (as well as the third strand) draws on the idea – as does this chapter – that social movements are distinct spheres of memory production and particular mnemonic communities, as formulated in existing studies on memory and movement (see, e.g., Zamponi 2013). Accordingly, the following analysis will explore in how far Blockupy activists indeed build a movement-specific memory of ’68 that is distinct from public memory. The Blockupy movement constitutes an interesting case study for analysing in how far a counter-memory of ’68 is built for the following reasons: it constitutes a prominent recent left movement in Germany that shares

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certain characteristics with the ’68 movement, in particular its critique of democratic deficits and capitalism. With these overlaps in goals, we can expect references by Blockupy activists to ’68 as well as an interest in developing an own version of this past. As with anti-austerity movements in other parts of the world, the Blockupy movement in Germany mobilized against austerity measures and for more democracy in the aftermath of the 2007 financial crisis. While considerably smaller in scale than occupy movements elsewhere, Blockupy has received much public and scholarly attention (e.g., Skærlund Risager, 2018; Mullis, Belina, Petzold, Pohl, & Schipper, 2016). The Blockupy alliance formed in 2012 with the shared goal of challenging the European “crisis regime” (Mullis, Belina, Petzold, Pohl, & Schipper 2016, 50). The alliance organized several protest events in Frankfurt and other cities against the financial policy and democratic deficits of the EU and participated in related events across Europe. In addition to their “days of action against the European crisis regime” in 2012 and 2013, their most central events took place in 2014 and 2015. In particular, the demonstrations on 18 March 2015 on the occasion of the opening of the European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt – with around 20,000 participants – received national and international attention and represented the peak of mobilizations.

Analytical focus and data In order to explore the extent to which activists of the Blockupy movement share a counter-memory of ’68, the following analysis will compare activists’ memories with public memories. For this purpose, we draw on narrative interviews with activists, on the one hand, and media analysis on the other. The interviews allow insights into the movement-specific memory of ’68, into shared patterns of how activists remember ’68 with a focus on internal discourses about the past, rather than examining other dimensions of remembrance such as cultural products, practices or rituals (Zerubavel 1996). The media analysis provides helpful insights into the broader public discourse about 1968. While not covering all dimensions of ’68’s’ public memory, the media analysis allows identifying major strands of such memory. After all, media content is also produced and reproduced in a context of a broader discourse and power relations. We conducted interviews with Blockupy activists from different groups and backgrounds in Berlin and Frankfurt. The two cities were selected since they represent two central locations of Blockupy Germany and the left-wing scene in Germany overall. In addition, both cities constituted central sites

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of the ’68 protests in (West) Germany (see Reichardt 2014; Brown 2013). For both cities, we interviewed activists from different types of groups and backgrounds. The Blockupy movement is a broad alliance between different political groups such as trade unions, the German left party Die Linke, and radical left-wing groups. Furthermore, the alliance involves activists from different generations – with an older group involved who have experienced the 1960s themselves and a group of younger activists who did not. To cover this diversity, we interviewed activists from different age groups as well as major ideological groups involved in the coalition,3 including both more moderate left-wing groups, such as the association ATTAC and the trade union ver.di, as well as more radical left-wing groups like the Interventionist Left (IL) and the group All or nothing! (“…ums Ganze!,”). 4 For each group within the coalition, we conducted two to four interviews in Berlin and Frankfurt adding up to a total of seventeen interviews that were conducted in 2016 and 2017. The media analysis is based on content analysis of three German newspapers. In order to assess the mainstream mnemonic discourse, our newspaper selection included, first, newspapers with different perspectives: the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) is a more value-conservative daily newspaper whereas the Süddeutsche Zeitung (SZ) and the weekly Die Zeit are known for their more liberal attitude in political debates (Gerhards et al., 1998). Second, we selected high-circulation quality newspapers: the three selected newspapers have the major share of the German print market (about 2.8 million readers).5 This selection of newspapers thus allowed us to get a sense of the mainstream public discourse of 1968 in Germany, which is also why we intentionally disregarded more left-wing newspapers. As ’68 can be expected to be most frequently referred to in the context of its anniversaries, the media analysis focused on articles around its fortieth anniversary in 2008 (2007-2009), the anniversary directly preceding the Blockupy movement’s launch in 2012. Based on a keyword search, a total 3 In interview quotes below identified as G1 for the older generation, mostly in their 60s and 70s and G2 for Generation 2, a younger generation of activists in their 20s to 40s without own experiences of ’68. 4 ATTAC: German chapter of the international Association for the Taxation of Financial Transactions and Citizen’s Action. 5 Tabloid newspapers with a wide coverage were not included in the analysis as they hardly address the ’68 movement in detail. In this vein, for example, the tabloid newspaper BILD published no articles centrally dedicated to the student movement in the year of the 40th anniversary of 1968. Between 2007 and 2008, only a total of 11 articles relate more indirectly to the ’68 movement, focusing largely on particular persons and celebrities involved.).

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body of 164 articles was collected dealing with 1968 in the context of the anniversary, out of which we selected 84 articles for further in-depth analysis as they addressed ’68 most directly. All of these articles have in common a strong narrative structure and the tendency toward an evaluation of events, so that they allow insights into the construction of memory in a distinct part of public discourse, namely, media memory (e.g. Neiger et al. 2011). In the following analysis we will draw on both the interviews and media analysis to compare how they remember ’68. The comparison will focus in particular on similarities and differences between the activists’ and the newspapers’ memories of ’68. These similarities and differences will be identified on the basis of recurrent mnemonic patterns that are most prominently and consistently shared among the newspaper articles on the one hand and among the activist interviews on the other.

Analysis of memories of ’68 by activists and media The following analysis will elaborate the most prominent similarities and differences in how ’68 is remembered in the analysed newspaper articles and activist interviews. As we will show, there are several similarities in how newspapers and activists remember ’68. However, memories differ considerably with respect to the goals and thematic legacies of ’68. Activists are aware and critical about the dominant mnemonic discourse surrounding ’68, particularly with respect to these thematic legacies. We thus argue that Blockupy activists only partly share a counter-memory of ’68. Similarities in media and activist memory 1: the 1960s as a more politicized time One of the prominent recurrent themes in both the newspaper articles and interviews we analysed is that of ’68 being embedded in a highly politicized time. This refers to the notion that both society in general as well as specific groups, including students, were highly politicized – not only in the sense of being strongly interested in political developments but also in the sense of forming diverging and often radical opinions and worldviews. This state of high politicization is contrasted with today’s lower levels of politicization both in the media reports as well as in the activist interviews. Our analysis of newspapers in this context in particular shows a tendency to present ’68 as a period in which activists and society in general were living in times of increasing politicization. Most notably, the death of Benno

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Ohnesorg, a student who was shot during a demonstration against the Shah in Berlin on July 2, 1967, is presented in all of the newspapers analysed as the beginning of the process of politicization and radicalization in different parts of society. In this vein, 1968 is also frequently described as a year of “ideologization”. In this context, the different newspapers stress that some of the unpolitical students turned to Marxist theory, sympathizing with Chinese or Soviet Communism, while others experimented with “free sexuality” and new forms of living (e.g., in communes). Accordingly, an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung highlights the politicization of different groups: The summer of 1969 was very nice, very exciting and a little bit scary. Within several months drug dealers became party cadres, individual anarchists became adepts of Stalinism, and artists and f ilm makers became agitprop specialists. (FAZ, 7/22/ 2007, 45)

Today’s students, in contrast, are often described in the newspaper articles as much more adapted to norms in society and the university, and envisioning social and political alternatives is far outside of their focus. Blockupy activists similarly describe the 1960s as a highly politicized time when politics was part of everyday routines and lifestyles, and levels of political mobilization were high. As with the newspapers, activists from different groups and generations contrast the 1960s’ degree of politicization with that of today and highlight the lower current levels of mobilization, especially among students. Activists highlight in this vein, how it was easy to mobilize very quickly a large number of activists for a spontaneous demonstration in the late 1960s, whereas “nowadays, we have to mobilize for six months to achieve this” as an ATTAC activist from the older generation points out (Interview 9, G1/M). Similarly, a younger activist of the Interventionist Left also contrasts the ’68 lifestyle with the unpolitical atmosphere at German universities today: I associate that time with a strong politicization of the universities and that there were assemblies and that the people wanted to get rid of something anachronistic. And this feeling no longer exists in such a neoliberal framework of universities. For me, this is the strongest reference point when thinking about what happened in the ’60s and ’70s at the universities […]. Today […] universities are places where nothing happens anyway. (Interview 4, G2/R)

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Similarities in media and activist memory 2: ’68 as highly divided A second prominent similarity we found between memories of ’68 among the Blockupy activists and the media accounts is the recurrent narrative of ’68 being highly divided. In this vein, both newspapers and activists point out how ’68 was not only characterized by its diversity but also by deep internal divisions. The newspaper articles we analysed frequently refer to 1968 as a period of fragmentation without going into much detail about the different ideological perspectives. Instead, these divides – in contrast to the activists’ accounts – are often associated with incoherent or chaotic organizing and are seen as central factors in ’68’s decline. In this vein, an article in the Süddeutsche Zeitung highlights the ideological divides and missing coordination of ’68 in Munich: […] there were different groups with different ideologies and political programs: Trotskyists, Maoists, K-groups and so forth. Overall, the APO [extra-parliamentary opposition] in Munich was highly unorganized and autonomous. (SZ, 12/13/2007, 43)

Blockupy activists also frequently refer to ’68 as a time of strong divisions. Activists from different groups and generations highlight the “profound conflicts” (Interview 3, G2/R) between different groups, most prominently between orthodox Marxist and anarchist groups. Activists also frequently mention the ideological and organizational divisions between the different communist groups and their diverse perspectives on revolutionary practice. Against this background, activists stress how cooperation was often difficult between different groups even though in many cases “differences were minimal” as an older activist from ATTAC highlights (Interview 9, G1/M). In this vein, an older activist from the party Die Linke resumes: It was a very splintered landscape back then […] we never did joint actions with [the more anarchist groups], that always stayed very separate. (Interview 8, G1/M)

Rather than a unique occurrence, activists however see these lines of division as something that still shapes the left in Germany today. The Blockupy network, however, is seen to have successfully brought together the very heterogeneous left in Germany, and older activists in particular contrast this very explicitly with ’68’s divisions (see Daphi & Zimmermann 2021).

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Differences between media and activists’ memories: thematic legacies While the above sections identified similarities in memories of 1968 among Blockupy activists and media articles, this section points to a crucial difference. With respect to ’68’s main goals and successes, we found recurrently different narratives in the media outlets we analysed and activists’ interviews. While newspapers focus mainly on ’68 as a “cultural revolution” and an overall driving force of modernization, activists highlight the fartherreaching political goals and implications of ’68. In this context, our media analysis shows that newspapers focus on ’68 as successful mainly in triggering a cultural modernization in Germany, discussing especially its effects for sexuality and partnership in great detail and proclaiming this to be the movement’s main lasting success. Other studies about ’68’s legacy similarly observe how in the media “the original story of the revolt of a few thousand young students was soon supplemented by sex, drugs, and rock and roll” (Cornils 2016, 9). Accordingly, newspaper articles frequently refer to ’68 as a “vehicle of a due modernization” that “smashed traditions” (Zeit, 5/17/2007). Similarly, an article in the FAZ points out: The lasting value of ’68 is not the utopia of Maoist sectarians, but that everyone can propagate his ideas without being sent to jail as a public enemy. Not that the sexual libertinage of Kommune 1 endures, but leasing a flat to an unmarried couple no longer fails due to procuration law and homosexuality is not a crime any more. (FAZ, 5/21/2008, 9)

Beyond moral and sexual liberalization, the newspaper articles we analysed consider ’68’s political aims to have largely failed – a common theme in public memory since at least the 1970s (see von Lucke, 2008a). While some general process of democratization is often attributed to ’68 – in the context of its overall modernizing influence – newspapers in this way tend to underestimate the impact of ’68 on political institutions and discourses. Accordingly, an article from the Süddeutsche Zeitung resumes: The political defeat could not be denied. But equally so, the earthquake could not be denied that strongly shook up our anachronistic ideas of society, morality and the state. (SZ, 5/21/2008, 2)

In contrast, Blockupy activists stress the political legacies of ’68, in particular its impact on the issues of anti-fascism and internationalism. The emphasis

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on these two issues contrasts with the focus in the newspaper articles analysed on the movement’s cultural and life-style goals. In fact, some activists make this juxtaposition consciously as they criticize public discourse and the mainstream media for its focus on cultural achievements in a ‘folklorization’ of ’68 (Interview 5, G2/R) that eschews an issue-related discussion of ’68 and fails to adequately consider its political goals and legacies. With respect to ’68’s thematic legacy of anti-fascism, activists highlight the success of how the ’68 movement confronted German society with its history of fascism and the involvement of “normal Germans” in Nazi crimes, or at least their tacit acceptance of fascist politics. Linked to this, activists also point to ’68’s successful critique of authoritarian structures and institutions in German society more generally. In this context, fascism and authoritarianism are not only understood as “issues of history” that ’68 dealt with. Activists also highlight that ’68 brought anti-fascism and antiauthoritarianism onto the political agenda more permanently. The lesson learned from ’68 is that some facets of fascism and authoritarianism can “survive” under democratic conditions and can be reactivated quickly – as shown by the surge of far right movements across Europe in recent years. In this vein, a younger activist of the group All or nothing! argues: I think that [‘68’s] confrontation with fascism and National Socialism, as well as the question under which circumstances both survive in formal democracies, […] is a very urgent question if you just consider what is happening in Europe at the moment. (Interview 5, G2/R)

Second, activists also consider ’68 to have successfully brought the issue of internationalism on to the political agenda, understood as the solidarity with oppressed and disadvantaged world regions and the questioning of the international power structures behind such inequalities. Activists across the different groups and generations stress that ’68’s internationalism is a central “heritage” of ’68 (e.g. Interview 2, G2/R & Interview 9, G1/M) that continues to be highly relevant in political debates today. In fact, internationalism is one of the main ideological continuities activists identify between the ’68 and the Blockupy movement. A younger activist from the group Interventionist Left accordingly stresses the continued relevance of ’68’s internationalism today: The internationalist politics of ’68 raises a very interesting topic: how to fight in an internationalist way. And this is something that remains unsolved since ’68. ’68 provided a crucial impulse here that still contains valid elements. (Interview 3, G2/R)

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Conclusion This chapter aimed to answer the question in how far present-day left-wing activists share a counter-memory of the ’68 protests. For this purpose, we compared the memories of ’68 by the Blockupy movement with those in public discourse. Drawing on activist interviews and a newspaper analysis, we showed that Blockupy activists share a counter-memory only in certain respects. Our analysis revealed several similarities between activists’ memories and those in the newspaper articles, as both highlight ’68 as part of a highly politicized time and a strongly divided movement. However, with respect to the thematic legacies of ’68, the memories of Blockupy activists considerably differ from the media accounts. While the latter focus on ’68 mainly as a “cultural revolution” and a driving force of modernization, activists highlight the farther-reaching political goals and implications of ’68, in particular with respect to anti-fascism and internationalism. As we have shown, activists’ different views on the thematic legacies of ’68 were developed against the background of a critical reflection of memories of 1968 in the broader public discourse, revealing a direct articulation of a ’68 counter-memory next to more implicit elements. More generally, these f indings show how strongly public memory and group-specific memories are intertwined. The analysis in this way demonstrated that despite their special relation to ’68 (as a previous left-wing movement with partly similar goals), Blockupy activists seem to have adopted various elements of the broader public discourses about ’68. Hence, even a contentious actor such as a social movement with the ability to challenge dominant discourses can be strongly influenced by its mnemonic environment. In this sense, different groups’ memories have a certain permeability, and mutually affect each other. Second, the findings more generally point to how movements may be considerably affected by past contention. While Blockupy activists only shared a partial counter-memory, their identification of ’68’s thematic legacies not only demonstrates how they developed a joint and group-specific interpretation of ’68. It also points to the fact that this past is considered a relevant influence on their present-day activism, particularly with respect to its anti-authoritarian and internationalist goals. Activists see themselves as part of this legacy as they follow similar goals and hence these memories of ’68 become part of the movement’s shared history, a strong cognitive and affective binding element for any collective. This illustrates how social movements do not develop in a vacuum, but always relate in one way or the other to previous movements, and memories of these past movements seem

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to play an important role here. More research is required into memories of past mobilizations and how they shape present-day activism in various dimensions.

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Gerhards, Jürgen, Friedhelm Neidhardt, & Dieter Rucht. Zwischen Palaver und Diskurs: Strukturen öffentlicher Meinungsbildung am Beispiel des Abtreibungsdiskurses in der Bundesrepublik. Opladen: Westdeutscher Verlag, 1998. Gierds, Bernhard. “Das ‚Konzept Stadtguerilla’: Meinhof, Mahler und ihre strategischen Differenzen.” Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus. Band 1. Ed. Wolfgang Kraushaar. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006. 248-260. Gilcher-Holtey, Ingrid. Die 68er Bewegung: Deutschland, Westeuropa, USA. München: C.H. Beck, 2005. Goldberg, Tsafrir, Dan Porat & Baruch Schwarz. “‘He Started the Rift We See Today’: Student and Textbook Narratives Between Off icial and Counter Memory.” Narrative Inquiry 16.2 (2006): 319-347. Gongaware, Timothy B. “Keying the Past to the Present: Collective Memories and Continuity in Collective Identity Change.” Social Movement Studies 10.1 (2011): 39-54. Gordon, Daniel A. “Memories of 1968 in France: Reflections on the 40th Anniversary.” Memories of 1968: International perspectives. Eds. Ingo Cornils & Sarah Waters. Oxford: Peter Lang, 2010. 49-78. Gutman, Yifat. Memory activism: Reimagining the past for the future in IsraelPalestine. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 2017. Hajek, Andrea. “Challenging Dominant Discourse of the Past: 1968 and the Value of Oral History.” Memory Studies 6.1 (2013): 3-6. 2013a. Hajek, Andrea. Negotiating Memories of Protest in Western Europe: The Case of Italy. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013b. Halbwachs, Maurice. The Collective Memory. New York: Harper & Row, 1980 [1950]. Harris, Fredrick C. “It Takes a Tragedy to Arouse Them: Collective Memory and Collective Action During the Civil Rights Movement.” Social Movement Studies 5.1 (2006): 19-43. Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Horn, Gerd-Rainer. The spirit of ’68: rebellion in Western Europe and North America, 1956-1976. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Jansen, Robert S. “Resurrection and Appropriation: Reputational Trajectories, Memory Work, and the Political Use of Historical Figures.” American Journal of Sociology 112.4 (2007): 953-1007. Katsiaficas, Georgy. The Subversion of Politics: European Autonomous Social Movements and the Decolonization of Everyday Life. Oakland: AK Press, 2006. Kießling, Simon. Die antiautoritäre Revolte der 68er: Postindustrielle Konsumgesellschaft und säkulare Religionsgeschichte der Moderne. Köln: Böhlau, 2006.

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Koenen, Gerd. Das rote Jahrzehnt: Unsere kleine Kulturrevolution 1967-1977. Frankfurt a.M.: S. Fischer, 2002. Kraushaar, Wolfgang. “Im Schatten der RAF: Zur Entstehungsgeschichte der Revolutionären Zellen.” Die RAF und der linke Terrorismus. Band 1. Ed. Wolfgang Kraushaar. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition, 2006. 583-601. Mayo, James M. “War Memorials as Political Memory.” Geographical Review 78.1 (1988): 62-75. Mausbach, Werner. “Historicising ‘1968’.” Contemporary European History 11.1 (2002): 177-187. Medina, José. “Toward a Foucaultian Epistemology of Resistance: Counter-Memory, Epistemic Friction, and Guerrilla Pluralism.” Foucault Studies 12 (2011): 9-35. Merrill, Samuel. Networked remembrance: Excavating buried memories in the railways beneath London and Berlin. Oxford: Peter Lang Publishing Group, 2017. Mitchell, Katharyne. “Monuments, Memorials, and the Politics of Memory.” Urban Geography 24.5 (2003): 442-459. Mittler, Günther R. & Edgar Wolfrum. “Das Jahr 1968: Vom Politikereignis zum Geschichtsereignis.” Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen 21.3 (2008): 16-24. Molden, Berthold. “Resistant Pasts Versus Mnemonic Hegemony: On the Power Relations of Collective Memory.” Memory Studies 9.2 (2016): 125-142. Mullis, Daniel, Bernd Belina, Tino Petzold, Lucas Pohl & Sebastian Schipper. “Social Protest and Its Policing in the ‘Heart of the European Crisis Regime’: The Case of Blockupy in Frankfurt, Germany.” Political Geography 55 (2016): 50-59. Nehring, Holger. “The politics of socialism and the West German “1968”.” The Sixties 7.2 (2014): 155-177. Neiger, Motti, Oren Meyers & Eyal Zandberg (eds.). On Media Memory: Collective Memory in a New Media Age. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Neveu, Erik. “Memory Battles over Mai 68: Interpretative Struggles as a Cultural Re-Play of Social Movements.” Conceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Research. Eds. Britta Baumgarten, Priska Daphi & Peter Ullrich. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. Olick, Jeffrey K. “Collective Memory: the Two Cultures.” Sociological Theory 17.3 (1999): 333-348. Olick, Jeffrey K. & Daniel Levy. “Collective Memory and Cultural Constraint: Holocaust Myth and Rationality in German Politics.” American Sociological Review 62 (1997): 921-936. Olick, Jeffrey K. & Joyce Robbins. “Social Memory Studies: From ‘Collective Memory’ to the Historical Sociology of Mnemonic Practices.” Annual Review of Sociology 24.1 (1998): 105-140.

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Passerini, Luisa. Autobiography of a generation: Italy, 1968. Wesleyan University Press, 1996. Reading, Anna & Tamar Katriel (eds.). Cultural Memories of Nonviolent Struggles: Powerful Times. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015. Reichardt, Sven. Authentizität und Gemeinschaft: Linksalternatives Leben in den siebziger und frühen achtziger Jahren. Berlin: Suhrkamp, 2014. Rigney, Ann. “Remembering Hope: Transnational activism beyond the traumatic.” Memory Studies 11.3 (2018): 368-380. Rinner, Susanne. The German Student Movement and the Literary Imagination: Transnational Memories of Protest and Dissent. New York: Berghahn Books, 2013. Ross, Kristin. May ’68 and its Afterlives. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008. Kindle. Rucht, Dieter. “Die Ereignisse von 1968 als soziale Bewegung: Methodologische Überlegungen und einige empirische Befunde.” Geschichte und Gesellschaft 17 (1998): 116-130. Savage, Kirk. “The Politics of Memory: Black Emancipation and the Civil War Monument.” Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Ed. John Gillis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994. 127-149. Skærlund Risager, Bjarke. “Mobilizing for a ‘Europe from below’: network, territory, and place in the anti-austerity Blockupy movement.” Space and Polity 22.1 (2018): 67-85. Slobodian, Quinn. Foreign front: Third world politics in sixties West Germany. Durham NC: Duke University Press, 2012. Steffen, Michael. Geschichten vom Trüffelschwein: Politik und Organisation des Kommunistischen Bundes 1971 bis 1991. Berlin: Assoziation A, 2002. Süddeutsche Zeitung December 13, 2007: 43. Interview with Stankiewitz, Karl. “Demos, Buhrufe und Jubelperser.” Süddeutsche Zeitung May 21, 2008: 2. Cohn-Bendit, Daniel. “Nostalgie und Realität.” Tachibana, Reiko. Narrative as Counter-memory: a Half-century of Postwar Writing in Germany and Japan. Albany: SUNY Press, 1998. Ullrich, Peter, Priska Daphi & Britta Baumgarten. “Protest and Culture: Concepts and Approaches in Social Movement Research – An Introduction.” Conceptualizing Culture in Social Movement Research. Eds. Britta Baumgarten, Priska Daphi & Peter Ullrich. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014. von der Goltz, Anna. “Making sense of East Germany’s 1968: Multiple trajectories and contrasting memories.” Memory Studies 6.1 (2013): 53-69. von Lucke, Albrecht. 68 oder neues Biedermeier: der Kampf um die Deutungsmacht. Berlin: Wagenbach, 2008a. von Lucke, Albrecht. “Der Deutungskampf um ‘68’ im Lichte seiner Jubiläen.” Forschungsjournal Neue Soziale Bewegungen 21.3 (2008): 25-34. 2008b.

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About the authors Priska Daphi is Professor of Conflict Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany, and founding member of the Institute for Protest and Social Movements Studies in Berlin. She is author of Becoming a Movement. Identity, Narrative and Memory in the European Global Justice Movement (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2017). [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8216-1566 Jens Zimmermann was a research associate at Goethe University Frankfurt from 2016 to 2018 before joining his current position at the Trade Union of Construction, Agriculture and Environment (IG BAU). [email protected]

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Queering Victimhood Soviet Legacies and Queer Pasts in and around Jaanus Samma’s “NSFW. A Chairman’s Tale” Riikka Taavetti Abstract Riikka Taavetti’s contribution addresses intertwined queer pasts and Soviet legacies in Estonian public discussion. She examines an art exhibition by the Estonian contemporary artist Jaanus Samma, titled “Not Suitable for Work. A Chairman’s Tale.” Originally produced for the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015, the exhibition caused controversy in the media when presented at the Museum of Occupations in Tallinn in 2016. According to Taavetti’s analysis, both of these contexts framed the exhibition with questions of victimhood. In the framework of an international art event, questions of human rights violations were highlighted, while the environment of the Museum of Occupations emphasized questions of the suitability of a homosexual man as a victim of Soviet repression. Keywords: victimhood, queer, politics of memory, post-socialism, museums, Jaanus Samma

Introduction In April 2016, the opening of an exhibition at the Museum of Occupations in Tallinn aroused exceptional reactions. Mart Soidro described the coming exhibition in Saaremaa island’s regional paper, Meie Maa: In the popular speech it is even called a gay exhibition. Those on the more conservative side stamp their feet and old freedom fighters have helplessly lowered their hands – what will their eyes see before death!?

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch03

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The unacknowledged fact is that this exhibition was not planned to irritate “the extreme right and Putinists,” but it represented Estonia last year in the 56th Venice Biennale.1 (Soidro 2016).

The art exhibit described in such an intentionally controversial way was “Not Suitable for Work (NSFW). A Chairman’s Tale” by the contemporary Estonian artist Jaanus Samma. The work was a combination of photographs, short films and installations, all based on sources – legends, oral history interviews and archival material – left by the life of a Soviet Estonian man known by the nickname “Chairman.” The core of the archival material was comprised of files of a court case involving a man Samma had given the pseudonym Juhan Ojaste, who in the mid-1960s was accused and convicted of pederasty, namely, consensual penetrative sex with another man. The controversy around the Chairman was emphasized by the timing of the exhibition, as it was interpreted as the first step in the museum’s rebranding as the Museum of Freedom, and f inally named as Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom (see Kirsti Jõesalu & Ene Kõresaar’s chapter in this volume). Partly due to the timing, the work was perceived as a scandal, the framing of which was used to foment the discussion. Afterwards, the concept of scandal was attached to the public figure of Jaanus Samma, even though he also gained recognition and praise. This chapter analyzes how an exhibition on the life of a queer Soviet citizen situated in a nationally important museum raised a discussion on the controversies of understanding the past in the present. Moreover, I analyze the cultural value of victimhood in the discussion on queer pasts and in the Estonian narrative of recent history. Diverse elements of victimhood gained ground over the representation of queer past, as the exhibition was created for the Venice Biennale and discussed in the context of human rights violations and, subsequently, the exhibition was presented at the Museum of Occupations. The discussion around the exhibition reconfigured the “political construction” of victimhood (Ronsbo & Jensen 2014), and it was debated if the Chairman could be interpreted as a victim of Soviet repression. The exhibition was part of Samma’s longstanding interest in Estonian queer pasts. He first deployed the story of the Chairman in an exhibition that won the Köler Prize, an Estonian distinguished award for contemporary art, in 2013. A year later, this exhibition, based on the same story, then titled “NSFW. Ajaloo sügavikust” [“NSFW. From the Abysses of History”], 1

All translations are made by the author from the original Estonian.

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was chosen to represent Estonia in the Venice Biennale. Samma’s work in the Biennale attracted attention in the Estonian media. The content and the artistic expression were discussed, as was the exhibition’s international reception. However, none of the commentators in the media saw any problem with this exhibition representing Estonia in an important international art event. As vividly described in Soidro’s text above, the reception changed when the Chairman came to Tallinn; in particular, it was the placement of the exhibition in the Museum of Occupations that aroused opposition. My research is based on analysis of the exhibition itself, which I visited in April, August and September of 2016, as well as an examination of the material associated with the exhibition: the catalogue (Samma & Viola 2015),2 leaflets, and press releases. To cover the Estonian media discussion, I searched the DIGAR (Estonian National Library digitized archive) database for newspaper and journal articles and searched online for pieces in newspapers, magazines, and edited websites, as well as television and radio clips discussing the exhibition. Altogether I analyzed seventy-four articles and media clips, omitting only those that briefly mention the exhibition or summarize other articles on it. Four articles in 2013 discuss Samma’s previous work on the same topic, thirty-two articles discuss the exhibition in Venice, and thirty cover the exhibition as it was on view in Tallinn. Furthermore, eight articles published in 2017 address Samma’s exhibition when he received an award by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, or discuss the exhibition and the debate around it in retrospect. My material is derived from the main Estonian daily newspapers, local media, cultural magazines, tabloids, and articles by the Estonian Public Broadcasting ERR, as well as from the political websites, feminist Feministeerium, and Christian conservative Objektiiv. My methodological approach on the material – both the exhibition itself and its reception – is that of a historian researching the uses of pasts. I have searched for descriptions of the past and analyzed how they are interpreted in light of the present. I interpret the story of the Chairman as a queer history, telling of sexual conduct forbidden at the time and placed 2 When the exhibition was being prepared for the Venice Biennale, I was contacted by thenproject manager and curator of the Estonian Center for Contemporary Art, Rebeka Põldsam, and asked to contribute a text on Soviet queer history to the catalogue. As I did not feel capable of such a piece, Põldsam and I discussed the topic and the edited court case material which Samma utilized in the exhibition. Põldsam and Martin Rünk edited the discussion and it is printed in the catalogue (Põldsam & Taavetti 2015). At that point I had not seen the exhibition, nor did I in any way participate in its construction.

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in a particular context of the Museum of Occupations. I analyze how the exhibition was framed with concrete references to the Soviet era and how the past was contrasted with the present. I focus mainly on the discussion of the exhibition at the Museum of Occupations, but the earlier discussion offers a point of reference for understanding what changed when the exhibition came to Tallinn.

Telling the Chairman’s Tale at the Museum of Occupations The Museum of Occupations (now called Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom) is positioned in a symbolically important place at the foot of Toompea Hill, the administrative heart of Estonia. Established in 2003 with private funding from an Estonian emigrant, it has since presented a permanent collection and temporary exhibitions focusing on the Estonian occupations in 1940-1991. (For more detail on the museum, see Kirsti Jõesalu & Ene Kõresaar’s chapter in this volume.) Due to the symbolic importance of the museum and the framing of Samma’s work as gay art, the exhibition easily came to be a site of controversy. Even a demonstration of “patriots” was called for the opening, which caused the museum to hire extra security. But it was not only conservative activists who were critical. Most notably perhaps, the former director of the Estonian National Museum and a later member of the Estonian parliament, Krista Aru, commented just before the opening: “There is a place and space for every exhibition. The environment, too, creates the exhibition.” She continued: “I think that those mentioned [the exhibition and the museum] do not jibe.” (Randla 2016). As stated by Aru, the environment of this particular museum did shape how the exhibition was viewed by visitors. Samma’s work was located in the basement of the museum in a new exhibition space. As visitors entered the exhibition, they passed the museum toilets and two large vandalized Soviet-era statues. This location in itself emphasized the connection of the exhibition to Soviet-era repression. On the concrete walls surrounding the entrance to the exhibition space was hung the photo installation “Men on Collective Farms” (2016), consisting of photos from the Estonian Film Archives portraying idealized scenes of life on Soviet Estonian collective farms. Taken out of their original context and viewed in an exhibition discussing homosexuality, the scenes not only seemed to depict socialiststyle farm work but also intimacy between men. This installation was not exhibited in Venice, but it was used in Tallinn to better adapt Samma’s art to its surroundings (Herodes 2016a). This integration was strengthened by

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the visual similarity of the archival images and the theatrical photos of “The Chairman’s Tale” (2015) on view in the main exhibition space (some are visible in the background of Image 3.2), both being black-and-white prints with a somewhat unreal and staged feeling. These photos featured the same characters that were depicted in four short films in a side room, which played in a loop on two walls with space for viewers in between. In the main exhibition space, a red timeline illustrated the basics of the Chairman’s life story (“The Rise and Fall of the Chairman,” 2015; see Image 3.1). According to the artwork, Juhan Ojaste was born in small village in the early 1920s. In adolescence, he received a basic education and worked as a farmhand. As he had barely become an adult before the outbreak of the Second World War, his story can be classified among what has been called the “lost” Estonian generation (Wulf 2016, 78). Those who grew up in the nationalist atmosphere of the young Estonian nation and were just about to enter adulthood saw their future radically altered by the war (see Kõresaar 2004). The war meant consecutive occupations of Estonia, first by the Soviets in 1940, then by the Nazis in 1941 and then again by the Soviets in 1944. Estonian men joined and were drafted into both the Nazi German Army and the Red Army. (See, e.g., Tannberg et al. 2000, 268-276). The timeline shows that Juhan Ojaste joined or was drafted into the Soviet forces, which placed him among the winners of the war. The red line shoots sharply up at the point when he joined the army during the war, and it continues upwards after the war. For Ojaste, the continued Soviet occupation opened possibilities after the war. As the system of collective farms was established in the Baltic countries after the massive forced deportations of March 1949, Ojaste was appointed chairman of a collective farm – hence his nickname.3 In the late 1950s, Ojaste further established his position as a respectable Soviet citizen by getting married and joining the Communist Party. The peak in the timeline is in 1962, and a significant downward turn takes place the following year, when Ojaste was brought before the court in relation to pederasty. As a result, he was expelled from the party and lost his position as a chairman. Three years later, he was accused of the 3 Collective farms, or kolkhozes, formed the core of the Soviet agricultural system. There farmers were organized as a cooperative that collectively worked the land. The head of a kolkhoz was a chairman, officially elected by the members of the cooperative. While some chairmen were influential and part of the Soviet elite, this was not the case with heads of smaller Estonian farms. Furthermore, “Ojaste” also became a chairman before chairmen were listed in nomenklatura, the Soviet system of positions approved by the Communist Party. (On nomenklatura in Estonia, see Hämäläinen 2015).

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Image 3.1 Jaanus Samma: “The Rise and Fall of the Chairman,” 2015

Photo by Anna-Stina Treumund

same thing, and this time the penalty was one and a half years of hard labor. The timeline shows that after being freed, Ojaste moved to Tartu and could only get low-status jobs. A slight upward curve takes place in the 1980s. During this period, it is told that he hosted movie nights, showing porn with his videocassette recorder player. Finally, the timeline takes a downturn before 1990, when Ojaste’s life met a tragic end and he was found murdered in his home. Even though the key life events of Ojaste are well documented and not controversial as such, the “rise and fall” in the life story follows the artist’s interpretation. In her review of Samma’s exhibition in Venice, Lithuanian art critic Julija Fomina (2015) states that the artist and the curator, Eugenio Viola, produced the Chairman’s tale as a victim story. According to Fomina, it could also be possible to see the Chairman’s life after the “forced ‘coming-out of the closet’” as a rebirth into a freer life. Certainly, some elements in the exhibition reinforce the interpretation of the tale as a victim story, even though it may be stretching the metaphor to refer to a sentence of hard labor as an act of outing. As described above, the high point in the timeline appears just before the first court case, and in later years the line never rises even nearly as high. Moreover, in one of the films in the exhibition, “The Trial” (2015), the murder of the Chairman is portrayed right after the declaration of the sentence, implying that the murder was connected to the court case.

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The story of the Chairman is an opera-like melodrama, as Samma himself described it in an interview (Esko 2013). This aspect of the story is reflected in the artistic interpretation, as Samma uses an aria and the darkened loge of an opera auditorium where it could be listened to (“Loge,” 2013/2015). The aria, composed by Johanna Kivimägi with text written by Maarja Kangro, is a dramatic depiction of falling into darkness. The baroque-style presentation, featuring rich colors and drama, was compared by one reviewer to the aesthetics of gay art (Trossek 2016), as both opera and the excessive baroque style are often associated with gay male culture (see Halperin 2012, 34-66). In its presentation, the luxurious loge is distanced from the Soviet Estonian imagery otherwise deployed in the exhibition. That said, the representation carries connections to Soviet-era gay culture, as all the major Soviet cities had opera houses and their surroundings were frequent cruising places for gay men (e.g., Moss 2015, 52). Listening to the aria in darkness is an intimate experience, which clearly contrasts with the representation of the Chairman’s story in the main exhibition space. The difference is comparable to what Barbara KirshenblattGimblett (1998, esp. 3-4) has described as the division between in situ displays, which emphasize a visitor’s immersive experience, and in-context displays, which rely on the analytical “drama of the artifact.” Furthermore, whereas the timeline portraying the rise and fall of the Chairman promotes linear understandings of time and history, the loge, like other parts of the exhibition, offers more fragmented glimpses of the past. The interpretation offered by the timeline – that of history as a factual representation of consecutive events of the past – is strengthened by a showcase in the same exhibition space. The two-sided case contains medical instruments that could have been used in a forensic examination to determine whether anal penetration has taken place. On the other side of the showcase (Image 3.2), there is a line of ordinary objects. These “fragments” (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998, 18-23) of the story include a war medal, a wedding ring, a Communist Party membership card, a pair of leather gloves, a tube of Vaseline, three and half rubles in paper money, a shot glass and a green fedora hat. Portrayed like this, in a strongly lit showcase opposite from the medical instruments, these objects of everyday life resemble evidence (see Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998, 49). Indeed, as is told in the labels attached to the objects, some of them – mainly the gloves and the rubles – did play a crucial role in the Chairman’s court case. This interpretation of the objects as evidence is strengthened by the context of the work in the Museum of Occupations. The permanent exhibition of the museum at the time when Samma’s exhibition was presented

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Image 3.2 Jaanus Samma: “Props,” 2015

Photo by Anna-Stina Treumund

contained showcases in which ordinary objects of Soviet life were shown. As Hanna Kuusi (2008) has argued, the objects that could very well inspire nostalgia were not placed in their actual context but shown with items associated with repression, partly in order to oppose the nostalgic reading. The exhibition did not take the visitor “into” the past but made the viewer a spectator from the outside, able to judge the past from the present. As the museum told a story of the crimes against the Estonian people, the occupations and the loss of national independence (Wulf 2016, 147-150), the objects could be interpreted as evidence of these crimes. In this context, Samma’s artwork invited similar interpretations. The objects used in the artwork became evidence of a crime – the crime of pederasty that the Chairman was accused of and the human rights violations committed against him. In the media discussion around the exhibition, this interpretation was strengthened by how the Soviet-era persecution of homosexuality was viewed in retrospect. The faith of a homosexual man was interpreted in the framework of repression and the rights of an individual, which is not how it was understood at the time. Furthermore, as persecution on the grounds of homosexuality was not widely perceived as a violation of human rights at that time anywhere, this reading of the exhibition emphasized the retrospective view to the past.

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The Chairman as a queer figure of the past According to Paragraph 118 of the criminal code of Soviet Estonia, consensual pederasty carried a maximum sentence of two years in prison. Although Soviet Estonian court files on pederasty have been preserved, to date others than those on the case of Chairman have not been utilized in research (for an early overview, however, see Veispak 1991; see Healey 2017 on Soviet Russia). As researchers and the public have become interested in the everyday life of queer Soviet citizens, other sources, such as oral histories, have been needed (see Ruduša 2014 for a Latvian collection of oral histories on the Soviet era), and these are also utilized in Samma’s art.4 Samma’s work can be interpreted as representing queer pasts with the sporadic, random and even hostile sources which are available and imagining the past even when the sources are insufficient (see, e.g., Cvetkovich 2002). Samma’s interest in gay life during the Soviet era developed first from a pseudohistorical work, which imagined gay life a century ago, and then continued in the form of interviews with gay men on life during the Soviet era (Esko 2013). As the Chairman’s story was firmly based on history, Samma himself was asked in interviews about the changes in Estonian attitudes toward homosexuality since the Soviet years. In an interview at the time of the opening of the exhibition in Venice, Samma elaborated on his understanding of these changes. According to him, since the Soviet era, people have become more knowledgeable; however, he was not as certain if they have also become more tolerant: “In the Soviet period not even people themselves knew what they wanted. […] In the nineties it is complete confusion, as if everything is allowed. Nowadays the conservative side has got on their feet and tries to improve their position.” (Karro 2015). In this statement, the period after the restoration of independence is not described as a gradual movement toward a more tolerant society, but as a controversial trajectory. Samma’s phrase of the people “not knowing what they wanted” may refer not only to the fact that homosexuality was not publicly discussed in the Soviet era, but also on how this lack of discussion affected how one could understand himself and his desires (e.g., Healey 2017). As a whole, this short commentary reveals Samma’s view of history to be more nuanced than those views that interpret sexual freedom as gradually “freeing” homosexuality that has, in essence, always been similar across cultures. Moreover, it differs 4 Samma’s text on the legend of the Chairman based on these interviews is included in the exhibition catalogue along with the edited court case material (Samma & Viola 2015).

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from those views that draw a clear line between the restrictive Soviet past and the permissive post-Soviet present. This clear difference between the past and the present is emphasized by a projection of the current understandings of queerness onto the past. When the Chairman’s treatment is seen as an example of intolerance or as human rights violations, when his life is labelled as a double life (Soans 2013) or discussed in the frame of being in the closet and then coming out (Fomina 2015), or indeed when he is named a gay man, present conceptualizations of queerness are projected onto him. As Laura Doan (2017, 122) writes regarding Alan Turing, the British mathematician and war hero, this “renders the past intelligible for groups today at the expense of understanding Turing’s way of being in the world.” It is as if queerness stayed the same even though society has undergone essential changes. The Chairman’s story corresponds to the recent international discussion on queer pasts, where history is brought to the present with the help of individual life stories. Through microhistory, a context of Samma’s work described in the exhibition flier, the structures of society are illustrated by the fates of individuals. Compared to many other prominent cases of queer representation, the life of Juhan Ojaste has a significant difference, not being a story of an otherwise well-known person. Unlike Alan Turing, for example, whose story has been used to demonstrate the tragic destiny of a homosexual man in Britain in the 1940s and 1950s, the Chairman cannot be viewed as a hero wrongly treated because of his “different” private life. Juhan Ojaste became prominent only because of his queerness. Moreover, in the case of Turing, the interpretation of the past can be discussed in terms of the academic research available on his life and the homosexuality of the time (e.g., Doan 2017). The story of the Chairman, however, cannot be directly contextualized with academic research, as there is still hardly any on homosexuality in Soviet Estonia. Because the Chairman was accused of homosexual acts, it is impossible to escape the topic of sexuality when discussing his repression. Indeed, the exhibition does not avoid discussing sexuality, as it is explicit to the point of being grotesque. When the exhibition was chosen for the Venice Biennale, the Chairman was framed in the press release in terms of “questions of authority, violence, persecution, and the powerlessness of an individual under a political regime harshly constraining human rights” (Kartau 2014.) Thus, the Chairman’s story brought into the discussion the possibility of victimhood on the grounds of sexuality and queer victimhood in the Soviet era. In the cultural magazine Sirp, Katrin Kivimaa pondered if this story could be placed within the context of repression and occupation.

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According to her, the Chairman, as represented in the exhibition, is a very controversial figure. This does not mean, however, that he could not be a victim of repression: We do not scrutinize with similar logic the victims of the deportations or the Holocaust. We do not start digging into their private lives and claim that they could have caused their harsh destiny themselves with, for example, greed or a private life-style different from the social norms of the era. The control and punishment apparatus of a totalitarian nation runs over everyone with similar indifference to the reason why one is caught in the machine. (Kivimaa 2016).

For Kivimaa, it makes no difference for what reasons one was oppressed. Moreover, Kivimaa portrays the repression of the Chairman as something that was not caused by his private life, although it was precisely his sexuality that was the reason for his victimhood. That said, Kivimaa’s emphasis of the Chairman’s story as a victim story correlates with the interpretations often made when queer stories of the past are discussed in the present (on the emphasis of victimhood in the legend of Turing, see Caryl 2015). However, Kivimaa also stretches the limits of victimhood as she questions the need for innocence, a feature that is often an essential part of a victim identity (e.g., Schäuble 2014, 9-13). If the queerness of the Chairman made him a disobedient figure and a victim of persecution, his public life as a Soviet citizen was respectable, and even described as successful in the exhibition. He was a decorated Red Army veteran, the chairman of a collective farm and a member of the Communist Party. Even though this kind of ordinarily successful Soviet life is currently also remembered with nostalgia (e.g. Jõesalu & Kõresaar 2013), it means that the Chairman’s tale could not be interpreted within the framework of national victimhood. For those wishing to adhere to the perspective on national repression and resistance, the Chairman was not an appropriate figure. Eve Pärnaste, a Soviet-era freedom-fighter and a member of the Estonian Constitutional Assembly of 1991, was extremely upset about the exhibition being presented at the Museum of Occupations, although even she thought it was suitable for the Venice Biennale. She paraphrased the story of the Chairman in an interview of the leading Estonian daily, Postimees: It is about a communist who fought on the Russian side, and maybe was a member of a destruction battalion, who was put into the position of kolkhoz chairman, who harassed local boys, was finally caught and

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captured, and then was so unhappy when his wife left and he lost his job. And ultimately, some homo prostitute killed him in a toilet. (Pullerits 2016).

Pärnaste had rather detailed information about the Chairman’s life events, as they are portrayed in the exhibition. In addition, she developed the story in a more scandalous direction. The idea of the Chairman as a molester of “local boys” is not extracted from the exhibition or the documentation associated with it, but presumably comes from the longstanding association of homosexuality with pedophilia.5 The notion of “local boys” may have simply been meant to emphasize the innocence of those the Chairman had relations with, but Pärnaste possibly sought to portray Chairman as non-Estonian, which carries an undercurrent of seeing homosexuality as foreign. Although this idea was not directly mentioned by those criticizing the exhibition, supporters noted that as so little is known about Estonian gay history, some might presume homosexuality to be something new (Varblane 2015).

Memories of the Soviet past In the debate around the Chairman, the Soviet era was constructed by comparing it to Nazi Germany. This comparison is readily available in the Estonian discussion, for the understanding of the national past includes suffering under both of these regimes (e.g. Melchior 2016). As an illustration, in the Museum of Occupations both the Nazi and Soviet occupations were represented under the umbrella of totalitarian powers. Additionally, the Estonian state among other East European countries has worked internationally for recognition of Soviet crimes along with Nazi atrocities (Melchior 2016; Wulf 2016, 149). One comparison between the Soviet and Nazi times was made in a short commentary by Krister Paris titled “The lesson of the gay exhibition”: Many people living under the heavy fists of dictators do not consider their life as that bad. It was hard to live in a dictatorship such as Stalin’s time, when the strike could come regardless of party fidelity. But in the “normal” Soviet time, if you participated in certain rituals, so no one 5 Pärnaste may have derived the description from the conservative opinion site Objektiiv, where Priit Sibul (2016) had mentioned a similar idea a week earlier.

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would touch you, there was nothing to rant about. The same goes for the Nazi worldview. If a Jewish background or otherwise suspicious figure did not classify one into a wrong category, life could be considered safe, even offering possibilities. These benefits, however, came with severe compromises, with sacrificing some fellow citizens. That should be a burden with which one cannot live. Go and see the exhibition which opened today at the Museum of Occupations about the strain on a Soviet-era homosexual, and you will get to put your empathy and humanity to the test. (Paris 2016).

Here the story of the Chairman is included among the tales of Soviet-era repression, but unlike the commentary by Kivimaa discussed above, it does not speak of just any repression but precisely a repression on the grounds of homosexuality. Furthermore, being a Jew under the Nazis is compared to the repression of a homosexual man under Soviet rule, which echoes the hegemonic status held by the Holocaust as an international metaphor of suffering (e.g., Melchior 2016; Kuntsman 2009). However, this hegemonic status is not axiomatic in Estonian views of history (Weiss-Wendt 2008), and it may be noteworthy that this cosmopolitan memory of the Holocaust is referred to precisely when discussing the internationally topical question of queer human rights and victimhood. Indeed, gay rights as human rights concerns have symbolic value as an indicator of “European” values. Estonia has taken pride in being among the fastest “transitioners” in postSoviet Europe, both economically and in terms of adopting European Union institutions (Bennich-Björkman & Likić-Brborić 2012). This identity of a successful transitioner also includes advancement in human rights and minority policies, as well as the acknowledgement of the Holocaust as a common European history. In addition to the comparisons made between the Estonian present and the Soviet past on one hand and Nazi and Soviet repression on the other, direct references to the Soviet past were also linked with the exhibition. When the exhibition was on view in Venice, the internet-era acronym in the title, “NSFW. Not Suitable for Work,” was noted as being similar to ENSV, the acronym for Soviet Estonia in Estonian, or NSVL, that of the whole Soviet Union (Kartau 2015). Furthermore, when Postimees listed the art highlights of 2015, Samma and the success of his exhibition abroad were described, along with the work of another artist, as an “electrification of the whole country” (“15/2015”), referring to Lenin’s idea that communism would be achieved with socialism and the electrification of the Soviet Union. However, the references to the Soviet past grew more serious as the exhibition was about

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to open in Tallinn and as the exhibition was linked to the coming reforms of the Museum of Occupations. In February 2016, the museum had published its plans to change its name to the Museum of Freedom, which included reforming the permanent exhibition to not only feature the occupations, repression and resistance, but also the concept of freedom in its various forms. The plans ignited controversies, as erasing the word “occupation” was interpreted as accepting the Soviet/Russian version of history, in which Estonia was not occupied but voluntarily joined the Soviet Union. In addition, some saw as very Orwellian the retitling of an institution focusing on occupation and repression as the Museum of Freedom. (On the renaming discussion, see Kirsti Jõesalu & Ene Kõresaar’s chapter in this volume.) The debate over the name change framed Samma’s exhibition in relation to the concept of freedom. For conservative commentators, such as Markus Järvi on the website Objektiiv, the link between the gay-themed exhibition and the changes in the museum confirmed that the “freedom” being called for was not something they would support (Järvi 2016). Samma’s exhibition was linked with the changes at the museum in the tabloid Õhtuleht. The paper had asked the then curator of the Center of Contemporary Art, Rebeka Põldsam, why the museum had chosen as its first step in the reform a gay-themed exhibition. In her reply, Põldsam explained that the content of the exhibition does tell a story from the time of occupation, albeit a lesser-known one. At the very end, she added: “We hope that the deported and the freedom f ighters, who know what it is like to be silenced, feel solidarity toward gays and others persecuted by the occupation powers, and are pleased that their stories are heard, too.” (“Miks valis Okupatsioonide muuseum” 2016). Here Põldsam emphasized that the story of gay repression is one of the stories of the occupation era, in that sense being no different than other stories of repression and just as important to be heard. However, Õhtuleht lifted deportations to the title of their online article: “Art expert: We hope the deported are pleased about the gay exhibition.” By emphasizing the topic of deportations, the tabloid surely knew what kind of narrative they were employing. The story of the Chairman is connected to one of the cores of the Soviet system, the collective farm. The kolkhoz, in turn, is linked to one of the most painful memories of the Soviet era, the mass deportations of March 1949. In order to force reluctant Estonian farmers into collectivization, the Soviet regime deported over twenty thousand Estonians to Siberia. Often whole families were taken, and only after the death of Stalin were the survivors allowed to return to

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Estonia. (e.g. Kõll 2013, 25-28). Furthermore, the memories of deportations played an important political role in the Estonian process of the restoration of independence at the turn of the 1990s (e.g. Kõresaar & Jõesalu 2016, 48-49). The question of the attitudes of the former deportees was also raised by the artist and writer Mats Õun in an interview on Tallinn TV and repeated on the news site of the local paper, Pealinn. Õun indicated that there was something essentially Soviet-like in pushing the exhibition into the Museum of Occupations. He commented that “in a way there is a socialist competition going on in the museum to achieve the red flag trophy of tolerance. Obviously, those connected to the museum have found a good way of bringing together the principle of permissiveness and the past” (“EKSPERDID: Homonäitus ‘NSFW. Esimehe lugu’” 2016). For Õun and others agreeing with him, “tolerance” had become the new standard to which everybody should conform, thus resembling the Soviet-era lack of freedom of opinion. According to this view, today, as in the Soviet era, one may obey the rules of the game, but independent-minded people should keep their resistance alive. The Estonian ability to nurture national identity during the Soviet era is part of the nationalist mythology as well as one reason for the post-Soviet Estonian success (Bennich-Björkman & Likić-Brborić 2012). Thus, these critiques suggest that in order to remain independent, one should not too eagerly accommodate present-day requirements either. The exhibition was also defended by referring to the Soviet period. The managing director of the Museum of Occupations, Merilin Piipuu, was interviewed in July 2016 after the discussion surrounding the museum. She reflected on Samma’s exhibition: It was a difficult decision to bring it into our house, but I understood that if we censor it, we act in exactly the same way as was done in the Soviet era! Have we become at all freer or more tolerant? It is a very heavy exhibition, but it is the task of our museum to work with complicated themes. (Herodes 2016b).

Thus, Samma’s art was interpreted as something that could not have been shown in the Soviet era, and its acceptance was taken as a step toward a more open society. In this way, both those who were in favor of having the exhibition at the Museum of Occupations and those who opposed it justified their positions by referring to a shift away from Soviet society and to their own idea of freedom.

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Queering victimhood, reforming memory? The context of both the Venice Biennale and the Museum of Occupations shaped the interpretations of Samma’s art. In 2013, when Samma was interviewed about the earlier version of the Chairman’s story, he described the exhibition as discovering the gay history of Soviet-era Estonia (e.g. Esko 2013). By the time the Chairman’s Tale was chosen for the Biennale, questions of repression and human rights violations were already highlighted. The placing of the work into the Museum of Occupations framed it with two new contexts. First, in a museum of history, questions of how the past is constructed became all the more relevant, highlighting contrasts and connections with the Soviet past. Second, the Chairman’s story became contextualized with the narrative of Estonian national victimhood and suffering emphasized in the museum, or the “strategy of victimhood,” as Meike Wulf (2016, 147-150) calls it. The exhibition was interpreted as a scandal partly because of the context of the rebranding changes of the Museum of Occupations, but also because of the symbolic meaning attached to gay rights. In 2014, a law on the registration of same-sex couple cohabitation was passed in the Estonian parliament. However, the decision raised active opposition, and the ongoing debate was one of the contexts framing Samma’s exhibition. Samma supported the stand that Estonian society – or any other society, for that matter – is never finished and needs to constantly decide whether to head in a more open or more closed direction (Herodes 2016a). This differentiation between an open and closed society continues to be used in the Estonian context by those who call for less nationalist views and a more international approach (see Peiker 2016 for a slightly different phrasing of these conflicting and yet overlapping conceptualizations). It has been complicated to see those convicted on the grounds of homosexuality as victims of state violence in the former Soviet Union. Queer repressions have only recently been addressed in other national contexts (on remembering lesbian and gay victims of the Nazis, see Evans 2014; on pardoning Turing posthumously, see Houlbrook 2013). I would suggest that in the Estonian discussion, an additional element is added to this difficulty, as the Soviet repression is interpreted first and foremost as national repression and Estonia has been constructed as a “victim nation” (Weiss-Wendt 2008, 480). The Chairman was obviously repressed, being accused, convicted and made to lose his position. The title of the exhibition, “Not Suitable for Work,” carries many layers of meaning, as Juhan Ojaste was deemed to be an unsuitable Soviet citizen because of his sexuality, and thus he also became

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unsuitable for work as a chairman. But the reasons for his repression were not due to his national origin or nationalist ideology. Even as the story of the Chairman is not a story of Estonian national oppression, it is not a story of general violations of human rights either. It is a specific Estonian history told in the current context in which gay rights are understood as human rights. Queer victimhood may offer transnational perspectives on victimhood, and together with national narratives, they can illustrate what is especially Soviet Estonian in the faith of this particular queer individual. The Chairman’s tale is a story of tragic repression – and it is a story of the frail possibilities and harsh limitations of homosexual life in Soviet Estonia. Indeed, perhaps the Chairman offered the first step toward the new Museum of Freedom. Perhaps the reformed museum can also remember the fragile possibilities which were open in Soviet Estonia, as well as the repression and suffering based on other aspects than nationality. Jaanus Samma’s art and the debate around it managed to bend the Estonian construction of victimhood by raising possibilities of queer repression and questioning the innocence of the victims. It showed that a museum can be a place where no aspect of the past needs to remain a taboo and all emotions are allowed, as Merilin Piipuu has argued (Kõiv 2017). In this way, museums and art can open new possibilities for living together and promote empathy and understanding in difference. Even though in the debate the Chairman’s tale was framed with current conceptualizations of gay lives and gay rights, as an artistic presentation Samma’s exhibition offers glimpses onto pasts that do not conform to present categories. When sitting alone in the darkness of the installation “Loge,” the visitor can feel and empathize with the queer past of the Chairman, which may radically differ from the present.

References Primary sources “15/2015.” Postimees December 31, 2015: 24-25. [No author name.] “EKSPERDID: Homonäitus ‘NSFW. Esimehe lugu’ tekitas skandaali juba enne avamist.” Pealinn April 10, 2016. [No author name.] Accessed February 24, 2021. http://www.pealinn.ee/newset/eksperdid-homonaitus-nsfw-n166621. Esko, Marten. “Sümbioosimeister Jaanus Samma.” Sirp June 6, 2013: 20-21. Fomina, Julija. “Draama ja hüpertekst.” Sirp May 29, 2015: 20-21. Herodes, Kristina. “Hirm ei vii edasi.” Postimees April 16, 2016: 16-17. 2016a.

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Herodes, Kristina. “Kirgi küttev Vabamu jääb mälestuste hoidjaks.” Postimees July 2, 2016: 12-13. 2016b. Järvi, Markus. “Meie reliikvia on Vabamu?” Objektiiv April 7, 2016. Accessed February 24, 2021. http://objektiiv.ee/meie-reliikvia-on-vabamu/. Karro, Kadri. “Esimees Veneetsias.” Eesti Ekspress April 29, 2015: 39-41. Kartau, Mari. “56. Veneetsia biennaali Eesti paviljoni konkursi võitis Jaanus Samma projekt.” ERR April 29, 2014. Accessed February 24, 2021. https://kultuur.err. ee/298629/56-veneetsia-biennaali-eesti-paviljoni-konkursi-voitis-jaanussammaprojekt. Kartau, Mari. “Jaanus Samma: ei ole ühtset tõde, tõdesid on nii palju, kui on näituse vaatajaid.” ERR March 31, 2015. Accessed February 24, 2021. http://kultuur.err.ee/305568/ jaanus-samma-ei-ole-uhtset-tode-todesid-on-nii-palju-kui-on-naituse-vaatajaid. Kivimaa, Katrin. “Okupatsiooni järelelu.” Sirp April 29, 2016: 23. “Miks valis Okupatsioonide muuseum Vabamuks muutumise esimeseks sammuks just homoteemalise näituse eksponeerimise?” Õhtuleht April 8, 2016: 8. [No author name.] Kõiv, Henri. “Priviligeeritud ajaloo lõpp: Muuseum depotiseerimas okupatsiooni.” Müürileht February 2017: 12-13. Paris, Krister. “Geinäituse õppetund.” Eesti Päevaleht April 14, 2016: 2. Pullerits, Priit. “Eve Pärnaste – varasemast leebem, aga ikka võitluslik.” Postimees April 30, 2016: 2-7. Randla, Siim. “Endine muuseumijuht: Geinäitus ei sobi Okupatsioonide muuseumisse.” Õhtuleht April 13, 2016: 2. Sibul, Priit. “Okupatsioonide muuseum vs Vabamu.” Objektiiv April 22, 2016. Accessed February 24, 2021. http://objektiiv.ee/okupatsioonide-muuseum-vs-vabamu/. Soans, Hanno. “Kujuteldava ooperi mõjuväljas.” Sirp June 6, 2013: 20. Soidro, Mart. “Elame põõrasel ajal.” Meie maa April 11, 2016: 2. Trossek, Andreas. “Jaanus Samma ooperlik mälutöö.” Postimees April 22, 2016: 19. Varblane, Reet. “Kuidas olla Veneetsia biennaalil nähtav?” Sirp May 8, 2015: 24.

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Doan, Laura. “Queer History / Queer Memory. The Case of Alain Turing.” GLQ: A Journal of Lesbian and Gay Studies 23.1 (2017): 113-136. Evans, Jennifer V. “Harmless Kisses and Infinite Loops: Making Space for Queer Place in Twenty-First Century Berlin.” Queer Cities, Queer Cultures: Europe since 1945. Eds. Matt Cook & Jennifer V. Evans. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. 75-94. Halperin, David. How to Be Gay. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012. Hämäläinen, Mariliis. “Eestimaa Kommunistliku Partei Keskkomitee Nomenklatuur 1945-1990: Areng ja Statistika.” Ajalooline Ajakiri 154.4 (2015): 357-386. Healey, Dan. Russian Homophobia from Stalin to Sochi. London: Bloomsbury, 2017. Houlbrook, Matt. “Pardoning Alan Turing Might Be Good Politics, but It’s Certainly Bad History.” The Trickster Prince. August  8, 2013. Accessed February  24, 2021. https://tricksterprince.wordpress.com/2013/08/08/ pardoning-alan-turing-might-be-good-politics-but-its-certainly-bad-history/. Jõesalu, Kirsti & Ene Kõresaar. “Continuity or Discontinuity: On the Dynamics of Remembering ‘Mature Socialism’ in Estonian Post-Soviet Remembrance Culture.” Journal of Baltic Studies 44.2 (2013): 177-203. Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, Barbara. Destination Culture. Tourism, Museums, and Heritage. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998. Kõll, Anu Mai. The Village and the Class War. Anti-kulak Campaign in Estonia. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2013. Kõresaar, Ene. “Childhood as an Image of History: Metaphorical Depiction of the Nation and the State in Childhood Memories of Elderly Estonians.” Memory and History in Estonian Post-Soviet Life Stories: Private and Public, Individual and Collective from the Perspective of Biographical Syncretism. Ene Kõresaar. Tartu: Tartu University Press, 2004. Kõresaar, Ene & Kirsti Jõesalu. “Post-Soviet Memories and ‘Memory Shifts’ in Estonia.” Oral History 44.2 (2016): 47-58. Kuntsman, Adi. “The Currency of Victimhood in Uncanny Homes: Queer Immigrants’ Claims for Home and Belonging through Anti-Homophobic Organising.” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 35.1 (2009): 133-149. Kuusi, Hanna. “Prison Experiences and Socialist Sculptures. Tourism and the Soviet Past in the Baltic States.” Touring the Past. Uses of History in Tourism. Eds. Auvo Kostiainen & Taina Syrjämaa. Savonlinna: Joensuun yliopisto, Matkailualan verkostoyliopisto, 2008. 105-122. Melchior, Inge. “Forming a Common European Memory of WWII from a Peripheral Perspective: Anthropological Insight into the Struggle for Recognition of Estonians’ WWII Memories in Europe.” Disputed Memory: Emotions and Memory Politics in Central, Eastern and South-Eastern Europe. Eds. Tea Sindbæk Andersen & Barbara Törnquist-Plewa. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2016. 203-225.

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Moss, Kevin. “Male Homosexuality in the Soviet Union.” Not Suitable for Work. A Chairman’s Tale. Eds. Jaanus Samma & Eugenio Viola. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2015. 45-61. Peiker, Piret. “Estonian Nationalism through the Postcolonial Lens.” Journal of Baltic Studies 47.1 (2016): 113-132. Põldsam, Rebeka & Taavetti, Riikka. “Rumors and other stories about lesbians and gays behind the Curtain and beyond.” Not Suitable for Work. A Chairman’s Tale. Jaanus Samma & Eugenio Viola. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2015. 89-107. Ronsbo, Henrik & Steffen Jensen. “Histories of Victimhood: Assemblages, Transactions, and Figures.” Histories of Victimhood. Eds. Steffen Jensen & Henrik Ronsbo. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014. 1-22. Ruduša, Rita. Forced Underground: Homosexuals in Soviet Latvia. Riga: Apgāds Mansards, 2014. Samma, Jaanus & Eugenio Viola. Not Suitable for Work. A Chairman’s Tale. Berlin: Sternberg Press, 2015. Schäuble, Michaela. Narrating Victimhood: Gender, Religion and the Making of Place in Post-War Croatia. New York: Berghahn Books, 2014. Tannberg, Tõnu, Ain Mäesalu, Tõnis Lukas, Mati Laur & Ago Pajur. History of Estonia. Tallinn: Avita, 2000. Veispak, Teet. “Homosexuality in Estonian in the 20th Century: Ideological and Juridical Aspects.” Sexual Minorities and Society: The Changing Attitudes toward Homosexuality in 20th Century Europe: Papers Presented to the International Conference in Tallinn May 28-30, 1990. Eds. Udo Parikas & Teet Veispak. Tallinn: Eesti teaduse akadeemia ajaloo instituut, 1991. 105-114. Weiss-Wendt, Anton. “Why the Holocaust Does Not Matter to Estonians.” Journal of Baltic Studies 39.4 (2008): 475-497. Wulf, Meike. Shadowlands: Memory and History in Post-Soviet Estonia. New York: Berghahn Books, 2016.

About the author Riikka Taavetti is a university lecturer in political history at the University of Helsinki. Her current work in SEXDEM research project addresses the political debates on homosexuality in Estonia and Sweden (the late 1980s2010s). Taavetti’s research interests include history of sexuality, politics of memory and oral history. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9601-2206

4

Social Memories of Transformative Events in Post-Communist Latvia Ethnic and Generational Dimensions Laura Ardava-Āboliņa and Jurijs Ņikišins

Abstract This chapter explores social memories of Latvian history in the 20th century. Focusing on the so-called “transformative” events, the authors summarize current theories on memory conflicts. They show how social memories manifest themselves in Latvian society across age and ethnic groups, drawing on evidence from national surveys. They also touch on the attribution of memory conflicts to the media space in Latvia, as well as Russia’s influence on it. In conclusion, the authors discuss the possible future dynamics of social memories and their implications for the coexistence of diverse memory groups within Latvia. Keywords: social memory conflict, post-communism, generational groups, media space in Latvia

Conflicting forms of social memory and identity Latvia is an ethnically and linguistically diverse society whose members often have different opinions and perceptions of the dramatic events that largely shaped its history in the 20th century. These include the foundation of the independent Latvian state in 1918, loss of independence to the Soviet Union in 1940, the Nazi invasion and war crimes during World War II, mass repressions and the radical organization of the social, political and economic structures of the society pursuant to communist ideology during Soviet rule, the national awakening and independence

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch04

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movement in the late 1980s, and, finally, the ultimate restoration of the independent Republic of Latvia in 1991. As one can see from this “shortlist,” Latvian 20th-century history is rich with events that affected a large number of people – in most cases, the entire population – and evoked radical, pervasive, and rapid changes which had a challenging – and often a destabilizing or shock-inducing – effect on society and people’s lives. Thus, these events possess the necessary features to fit the definition of “trauma” as proposed by Sztompka (2004). In diverse societies, memories of traumatic events profoundly affect the development of group identity and the dynamics of intergroup conflict (Brown et al. 2009). Over time, cleavages of political and other values based on certain memories of historical events may remain salient or even be reinforced if there are constant reminders in the political discourse and the media, which establish dominant, “normal,” or “acceptable” views on certain controversial issues (see Kepplinger 2008). It is therefore important to understand the interrelations between historical events, their presentation and social memory (see Brown et al. 2009). Post-Communist space is characterized by “contested” social memory, and this memory conflict can cause real danger to society. In this context should be mentioned one of the most prominent events of the last decade in connection with the memory of the Second World War in the Baltic states, namely, the displacement of the USSR-era “Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn” in 2007, renamed the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn (and colloquially called “Alyosha”), became an object of conflict due to different interpretations of the past. On the one hand, in Estonia it was perceived as a symbol of Soviet occupation, on the other as a symbol of the Soviet Army’s victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. In April 2007, the Estonian government prepared to relocate the monument from the center of Tallinn to a military cemetery on the outskirts of the city. As a result of this intention, there ensued two day-long riots with one person killed and many wounded (Eglitis & Ardava 2012, 1051). Monument researcher Siobhan Kattago, who calls historical commemoration sites the “live topography of the nation” (Kattago 2008, 433), explains that war monuments (for the unknown soldier, in particular) are symbolic places where national identity and social memory connect. War monuments become cultural reminders of how the past is linked to the present. Some war monuments in Estonia from the Soviet era serve as a place where Russian-speaking families can pay homage to their relatives who were killed in the war, and it is difficult to transform or replace them. The Second World War and its consequences construct the base of social memory, and

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they serve as a reference and anchor for individual identities (Lehti, Jutila & Jokisipilä 2008, 394).1 The conflict of social memories inherent in post-Soviet societies is also vividly expressed in discourse surrounding Latvia. Whereas in Latvia’s case one specific understanding of history is not fully operational, social memories vis-à-vis different versions acquire even greater importance on individual and interpersonal levels, as well as in relation to public space. Historian Peter Novick writes that social memory is ahistorical, and even anti-historical. It simplifies and sees events from a single, interconnected perspective; it is intolerant toward any kind of polysemy, reducing events to mythic archetypes. It does not possess a sense of past, it denies the “pastness” of the objects, and it calls for their continuation in the present. (Novick 1999, 3-4.) To a large degree, such characteristics of social memory are attributable to the past of people in Latvia, which the historian Andrejs Plakans considers an ideal laboratory for the verification of social memory research cognitions. He writes (1998, 11-12): “First of all, the Latvian nation at all times has been small in number, and historical events that had influenced its destiny, almost always have affected the entire nation. […] At the same time the Latvian nation has been large enough to have internally diverse memory.” Many researchers have said the same about the entire post-Communist Eastern Europe, because this area is characterized by strong social memory collision. One of the more nuanced theoretical views on social memory, which highlights its conflicting forms, is offered by James Wertsch. Simultaneously with “homogeneous” and “complementary” social memory (which, in spite of the fact that they are different, are based on memories of community members existing in a coherent framework), he also distinguishes a “contested version” of social memory that is explained as different social memory perspectives placed in oppositional and conflicting relations, characterized by competition and conflict over representations of the past (Wertsch 2002, 23-24). Social memory and community identity are maintained through regular collective activities, and community memory and confluence of identity can be observed on commemoration days. Although they possess socializing functions for communities, in the event of social memory conflict these place communities in opposition to one another, without encouraging formation of a joint society (Ardava 2011, 365). Anthropologist John Gillis explains that commemoration by its nature is a social and political 1 See also Burch & Smith 2007, 913-936; Brüggemann & Kasekamp 2008, 425-448; Pääbo 2008, 5-28; Gorenburg & Makarychev 2009, 3-9; Vihalemm & Jakobson 2011, 705-731; Sergunin & Karabeshkin 2015, 347-363.

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activity, as it includes coordination of individual and group memories, as a result of which consensus can be achieved. Sometimes the commemoration process itself includes memory-intensive competition and conflict, and, in some cases, it results in complete destruction of the memories (Gillis 1996, 5). Cultural researcher Yael Zerubavel explains that community memory illuminates its distinctive identity. She defines a community-dominant and master-commemorative narrative as a culturally constructed main story that provides an idea of the collective past for group members, focusing on events directly related to the formation of the community as an independent social unit. In her opinion, the commemoration of initial points and events is absolutely necessary to define the distinct identity of the group in opposition to that of others (Zerubavel 1995, 6-7). According to historian Vita Zelče, in the case of Latvia, social memory diversity and even drastically opposite versions in the public space can best be observed in the context of individual memorial sites and events. In her opinion, one of the clearest examples is the celebration of Soviet Union Victory Day at Victory Monument on May 9: “Then the public arena that is transformed in the temple that is being filled with delegates of social groups, belonging to a certain collective memory, who perform ritual activities for showing respect to the past, declare their righteousness as absolute, and express non-tolerance towards different opinion” (Zelče 2007, 202). Emotional saturation of the events can be explained by the presence of the past today, with the stamp of past time, regime, loyalty in the identity. In this context, culturologist Deniss Hanovs predicts that the presence of “former” ideologies (mainly thinking about Soviet ideology) in Latvian political discourse will continue. Hanovs (2012, 20) writes, “The annual ritual conflict of memories will repeat, like all other annual political ‘celebrations’.” The mutual estrangement of social memory versions in the case of Latvia is also largely driven by attitudes toward public holidays. Writing on the practice of celebrating national holidays in Latvia, Latvian sociologist Brigita Zepa and her colleagues note that the most significant impediments to achieving the feeling of togetherness include mechanical activities and a lack of awareness of the celebration targets among celebration participants (Zepa et al. 2008, 6). They explain that the current celebration practice in Latvia attracts few people from other nationalities because holidays are oriented only toward Latvians rather than promoting unity of various groups. They argue that it is evident that Russian-speaking people often see public holidays through a negative prism, calling them political celebrations, which instead serves to cleave community. They emphasize that it

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is important that there not exist a conflict among discourses common in the society, or otherwise in place of the shared values of strengthening, the opposite effect can be achieved (Zepa et al. 2008, 16, 23). Essential social memory conflicts in Latvia were generated especially in the country’s Third Awakening period (1988-1991), because the promotion of changes at that time demanded a powerful enemy image in the form of the Soviet system and its supporters. The term refers to a three-year period from 1988 to 1991 when the Latvian independence movement emerged as an organized force with a clear political program and restoration of national independence as its ultimate goal. Another sociologist of Latvian origin, Daina Eglitis, states that during this Third Awakening period, an important aspect for collective identity formation and the initiation of collective action was the production and distribution of a narrative that contributed to polarization of “us” and “them.” According to Eglitis, this narrative also included the assertion that Soviet procedure in many areas was insane, and the opposition was able to offer an alternative (Eglitis 2002, 25). Latvian historian Vita Zelče notes that history served as one of the main means of political mobilization: She explains that newly obtained and awakened knowledge of history also liberated collective memory, which turned into a real public power. This united Latvians, bringing them together at the Freedom Monument on the bank of the Daugava. It was an initiating aspect for building the ‘Baltic Way,’ the creation of the calendar of their own holidays and commemoration days, and a cult of the national emblems (‘Star of Auseklis’ [Morning Star] red-white-red flag, etc.). Collective memory also created the myth of the future – the retained ideal of the free state of Latvia was a perfect goal during the Awakening movement. The period of the 20th century since the late ’80s was and is an active period for creating criticism towards “Soviet history”, filling up “blank spots” and creating Latvian history. Its writers were historians, journalists, writers, politicians, and others. (Zelče 2009, 44). After the regaining of independence, Latvian ethnic non-Latvians who had supported the national Awakening developed an attitude of resentment toward the new Latvian state. Russian consciousness in Latvia during the Soviet and post-Soviet period was characterized as extremely deformed because the media did not allow identification of Latvian Russians with Russia and its culture, while their informal opinion about themselves did not allow them to identify themselves with national values (Volkovs 1996, 52). At the same time, in the daily consciousness of Latvians during the post-Soviet period, a conviction regarding the uniqueness of the Latvian

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situation and even of the negative “predestination” of Latvians was formed, as explained by political scientist Juris Rozenvalds (2000, 138): Prolonged humiliation of Latvian national feelings in the Soviet Empire, intensive Russification that marked a serious threat for the existence of Latvianness, in perspective has created a kind of eschatological argument that in the discourse of Latvia in the political ’90s is used quite often. Its essence is in the assertion that a solution of this or that question in a particular way threatens the existence of the Latvian nation.

Media practices and political activities play an important role in maintaining conflicts of understandings of the past. Communication researcher Barbie Zelizer (2010, 379) argues that journalism plays a systematic and ongoing role in shaping the ways in which people perceive the past. The popular assumption is that journalism provides a first draft of history by aspiring to a sense of newsworthiness. She continues: “Using history or events of the past as a way to understand the present is basic to the scholarly projects associated with collective memory, but it is built in pragmatic ways into journalism as well. The past offers a point of comparison, an opportunity for analogy, an invitation to nostalgia, redress to earlier events” (Zelizer 2010, 382-384). Zelizer also points out that journalism continues to function as one of contemporary society’s main institutions of recording and remembering (Zelizer 2008, 85). The content of media messages, further transferred to the interpersonal level (discussions in schools, families, peer groups, etc.), strengthens the discourse of “we” and “they” and constantly renews beliefs regarding the collective past at the individual level. In general, the studies performed in Latvia concerning conflicts of social memories in the context of commemoration days are elaborated from the perspective of the humanities or sociology. However, the examination of media practices regarding commemoration days still requires significant work, because in circumstances of two information spaces, which is characteristic of Latvia, the media should be considered as the most active actors in maintaining tensions around past perceptions.

Case and methods The principal and most interesting outcome of our study involves choices made by the respondents regarding the four best and four worst events in 20th-century Latvia. The 2016 SUSTINNO survey (Latvijas Universitāte 2016) questionnaire contained a selection of thirteen events, from which

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the respondents were asked to choose what they deemed the best one and the worst one, answering two similar consecutive questions. The original thirteen events were as follows: 1 1905 Revolution 2 World War I 3 Proclamation of the independent Republic of Latvia in 1918 4 Coup d’état by the right-wing authoritarian prime minister Kārlis Ulmanis in 1934 5 Latvian occupation and incorporation in the USSR in 1940 6 World War II 7 Holocaust 8 Victory of the USSR in World War II 9 Soviet repressions against the Latvian people 10 Large-scale immigration to Latvia from Russia and other Soviet republics 11 Dissolution of the USSR 12 Restoration of the independent Republic of Latvia in 1991 13 Other There can be little doubt that this list poses several problems. To begin with, in most cases it would be awkward to assume that a notable proportion of respondents would name the Holocaust or either of the world wars among the best events; that would presumably occur only due to confusion with something else. Moreover, the very names of certain events (especially directly related to war, genocide or loss of statehood) contain a degree of value-laden narrative in terms of whether they should be assumed to be “good” or “bad.” Secondly, some of the events overlap (such as World War II and the Holocaust, at least on Latvian territory) or are intertwined in a quasi-cause-and-effect relationship (the breakup of the Soviet Union and the restoration of independence). In such cases, however, keeping both mutually overlapping options may reflect the centrality of any given event. Thirdly, events that occurred in the more distant past, like the 1905 Revolution or World War I, may not be recalled by the overwhelming majority of respondents, and the memory of these events may be rather blurred. On the other hand, certain events may be topical for statehood or national mythology (such as the proclamation of independence or its loss) and deserve to be kept in the analysis. All said, after bearing in mind the tradeoffs outlined above, we decided to keep the following two sets of events for analysis and comparison of opinions. As will be shown in the data analysis sections of this chapter, these are also the events that were most often mentioned by the respondents as worst and best in the 20th-century Latvia.

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Table 4.1 Events most often mentioned as worst and best from the 20th-century history of Latvia Worst events

Best events

Incorporation in the USSR, 1940 World War II Holocaust Soviet repressions against Latvians

Proclamation of independence, 1918 [Soviet] victory in World War II Dissolution of USSR Restoration of independence, 1991

For the purpose of further analysis, we split our sample into four age groups roughly similar in size: 18 to 29 years of age; 30 to 44 years; 45 to 59 years; and 60 to 74 years. In each age group, choices of the worst and best events, as assessed by ethnic Latvians and non-Latvians, are compared, and statistically significant group differences, where identified, are discussed.

Worst and best historical periods and events: The general picture Ethnolinguistic communities differ markedly in their opinions and mentions of the key events of the recent (since the beginning of the 20th century) history of Latvia. Confronted with the question of 2016 SUSTINNO survey “In your opinion, which of the following was the worst event in Latvian history?,” ethnic Latvian respondents most often mentioned the Second World War (25%), followed by the incorporation of Latvia in the USSR in 1940 (23%) and Soviet repressions against Latvians (22%). By contrast, a clear majority of ethnic non-Latvians opted for the Second World War as the worst event (52%), with the Holocaust (15%) and the breakup of the Soviet Union (8%) following well behind. It should be noted at the same time that the proportion of ethnic Latvian respondents who believed the Holocaust to be the worst tragedy (8.5%) was considerably less than among the ethnic non-Latvians.2 Disparities are clearly seen in the similar question of what people believe to be the best event in 20th-century Latvia. On the whole, ethnic Latvians named events associated with Latvia gaining or regaining its national independence: restoration of the independent Latvian state in 1991 (49%), the f irst proclamation of the Republic of Latvia in 1918 (18%), and the breakup of the USSR (13%), which essentially included the opportunity to 2

The differences are statistically significant (Pearson chi-square χ2 = 196, p < 0.001; N = 1010).

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restore independence. Among ethnic non-Latvians, the most frequently mentioned positive event was the Soviet victory in World War II (35%), followed by the restoration of the independent Latvian state in 1991 (25%). Interestingly, 21% of ethnic non-Latvian respondents indicated that they didn’t know which event to consider most positive. Fourth place was occupied by the breakup of the USSR, with about 8% of the non-Latvian respondents choosing that.3 Belonging to one of the two main ethnolinguistic communities is a strong predictor not only for opinions on certain isolated events but for evaluations of more complex, lengthy historical periods. This is seen clearly from a comparison of the answers of Latvian and non-Latvian respondents to the question, “What is your attitude toward the following periods of Latvian history – is it positive, rather positive, rather negative or negative?” The question is followed by seven consecutive historical periods, from Latvia being a part of Czarist Russia to the present-day independent Republic of Latvia. Periods belonging to a more distant past result in many “don’t know” answers for obvious reasons (e.g., most respondents could not have experienced the respective period themselves), so here we consider comparative evaluations of the three most recent timespans: Latvia under Soviet rule (1940-1988), the Third Awakening (1988-1991) and the restored independent Latvian state (since 1991). The evaluations of the Soviet period are probably the most remarkable in terms of the observed differences: it was assessed positively by 59% of non-Latvian respondents but just 25% of Latvian respondents; thus, 41% of ethnic non-Latvian and 75% of ethnic Latvian participants in the survey had negative opinions about the period. However, about 20% of Latvian speakers and 24% of Russian speakers had difficulties in choosing any of the answer options. 4 The Latvian Third Awakening movement was appealing not only to ethnic Latvians but also to many (although not the majority of) non-Latvian residents of what then had been the Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Latvian S.S.R.) as there were both hopes and promises of interethnic reconciliation, mutual trust and collaboration, re-establishment of Latvian society on the basis of democratic values and goals, and respect for the political and linguistic interests of both ethnic Latvians and non-Latvians.

3 4

The differences are statistically significant (Pearson chi-square χ2 = 229, p < 0.001; N = 1010). The differences are statistically significant (Pearson chi-square χ2 = 164, p < 0.001; N = 1010).

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Approximately 69% of Latvian respondents and 43.5% of non-Latvian respondents displayed positive attitudes toward the period. Just 6% of ethnic Latvians and 22% of ethnic non-Latvians expressed negative views on the period, while 25% of ethnic Latvians and 34% of ethnic non-Latvians, both considerable proportions, had no clear opinion on the matter.5 The final timespan under consideration is the post-1991 period, marking the restored independence of the country. Here the majority of both ethnic Latvians (79%) and ethnic non-Latvians (62%) expressed positive views, albeit a 17% gap should not be ignored. While 10% of Latvian and 21% of non-Latvian respondents held negative views on the period, it should not be interpreted as an automatic endorsement of another timespan that may seem qualitatively “opposite” from the period of restored statehood. Of all three periods considered, this is the period where the opinions of both ethnolinguistic communities were most close to each other. The number of undecided respondents was markedly lower for both communities (Latvian, 12%; non-Latvian, 17.5%) than for the previous two questions.6

Social memories of transformative events in Latvia: The generational dimension Obviously, memories of transformative events would most likely be expected to differ across generations. Younger people who were 30 or under in 2016, for instance, had no chance to meaningfully perceive and form their own opinions on the events of the Awakening or the restoration of independence; if they want to learn something about these, they have to rely on the memories of their older relatives and friends, in addition to sources like textbooks and media. In contrast, many people in their sixties and seventies can easily recall events dating to the late 1980s, as well as those belonging to a more distant past, including most of the Soviet era in Latvia. Some of those who were born in 1942 (meaning that they were 74 years old in 2016) may be able to recall the Soviet deportations of 1949 when they were

5 The differences between both communities are significant (Pearson chi-square χ2 = 96, p < 0.001; N = 1010). 6 The differences between both communities remain signif icant, although slightly less pronounced (Pearson chi-square χ2 = 50, p < 0.001; N = 1010).

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seven years of age. This consideration makes a strong case for comparing people’s memories not just across ethnolinguistic communities but across generational groups as well. Table 4.2 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 18-29 years Worst event Incorporation in the USSR World War II Holocaust Soviet repressions Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, %

Ethnic non-Latvians, %

Total, %

19 26 12 29 14

7 55 20 7 11

16 34 14 23 13

N = 196; Pearson χ2 = 23.68; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

Representatives of the youngest generation of Latvian residents, aged 18 to 29, personally experienced none of the events listed in the table above. Thus, the choices they made are largely attributable to other sources, such as family (parents and grandparents), school or the media. As can be seen from the Total column, World War II occupies first place overall, being mentioned as the worst event in Latvian history by one-third of all respondents in this age group. However, one can immediately spot profound differences between the ethnic Latvian and non-Latvian groups: in the former, slightly more than a quarter chose World War II as the worst event, while in the latter, it was opted for by more than a half. Repressions carried out by Soviet authorities in 1941 (f irst of all, but not limited to that date) and 1949 mass deportations comprise the second most frequently mentioned event with 23%; here the situation is quite opposite, with 29% of ethnic Latvians believing it to be the worst event but only 7% of ethnic non-Latvians agreeing with them on that point. A similar picture emerges around another pair of events closely linked to the previous two, namely, loss of independence to the USSR in 1940 and the Holocaust; the former was mentioned far more often by ethnic Latvians than by ethnic non-Latvians, while the latter was pointed out by a considerably larger proportion of ethnic non-Latvians than ethnic Latvian youth (see Table 4.2). Similar proportions of both ethnic groups (14% and 11%) stated that they were unsure about which event to select as the worst one; apart from that, the differences are profound and statistically signif icant.

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Table 4.3 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 30-44 years Worst event Incorporation in the USSR World War II Holocaust Soviet repressions Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, %

Ethnic non-Latvians, %

Total, %

25 32 8 26 9

5 59 17 11 8

20 39 10 22 9

N = 254; Pearson χ2 = 25.28; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

By and large, the distribution of opinions among the next generational group (30 to 44 years of age) is similar to that observed in the youngest cohort. World War II retains its position in first place, being chosen as the worst historical event by almost 40% of respondents, with Soviet repressions (22%), incorporation in the USSR (20%), and the Holocaust (10%) being left well behind. A further breakdown by ethnolinguistic identity reveals the persistence of differences among the two communities; for example, incorporation in the USSR was labeled as the worst occurrence by 25% of ethnic Latvians and a mere 5% of ethnic non-Latvians, the Holocaust was chosen by 17% of non-Latvians but a twice-smaller proportion of Latvians, and Soviet repressions were highlighted by more than a quarter of ethnic Latvians, compared to just one-tenth of non-Latvians. In this age group, the proportion of respondents that did not give an opinion was smaller (8% to 9%). The discovered differences are statistically significant. It is worth noting that World War II came in first place in both ethnic groups, even though a profound contrast persisted (32% of ethnic Latvians versus 59% of ethnic non-Latvians). On the whole, it is primarily the difference in evaluations of the Soviet period (and the events associated with it) that contributes to the split between the two communities’ opinions of historical events. Table 4.4 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 45-59 years Worst event Incorporation in the USSR World War II Holocaust Soviet repressions Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, % 26 31 11 27 5

Ethnic non-Latvians, % 11 57 14 9 9

N = 224; Pearson χ2 = 21.78; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

Total, % 22 39 12 21 6

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Results in the age group of 45 to 59 years old mainly resemble those of the group aged 30 to 44. World War II retains its relative top position, being named by roughly 39% of respondents; however, this is largely thanks to a far less uniform distribution of opinions in the non-Latvian segment of the society. Historic events associated with the forced annexation of Latvia to the USSR were chosen by ethnic Latvians two to three times more often than by non-Latvians; at the same time, differences in mentioning the Holocaust were much less (11% of ethnic Latvians compared to 14% of ethnic non-Latvians). The overall proportion of “don’t know” responses declined to 6%, compared to 13% in the 18-to-29 age group and 9% in the 30-to-44 age group. The differences retain their statistical significance. Table 4.5 Worst event in Latvian history: age group 60-74 years Worst event Incorporation in the USSR World War II Holocaust Soviet repressions Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, % 39 28 8 22 3

Ethnic non-Latvians, % 8 62 18 5 7

Total, % 27 41 12 16 4

N = 224; Pearson χ2 = 41.51; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

The formerly observed “opinion split” regarding the worst events in Latvian history was even more pronounced in the 60 to 74 age group. As in the former groups, World War II remained relatively dominant with an overall 41%, mainly due to the responses of ethnic non-Latvians (62%, compared to only 28% of ethnic Latvians). The loss of Latvia’s independence to the Soviet Union occupied second place overall: it was in first place among ethnic Latvians (39%) but in last among ethnic non-Latvians (8%). Differences in mentions of Soviet repressions and the Holocaust mirror each other reversely and become obviously more radical than in the other three age groups, while respondents answering “don’t know” amount to a total of 4%. Taking all this into account, it is not surprising that the results are statistically significant. Apart from the salient contrasts in opinion regarding these events, there is a larger and yet subtle tendency to be discussed. Responses in all four age groups show a more uniform distribution among ethnic Latvians, with no historical event being labeled as the worst one by the overwhelming majority. Rather, their choices seem to be allocated in a roughly similar manner across World War II, Soviet repressions and

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incorporation in the USSR. The youngest generation tended to mention Soviet repressions slightly more often than other events, while the 3044 and 45-59 age groups tended to opt for World War II (31% and 32%) more often than for the other three. By contrast, World War II was the clear leader of the darkest memories of the non-Latvian segment, with more than half mentioning it as the worst event in 20th-century Latvia, leaving all other events well behind. The Holocaust, in turn, occupied second place in their responses, while the miseries associated with the Soviet regime seemed to be of far less relevance. It can be argued that the historical memories of ethnic non-Latvians are largely associated with World War II as the principal and greatest disaster of the century, a kind of an absolute evil, while ethnic Latvians tend to highlight more specif ic assaults directed f irst and foremost against their people and polity by foreign powers. Table 4.6 Best event in Latvian history: age group 18-29 years Best event Proclamation of independence, 1918 Soviet victory in World War II Dissolution of USSR Restoration of independence, 1991 Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, % Ethnic non-Latvians, % Total, % 16

7

13

2 14 54

20 10 37

7 13 50

14

26

17

N = 232; Pearson χ2 = 29.81; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

The distribution of opinions on which event to consider the best one in 20th-century Latvia is far from homogenous as well, with clear differences across all four age groups. As one can see from Table 4.6, the overwhelming majority of young ethnic Latvians named the restoration of independence in 1991, an event associated with the conquest of the once-robbed statehood, which is also relatively close chronologically to the time of their early childhood. The proclamation of independence, by contrast, was chosen by merely 16%, followed by the breakup of the Soviet Union and the Soviet victory in World War II with a miniscule 2%. Turning to the opinions of ethnic non-Latvians, it is worth noting that the restoration of independence was the most frequently chosen “best” event among young ethnic non-Latvians with 37%, followed by “don’t know” answers (26%), while the Soviet victory in World War II ranked third with 20%.

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Table 4.7 Best event in Latvian history: age group 30-44 years Best event Proclamation of independence, 1918 Soviet victory in World War II Dissolution of USSR Restoration of independence, 1991 Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, % Ethnic non-Latvians, % Total, % 20

8

17

5 12 50

42 9 24

15 11 43

13

17

14

N = 277; Pearson χ2 = 64.68; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

Regarding the perceived best event, a comparison of opinions in the age group of 30-44 years presents quite a different picture when broken down by ethnic origin. A total of 70% of ethnic Latvians mentioned events related to gains in independence, either initially (20%) or repeatedly (50%); another 12% chose the breakup of the USSR as the event directly leading to the regaining of statehood, and just 5% opted for the Soviet victory in the war. Responses from the ethnic non-Latvian subsample are in marked contrast to this, however, with 42% mentioning the Soviet victory, putting it in first place, and about a quarter (24%) citing the restoration of independence. Both the proclamation of an independent Latvia and the dissolution of the Soviet Union received less than 10% each, while 17% of respondents failed to choose from the presented list of events. Although there are obvious “champion” and “outsider” events in the non-ethnic segment, there was far from a consensus in terms of the distribution of opinions, especially if compared to the ethnic Latvian segment, which largely chose events associated with the emergence – or, in particular, restoration – of national statehood. Table 4.8 Best event in Latvian history: age group 45-59 years Best event Proclamation of independence, 1918 Soviet victory in World War II Dissolution of USSR Restoration of independence, 1991 Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, % Ethnic non-Latvians, % Total, % 17

7

13

7 16 53

40 9 23

18 14 43

7

21

12

N = 251; Pearson χ2 = 60.59; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

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A comparison of opinions in the older age group (45 to 59) presents a similar picture. A significant majority of ethnic Latvians named the restoration of independence as the best event, followed by another two historical landmarks related to the emergence of the revival of the Latvian state. The sympathies of the largest proportion of ethnic non-Latvians remained with the Soviet victory in World War II, with the restoration of the independent Republic of Latvia in second place. Noteworthy is the comparably large (21%) proportion of undecided non-Latvians, which was three times larger than that of their ethnic Latvian counterparts (7%). As in the case of the previous age group, the opinions of non-Latvians were more divided than their ethnic Latvian counterparts. Table 4.9 Best event in Latvian history: age group 60-74 years Best event Proclamation of independence, 1918 Soviet victory in World War II Dissolution of USSR Restoration of independence, 1991 Don’t know

Ethnic Latvians, % Ethnic non-Latvians, % Total, % 21

11

17

8 11 50

26 9 26

15 11 40

10

28

17

N = 209; Pearson χ2 = 31.25; p < 0.001 (differences are statistically significant)

Finally, regarding the opinions of the oldest group about which event was the best in 20th-century Latvia (Table 4.9), one can immediately note that the opinions of the non-Latvian respondents were even more divided than in the other three age groups, with the largest proportion declaring themselves undecided (28%). The Soviet victory and the restoration of independence enjoyed equal support (26% each), while roughly one-tenth chose either the proclamation of independence in 1918 or the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991. As for the ethnic Latvian part of the sample, the distribution of choices shows no profound differences from those of the three younger age groups.

Conclusions The research question of the chapter was how social memories manifest themselves in Latvian society across age and ethnic groups. We believe that these two factors largely shape perceptions of historical events, allowing us

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to observe persistent splits and disagreements on certain issues, which, being historical in their nature, still have profound implications for present-day Latvian politics. Generational groups were formed by creating four distinct age categories. The youngest group included people aged 18 to 29 years at the time the survey was conducted, which means that they were not cognizant during any of the events they were requested to evaluate. Thus, their opinions should have been largely formed by their parents, grandparents and school curricula, as well as the media. Many of the respondents aged 30 to 44 had the chance to directly experience the collapse of the USSR, leading to the restoration of independence, or at least they could remember the corresponding events and some of their own basic impressions. It should be noted that ethnic non-Latvians of this generation were more likely to be dismissive of the breakup of the Soviet Union, while ethnic Latvians largely tended to associate this event with the end of totalitarian rule, restoration of independence, and hopes for a better and democratic future. At the same time, this age cohort had spent some part of their school years in the Soviet period, meaning that certain historical events were presented in line with the dominant ideology of the time. The next generational group, consisting of people 45 to 59 years of age, was born and educated in the Soviet era but able to learn about events in the 1940s (including the war, occupations and mass repressions) from their parents or other elder relatives, who in turn formed the oldest group of survey respondents (60+ years of age). Many of the traumatic events of World War II and the subsequent Soviet rule were experienced by this oldest age group directly; speaking of it openly was, at best, not encouraged, and in many cases it was even punished. At the same time, many of the ethnic non-Latvians who came to Soviet Latvia after World War II could have had life experiences and perceptions of the historical events which differed from those of the local population. For instance, many people could have remained unaware for a long time about the mass deportations of May-June 1941, which affected the vast territories gained by the USSR during 1939 and 1940 (the Baltic states, the former regions of western Poland ceded to Ukraine and Belarus, and Moldavia). Generational differences in evaluations of historical events may be attributable to the use of sources of information published in different languages (e.g., that of titular ethnicities of the Baltic states versus Russian). For instance, most middle-aged and elderly people in Latvia tend to select information on topics of interest in languages they know well, preferably their mother tongue, be it either Latvian or Russian. Additionally, the command of the Russian language has traditionally been significantly

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higher among middle-aged and older Latvians than command of Latvian among ethnic non-Latvians. At the same time, Russian has lost its former position among many in the younger generation of ethnic Latvians, giving way to English, while the youngest ethnic non-Latvians usually have a good command of all three languages. Being able to apprehend multilingual information enhances opportunities to access different points of view on the same contested issue, and this factor accounts for some of the convergence of the worldviews of the youngest Latvians and non-Latvians. Another potentially significant factor is the type of media people prefer to acquire information from. Multilingualism and the ability and proneness to use the internet rather than relying on traditional media like newspapers, radio, or TV may account for the greater openness of the younger generations to different accounts of the debated questions, even in circumstances when they are used to justify certain political decisions in linguistic or citizenship policies put forth by the state. On the whole, several important conclusions can be drawn from the analysis of this survey data. The first and the most obvious one is that even 25 years after the fall of the USSR, profound gulfs of opinion persist, revealing themselves, inter alia, as differences in value judgments about major historical events of the 20th century that had a transformative effect on Latvian society. Secondly, these differences also manifest themselves across generations, as different age groups chose different events as the worst or the best. Data reveal that ethnic Latvians were mostly united around the choice of the best event, with 50% or more citing the restoration of the independent Republic of Latvia in 1991 and, in second place, the initial proclamation of the independent state in 1918. At the same time, their choices of the worst event differed across age groups, with no single event being predominant. Meanwhile, the opinions of ethnic non-Latvians were mainly centered around World War II, with a clear majority in all four age groups naming it the worst event. At the same time, the opinions of ethnic non-Latvians were divided as to which event to consider the best; the youngest age group placed emphasis on the restoration of an independent Latvia and the other three age groups gave preference to the Soviet victory in World War II. Thirdly, each ethnic segment tended to stress the importance of tragedies that primarily affected their own group (or the group they prefer to associate themselves with), rather than wrongdoings committed against their counterparts. For example, ethnic Latvians tended to mention Soviet repressions as the worst event far more often than the Holocaust, while for ethnic non-Latvians the reverse was true, with the Holocaust being the second most frequently mentioned event

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and the Soviet repressions occupying last or the penultimate place. All of these findings suggest that differences in the social memories of both major ethnic communities in Latvia will likely persist, and society will remain divided along historical lines for years and decades to come. This being the case, respectful dialogue with a readiness to hear and understand the opposite side may be a much more effective and safe instrument to achieve a convergence of social memories than a forced imposition of acceptable interpretations of 20th-century history in all of its complexity and with all of its controversies. Another challenge would be the unifying of two information spaces in Latvia, namely, Russian- and Latvian-language media. An additional factor would be improvement of media literacy and critical thinking regarding media content produced in Russia (e.g., First Baltic Channel, Pirmais Baltijas Kanāls, NTV Mir Baltic and RTR Planeta), which enjoys popularity in the media space of Latvia. Living together with difficult memories and diverse identities in the future is unavoidable and challenging at the same time. Along with the promotion of respectful dialogue, the strengthening of European identity and values (such as “unity in diversity,” etc.) has significant potential for creating a wider sense of belonging for both memory communities.

References Ardava, Laura. “Etnogrāfu piezīmes: 16. marta un 8./9. maija komemorācijas prakses un rituāli Latvijā (2010-2011).” Karojošā piemiņa: 16. marts un 9. maijs. Eds. Nils Mužnieks & Vita Zelče. Rīga: Zinātne, 2011. 349-65. Brown, Norman R., Peter J. Lee, Minna Krslak, Frederick G. Conrad, Tia G. B. Hansen, Jelena Havelka & John R. Reddon. “Living in History: How War, Terrorism, and Natural Disaster Affect the Organization of Autobiographical Memory.” Psychological Science 20.4 (2009): 399-405. Brüggemann, Karsten & Andres Kasekamp. “The Politics of History and the “War of Monuments” in Estonia.” Nationalities Papers 36.3 (2008): 425-448. Burch, Stuart & David J. Smith. “Empty Spaces and the Value of Symbols: Estonia’s ‘War of Monuments’ from Another Angle.” Europe-Asia Studies 59.6 (2007): 913-936. Eglitis, Daina S. Imagining the Nation: History, Modernity and Revolution in Latvia. University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2002. Eglitis, Daina S. & Laura Ardava. “The Politics of Memory: Remembering the Baltic Way 20 Years after 1989.” Europe-Asia Studies 64.6 (2012): 1033-1059.

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Gillis, John R. “Memory and Identity: The History of a Relationship.” Commemorations: The Politics of National Identity. Ed. John R. Gillis. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1996. Gorenburg, Dmitry & Andrey Makarychev. “Russia’s Discourses on Neighborhood and Identity.” Russian Politics & Law 47.5 (2009): 3-9. Hanovs, Deniss. “Kā pētīt “nepareizas” atmiņas Latvijā?” Letonica 23.2 (2012): 5-24. Kattago, Siobhan. “Commemorating Liberation and Occupation: War Memorials along the Road to Narva.” Journal of Baltic Studies 39.4 (2008): 431-449. Kepplinger, Hans M. “Effects of the News Media on Public Opinion.” The Sage Handbook of Public Opinion Research. Eds. Wolfgang Donsbach & Michael W. Traugott. London: Sage Publications, 2008. 192-204. Latvijas Universitāte (2016). Socioloģiska aptauja par iedzīvotāju vērtībām valsts pētījumu programmas SUSTINNO vajadzībām. Datu kopa (dataset produced in SUSTINNO project social survey of value orientations of the residents of Latvia). Lehti, Marko, Matti Jutila & Markku Jokisipilä. “Never Ending Second World War: Public Performances of National Dignity and the Drama of the Bronze Soldier.” Journal of Baltic Studies 39.4 (2008): 393-418. Novick, Peter. The Holocaust in American life. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1999. Pääbo, Heiko. “War of Memories: Explaining ‘Memorials War’ In Estonia.” Baltic Security and Defence Review 10 (2008): 5-28. Plakans, Andrejs. “Ievads.” Atmiņa un vēsture: no antropoloģijas līdz psiholoģijai. Ed. Roberts Ķīlis. Rīga: N.I.M.S, 1998. 9-15. Rozenvalds, Juris. “Par inteliģenci un tās lomu Latvijas politiskajos procesos 1987.2000. gadā.” Latvijas Zinātņu Akadēmijas Vēstis 54.3-4 (2000): 130-141. Sergunin, Alexander & Leonid Karabeshkin. “Understanding Russia’s Soft Power Strategy.” Politics 35.3-4 (2015): 347-363. Sztompka, Piotr. “The Trauma of Social Change: A Case of Postcommunist Societies.” Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Eds. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser & Piotr Sztompka. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 155-159. Vihalemm, Triin & Valeria Jakobson. “Representations of the past in Estonian Russian-language press: “own” or diaspora memory?” Nationalities Papers 39.5 (2011): 705-731. Volkovs, Vladislavs. Krievi Latvijā. Rīga: Latvijas Zinātņu akadēmijas Filozofijas un socioloģijas institūta Etnisko pētījumu centrs, 1996. Wertsch, James V. Voices of Collective Remembering. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

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Zelče, Vita. “Vēsture un vēsture, un 9. Saeimas vēlēšanas.” Latvijas Republikas 9. Saeimas vēlēšanu kampaņa: priekšvēlēšanu publiskā telpa. Eds. Inta Brikše & Vita Zelče. Rīga: Zinātne, 2007. 193-216. Zelče, Vita. “History-Responsibility-Memory: Latvia’s Case.” Accountability and Responsibility. Eds. Ivars Ijabs & Juris Rozenvalds. Riga: LU ASPRI, 2009. 44-57. https://www.szf.lu.lv/fileadmin/user_upload/szf_faili/Petnieciba/sppi/tautas/ Human_development_report_2008-2009.pdf. Zelizer, Barbie. “Why Memory’s Work on Journalism Does Not Reflect Journalism’s Work on Memory.” Memory Studies 1.1 (2008): 79-87. Zelizer, Barbie. “Journalism’s Memory Work.” A Companion to Cultural Memory Studies. Eds. Astrid Erll & Ansgar Nünning. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2010. 379-388. Zepa, Brigita (ed.). Mēs. Svētki. Valsts: Valsts svētku svinēšanas socioloģiska izpēte. Rīga: Baltic Institute of Social Sciences, 2008. Zerubavel, Yael. Recovered Roots: Collective Memory and the Making of Israeli National Tradition. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1995.

About the authors Laura Ardava-Āboliņa is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Latvia. She examines the meaning and commemoration of Latvian National Awakening period (1986-1991). [email protected] Jurijs Ņikišins is Research Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Sociology Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Latvia. His research interests focus on political values, attitudes and behavior, as well as relations between ethnic and linguistic groups in heterogeneous societies. [email protected]

5

Ishans and Murids before, in and after the Gulag Strategies of Adaptation to the 1948 Repressions in the Perm Region Gulsina Selyaninova

Abstract The chapter is devoted to studying the sociocultural trauma which was the result of repressions associated with the “Anti-Soviet Ishanism Establishment Case” of 1948 in the Perm Region (USSR). Because the arrested Muslims had been sentenced as Ishanism devotees, it was important to verify the interrogation records and charging papers by means of oral history; the chapter confirms the fact that the Muslims arrested in 1948 were indeed followers of the tradition of Ishanism. Oral interviews allowed not only the lives of each of the arrested people to be traced, but also their families and people who were more or less familiar with them. The study also identifies how society – and ishans and murids themselves – managed to adapt to the consequences of the arrests. Keywords: Ishanism, sociocultural trauma, post-memory, narrative, oral history, the Perm Region

Introduction Despite the liberalization of relations between the state and religious organizations during World War II, even at the beginning of 1948 the mechanism of arrests and prosecutions was initiated once again against those holders of religious beliefs who, committed to traditional Muslim literature and culture, continued their religious practices. In February 1948, state security

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch05

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officers of the Molotovskaya Oblast`“revealed evidence” of the “sectarian group of Ishanism” that “was engaged in anti-Soviet activities,” as stated in the investigative documents.12 In 1999, my investigations in the archive revealed the so-called “AntiSoviet Ishanism Establishment Case” (hereafter ASIEC), containing documents related to the arrests in 1948 of a group of people residing in the southern districts of the Permskaya Oblast` (Molotovskaya Oblast` at the time), which was densely populated by Muslims.3 During the case of 1948, many Muslims were interrogated, charged and finally sentenced as Ishanism devotees. It is typical for the Perm Region that since ancient times, the Tatars and Bashkirs living in its southern parts have traditionally practiced Islam. Those who were arrested in 1948 were accused of professing Ishanism, a form of Sufism that existed in the Volga-Ural Region. The findings were included in an article which was published in 1999 (Selyaninova 1999, 72-79). Even though the investigators of the Ministry of State Security for the Molotov Region were unlikely to have had a deep understanding of Islamic mysticism, the fact that there were allegedly a number of frame-ups in the period of repressions suggests that they also might have. That is why it was important to find witnesses to the events of 1948 who could either confirm or disprove the prisoners’ affiliation with Ishanism and thus shed some light on the trauma of repression. However, verification of the discovered interrogation reports and charging documents remained the focus of my research. In 2011-2016, I interviewed eyewitnesses and relatives of those who had been accused of commitment to Sufism and arrested. As a scholar, I was astonished by the fact that certain of my contemporaries did not know that due to Stalin’s religious policy which aimed to establish atheistic views on the state level, some of the most respected representatives of the Muslim community, who were considered followers of Sufism, were subjected to repressions and persecution. This naturally provided me with motivation to gather as much information as possible about the adherents of Islamic mysticism arrested in 1948 in Molotovskaya Oblast` and make it available to the public.

1 Molotovskaya Oblast` – the name of Perm Krai territory from 1940 till 1957. 2 PermGASPI (Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History). Folder 2, Inv.1, File 6337, 26393. 3 For details, see Selyaninova G.D. The case of the “anti-Soviet organization of Ishanism” in 1948 // Human rights in Russia: Past and Present: Collection of articles. Perm: Zvezda, 1999. 72-79; see also http://barda-perm.narod.ru/perm/delo-ishanizma.htm

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To my surprise, during the interviews, I not only faced silence but even a strong denial of the interviewees’ own or their ancestors’ involvement in the repressions of this legal case. Perhaps one of the strongest exclamations of denial came from the granddaughter of an Ishan: “You made it all up. You are a teller of fairy tales and stories. My grandfather was never an ishan!”4 This kind of reaction led me to seek evidence from the witnesses in order to verify the archive data. However, these words reveal that most Muslims have lost the general idea of what ishans (sufi spiritual leaders) and their murids (disciples) actually were, and they are afraid that their ancestors might have been accused of some sort of treasonable activity against the state. I propose that the acts of denying and erasing the repressions memory related to the Ishanism case are the result of the population’s adaptation to the Stalinist national, anti-religious policy. It led to silence, inconsistency and a loss of memory of the spiritual traditions of the past. As a result of the introduction of the Latin alphabet and then the Cyrillic alphabet into the Tatar and Bashkir languages, people were forbidden from reading texts in Arabic and Old Turkic languages. This led to the cultural degradation of the Muslim population and the loss of the traditions of Muslim education. Focusing on the different means of adapting to repression trauma, in this chapter I will show the diversity of ways in which the repression in the 1940s affected those who experienced it and the Muslim community around them.

Ishanism in the Perm Region and the pressure of Stalinist religion politics Sufism is a mystical tradition of Islam, and Ishanism is the form of it which is characteristic for the Urals Region in general, and the Perm Region in particular. In the Urals Region, Ishanism was associated with an ishan named Zainulla Rasulev (1833-1917), whose murids preserved the traditions of Ishanism during the Soviet era. Historians note that it was the Naqshbandiyya-Khalidiyya branch of Zainulla Rasulev that “continued to exist throughout the entire Soviet period in the conditions of a hard anti-religious struggle” (Gatin, Minvaleev & Minnullin 2013, 91, 94). His name as Qutb az-Zaman, which literally means “the Pole of Time” (Nasyrov 4 Interview with L.G. (1955), recorded on October 22, 2011, in the village of Verhniy Shurtan in Oktyabrskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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2008, 134), reflects his prominent role in the life of the Muslim community in the Urals and around the Volga River. Ishanism is not easy to define, and it can be described in many ways. Al’fina Sibgatullina understands Ishanism as “the Central Asian variant of Sufism which was spread in the Volga-Ural Region,” noting that it was “especially common in the Naqshbandi tariqa” (Sibgatullina 2013, 144). Xavier Le Torrivellec characterizes Ishanism as a Bashkir variant of Sufism, which was spread because young imams declared themselves ishans to gather their faithful disciples represented by murids (Le Torrivellec 2011, 82-83). Uliya Guseva considers Ishanism “as a phenomenon within the Sufi tradition of Islam or even wider, as a phenomenon within Islam in general” (Guseva 2013, 26). Indeed, Ishanism was widespread in the Kama River area in the early 20th century. A Sufi spiritual mentor called a sheikh [Arabic for “elder”] is quite similar in nature to an ishan. The relations between ishans and murids were based on regular personal contact of a master-apprentice type. Ishans were considered to be saint-like with supernatural qualities. They had the ability to treat people by helping them heal diseases and cope with the challenges of life. Graves of ishans are carefully preserved by the population of the Perm Region even now. Yaacov Ro’i describes Ishanism as an informal, parallel version of Islam. He emphasizes that communities and priests that were not authorized in the official way nonetheless had unlimited influence in their community (Ro’i 2000, 318). Relations between the ishan and his murids in the Kama River area before 1917 had been developing within the Muslim schools where ishans professed: for example, in the villages of Tanyp, Sultanay and Marinkino. Basically, it was such relations that would later continue to evolve. The spread of Ishanism was stimulated by the fact that “the positions of the official clergy were also distributed among the disciples of this tariqa [order],” and “career growth among Muslims in the Volga Region […] was not possible without the title of Sufi” (Malikov 2013, 127). According to Ro’i, the Soviet authorities were suspicious of Suf ism, Dervishism and Ishanism. They saw these as sectarian and anti-Soviet manifestations. In the Soviet authorities’ official correspondence from 1947, Ishanism and other Islamic orders were “a parasitical way of life, performed public mysteries and ecstasies, which stirred up fanaticism, as well as religious dances, and adhered persistently to the idea of gazavat, the war against ‘infidels.’” (Ro’i 2000, 389). This quote shows some of the reasons why the authorities thought that they should arrest the adepts of Ishanism.

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The Anti-Soviet Ishanism Establishment Case of 1948 According to the case documents related to the so-called ASIEC of 1948, Ishanism was characterized as a conservative Muslim sect that could take various forms.5 Neither ishans nor murids conducted prayers in a mosque; instead, they gathered privately to pray and hold religious ceremonies in groups and Muslim celebrations, which were eventually deemed by the officials to be “illegal gatherings” promoting “anti-Soviet propaganda.”6 Most suspicious was the fact that “ishans were fully independent from the official religious bodies and were not confined to any particular scope of activity, so they could act anywhere at their own discretion.”7 Since they were not an official organization, they also did not have any records. This made tracing them challenging for the authorities. The Muslims arrested in 1948 were charged with “dissemination of Anglophile, pro-American and pro-Turkish ideas, damaging speculations about the inevitability of war, defeat of the USSR and liquidation of the kolkhoz, establishment of anti-Soviet underground sects as non-recognition of the official Muslim orders and mosques, anti-Soviet ‘brainwashing’ of the young population, and political asceticism.”8 It is also said that in their daily practices, ishans professed abstention from earthly life and refused to work, especially for Soviet enterprises or in factories or kolkhoz collective farms. In and of itself, this did not comply with Soviet law. Murids were bound to ishans by an oath of eternal and loyal allegiance. A murid could be a disciple of one and only one ishan, who would supervise his or her religious progress. Before a murid could be upgraded to the level of ishan, he or she had to pass through seven stages of discipleship. Murids paid visits to their ishan, keeping in correspondence with them at all times; moreover, twice a year ishans conducted prayers at their murids’ home.9 In this case, we can see the collision of two opposing value systems. The communist system of the State, with its idea about the necessity of atheism, 5 PermGASPI (Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History). Folder 2, Inv.1, File 6337, Sheet 108. 6 PermGASPI (Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History). Folder 2, Inv.1, File 26393, Sheet 25. 7 PermGASPI (Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History). Folder 2, Inv.1, File 6337, Sheet 108. 8 PermGASPI (Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History). Folder 2, Inv.1, File 6337, Sheet 109. 9 PermGASPI (Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History). Folder 2, Inv.1, File 26393, Sheet 34.

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sought to suppress adepts of religious teaching on how to address God. It was beyond the ability of the state to impose beliefs, but those holding “wrong views,” which disagreed with the official propaganda, could end up in physical isolation. That was a way to promote the favorable image of an atheistic proponent of Communism and the values to which they had to ascribe. Аili Aarelaid-Tart finds a violent deformation and collapse of collective identity in a collective trauma (Aarelaid-Tart 2004, 63). Aleida Assmann refers to the concept of conversion, which implies a change in identity and values that occurs as a result of altered external circumstances or social life in general (Assmann 2014, 89). This sort of identity conversion in Russian society was triggered as soon as the Bolsheviks came to power. A traditional religious identity, holding one religious affiliation or another, was replaced by the necessity of joining the Communist Party. For young people, this was usually the Komsomol or the Pioneer Union. To achieve its goals, the government prosecuted those who retained their traditional system of values. Irina Paert notes that the secular worldview may not have been dominant, but it could nonetheless conflict with the traditional way of life (Paert 2016a, 506). Ishanism devotees’ observance of traditional rites was qualified by the investigative authorities as “organized anti-Soviet activity promoting […] recruitment of new murids and planting anti-Soviet ideas,” as well as an “anti-Soviet campaign aimed at discrediting the Soviet government or the kolkhoz, and disrupting the key economic and political affairs of the state.”10 The case against the sectarian establishment of Ishanism entailed a series of arrests in 1948 with charges against the alleged ishan Sharifulla Tlyashev and a number of supposed murids: Mansur Mukminov, Sadyk Zainullin, Akhmatnur Kazykhanov, Gadylsha Kazykhanov, Mirsaet Yavgarov, Salakhi Tavyev, Shakir Zakirov, Fazlyshan Il’kaev, Gabdulkhai Bayazitov, Gabdulzian Sagatdinov and Zakir Abubakirov. They had all received religious education in a Muslim madrasa [Arabic for “learning institution”] before the Revolution. Based on the indictments approved in June 1948 by the Ministry of State Security for the Molotov Region, the Molotovskaya Regional Court delivered verdicts in 1949, imposing sentences of up to 10 years for the offences, pursuant to Art. 58/10, Parag. 2 and Art. 58/11 for counter-revolutionary activities. Thus, the repressive state machine declared the people most respected by

10 PermGASPI (Perm State Archive of Socio-Political History). Folder 2, Inv.1, File 6337, Sheet 109.

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Muslims to be guilty and turned them into victims, which undoubtedly affected the identity of the Muslim community as a whole.

A short history of the Ishanism case The history of Ishanism in the Kama River area has not been sufficiently studied, even though it has implications for the mentality and psychology of particular ethnic groups viewed at a particular time in history. Moreover, while studying the aftermath of the case, it is important to address the issue of the cultural trauma and social adaptation thereto. The archived case papers provided ample evidence that the Muslims who had been convicted in 1948 did have ties with Ishanism. It is certain that they were devout believers endeavoring to maintain the Muslim religious tradition, but were they really proponents of mystical Sufism? Or was this just a successful frame-up fabricated by the investigators of the Ministry of State Security? It is no secret that the more cases (especially significant ones) that officials closed against enemies of the Soviet regime, the more quickly they progressed up the career ladder. At the same time, Stalin’s regime demanded increasing numbers of revelations. But where would there be so many in 1948? Even though the war had recently come to an end and the enemy had been defeated, life was still as hard as before. The regime kept on looking for new enemies, shifting blame to them for the hardships and confounding the social expectations of a softer touch. It is quite problematic to verify whether accusations were true just by studying the interrogation reports of those indicted for involvement in the Ishanist sect. Among other things, the case contains papers expropriated from the arrested persons that confirm the existence of Ishanism prior to the Revolution of 1917. Zainulla Rasulev is mentioned in the archive files, and there are also books on healing that were used by ishans and murids in their practice. Could they simply be a number of cherished artifacts without the slightest relation to the events of 1948? On the other hand, it is largely agreed by many historians that Ishanist traditions had to have been maintained in the Volga-Ural Region. For example, Hamid Algar, an American scholar, finds it very unlikely for the five-century tradition of Sufism to have disappeared in the Volga-Ural Region in a span of some 70 years, no matter how severe the repressions were (Algar, 2008, 183). Based on the interviews, the following chain of events can be constructed. Even before the war ended, it became known that mild liberal winds were starting to blow against religious organizations and the religious mindsets

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of the population in general. This was a means to deal with the atrocities of war, which were not only making daily problems worse but also taking the lives of loved ones. In 1943-1944, the churches and mosques which had previously been closed started to reopen their doors to the public. Aware of this trend, the Muslims residing in the village of Marinkino established a religious community in 1946-1947 to hold prayers and allegedly engage in Sufi practices. The community was attended by Khaium Galiakbarov (who returned from the war with medals, having fought in Stalingrad and Budapest), Gadylsha Kazykhanov, Sadyk Zainullin from the village of Batashi, Khusain Ibragimov (a rural teacher from Karyevo) and Mirsaet Iavgarov (originally from the village of Batashi but residing in Bazhuki). There was one more attendee, Valiev Minnezhan, a 17-year-old man from the neighboring village of Karyevo. Their prayer gatherings were often hosted at Khusain Ibragimov’s place. According to one interviewee, the local population had the desire to come together as a religious community in the village of Marinkino of the Ordinskiy District of Molotovskaya Oblast`. He also gave the names of those arrested in 1948 and accused of affiliation with Ishanism: Akhmatnur Kazykhanov, Gadylsha Kazykhanov and Salakhi Tavyev.11 Some of the members of this prayer community had recently returned from the front lines of the war, while others had been toiling away on the domestic front, due to their young age. They had united for prayers as early as the 1930s.12 Accounts of the events that took place in 1948 are given in the following way: in 1948, a devout believer arrived in the village, asking about somebody who could read prayers. The stranger left Marinkino a week later. Arrests started a month after that. All those who had prayed with the man were arrested.

Oral history interviews to cover trauma and post-memory The aftermath of the repressions caused by the 1948 ASIEC was studied based on interviews with the witnesses to those events or the prisoners’ next of kin recorded over six decades later. They can be qualified as an address to the post-memory, which is defined by Marianne Hirsch as experiences that 11 Interview with M. G. (b. 1953), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Marinkino in Ordinskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 12 Interview with M. G. (b. 1953), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Marinkino in Ordinskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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“were transmitted to them so deeply and affectively as to seem to constitute memories in their own right,” and “the relationship that the generation after those who witnessed cultural or collective trauma bears to the experiences of those who came before” (Hirsch 2008, 106-107). What came out of those people’s later life could only be determined through a series of oral history interviews. Oral interviews have been actively used by Russian scholars as historical sources since the 1990s, due to the anthropological turn in historical science. This methodology draws attention to the lives of ordinary participants of the historical process and their experience, which was preserved in the memory of those who witnessed events and even in the memory of subsequent generations. Among those surveyed were the prisoners’ next of kin and senior citizens, who were interviewed during trips to the Bardymskiy, Oktyabrskiy, Ordinskiy and Kungurskiy districts of the Perm Region in 2011-2016. The trips helped to trace the trail of all those arrested and accused in relation to the 1948 Ishanism case. All in all, 29 interviews were recorded. The interviewees based their stories on narratives circulating among the locals and relatives, and in some cases the narratives of the released prisoners. Many had also received letters from the arrested men, which reflected their experience and shed personal light on the narratives. When the interviews were conducted, the most vital element was to find out whether there were any ties between the arrests of 1948 and actual affiliation of the arrested Muslims with Ishanism and Zainulla Rasulev in particular (1833-1917). It has long been established that Sheikh Zainulla Rasulev was in touch with some proponents of Ishanism in the Perm region. It was also important to determine who his murids were that remained in the Soviet era. Thus, the interviewees confirmed and added to the information extracted from the written documents supporting Zainulla Rasulev’s impact on the Muslim community of the Perm Region. For a society that has survived traumatic periods of history, the question of overcoming this hard experience is important. Coping with trauma, understood here as the effects of devastating events and experiences, occurs at both individual and social levels, and it causes a transformation of identity. A person’s process of adapting to a traumatic situation in which he or she happened to be involved is connected with the search for survival strategies. As a result of shifts in the system of values, one’s lifestyle and behavioral patterns start to change. It is especially relevant for those societies with traumatic events in the past to work out a way to deal with this acute awareness. To recover from traumatic experiences, one should overcome them both at a personal level and a social level.

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In the course of elaborating on the case study on the basis of interviews, the main focus was put on narratives about traumatic events or situations, interpretations given by those who were involved in them, working out symptoms of trauma, and means of post-traumatic adaptation.13 It takes the whole society to get over such an ordeal, and actual recovery often extends over a number of decades, with effects passed from one generation to the next (for more details, see Assmann 2014). It is no surprise then that for the trauma to be overcome at the social level, it should generally be acknowledged in society, and the people involved (or witnesses at least) should be given a chance to speak up by stepping out of the shadows. Conducting interviews is itself already a step in this direction. This research introduces the documents of the ASIEC and arrests that took place. The novelty of the research lies first in tracing the lives of those who were arrested and also their relatives and people who were more or less involved. Second, the specificity of the sociocultural traumas connected with this case will be explored.

Strategies of adaptation to the traumas of the 1948 repressions The Gulag as “Point of No Return”14 The lives of those Muslims who were arrested and convicted were different. Five people failed to return to their native home. The village of Aklushi (Aklysh) of Bardymskiy District of Perm Region can still remember the poor lot of Il’kaev Fazlyshan, who was arrested in 1948. The cultural memory of the villagers holds that the reason for his arrest was a provocation from an authority from Bardymskiy District. After Fazlyshan Il’kaev’s arrest he was never seen again in the village. Nobody knows what became of him. Among the arrested in relation to the 1948 Ishanism case were Zakir Abubakirov and Mansur Mukminov, who were born in Vtoroi Krasnoyar of the Bardymskiy District of Perm Region. Also, Zakir Abubakirov never returned to his native village after his arrest in 1948. No one knows what happened to him.15 13 These stages correspond to those described by Piotr Sztompka (2001, 8) regarding the pattern of trauma. 14 The Gulag, an abbreviation of “Main Camp Administration” was the system of ruling by Soviet forced-labor camps (1930s-1950s) and the system of the camps themselves. 15 Interview with S.-H. K. (b. 1950), recorded on December 10, 2016, in the village of Vtoroi Krasnoyar in Bardymskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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According to one interviewee, the villagers gave the following explanation about Mansur Mukminov: they said that there was a Mansur-mullah in the village of Syuzyan in Bardymskiy District16. He was known to be unofficially performing the functions of a mullah [Arabic for “master” or “vicar”] after the arrests and executions of the Muslim clergy in 1937. Another reason for secrecy was the fact that the mosque had been officially shut down by the authorities. Stories about Mansur Mukminov’s arrest in 1948 spread by word of mouth. He had been called to the village of Sultanai to heal a person, but it was all a set-up. While walking along the road, he was attacked by security officers who had been waiting to arrest him. Some narratives relate that a bag was put over Mansur Mukminov’s head, after which he was taken away in a carriage in an unknown direction.17 Being already 65 years old in 1948, he could hardly bear the adversity of the Gulag and passed away in prison, never coming back to the village again.18 His relatives had received some letters from him, though, from Khabarovsk, Kazan and then Sakhalin Island. He wrote that if he died, he doubted he would be buried, and instead he would most likely be fed to the fish. He never wrote again after 1955. However, he is preserved in the memories of his fellows as “Mansur-mullah.” As for Mirsaet Yavgarov (who was born in Batashi but lived in Bazhuki in Kungurskiy District), it was discovered that he also never returned home, but died in prison.19 His grandson knew from his father that his grandfather had been arrested, and he also confirmed his death in prison.20 Those who did not return from the Gulag were in an abnormal and unprecedentedly catastrophic situation, adaptation to which was extremely problematic. The Gulag was associated with life on the verge of death, in conditions of complete deprivation of rights and excessive work, where basic human needs were not met.

16 Interview with K. A. (b. 1937), recorded on December 10, 2016, in the village of Aklushi in Bardymskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 17 Interview with K. U. (b. 1954), recorded on December 10, 2016, in the village of Berezniki in Bardymskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 18 Interview with S.-H. K. (b. 1950), recorded on December 10, 2016, in the village of Vtoroi Krasnoyar in Bardymskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 19 Interview with Z. M. (b. 1918), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 20 Interview with M. M. (b. 1957), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Batashi in Kungurskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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“He was never taken back”: Breaking family bonds as a means of posttraumatic adaptation The ambition of the government and the Communist Party “to become a substitute family,” according to Nancy Adler (2013, 67), squeezed out traditional religious values, as well as those of the family. Bonds that could not resist the pressure coming from external factors were easily broken. That is exactly what happened with Shakir Zakirov: “Despite the fact that his son-in-law was the assistant to the kolkhoz chair, he never came to take him back because he was afraid to be expelled from the party. Shakir-babai […] stayed there [in the Gulag] and died. He could presumably read Arabic, Zakir-mullah was Shakir-babai’s father, and they both studied in Tanyp.”21 Shakir Zakirov is remembered in the village of Lipovka in Kungurskiy District: “He wasn’t a mullah when the elderly were arrested. He was arrested, too, and he served his term in Kustanai. He was a shepherd. His life stopped there in Kustanai, but he was never taken back.”22 His descendants remember that he was arrested because he was a mullah. His last letter was from Kazakhstan. His daughter kept this letter for a long time, until she died in 2000. The relatives of those arrested were afraid of being excluded from the Party or losing their social status, so they turned a blind eye to the requests of their relatives to help them return home, now that they had paid a toll to Stalin’s camps in the form of their energy and health. It can also be seen as a way for society to adapt to the repressions as a sort of trauma. In this case, alienation from relatives served not only as a survival strategy but also as an identifier of those who “belonged to us” and those who were “strangers.” It points to a shift in understanding of what was good and evil that occurred in the worldview of people, due to the replacement of universal moral principles with the class morality introduced by Soviet propaganda. Oblivion and negation One of the main strategies to adapt to a trauma was undoubtedly oblivion, because the vast majority of the population did not have even the slightest idea about the events. It differed for the families of the arrested people and the elderly of the village where the events took place. Their memories were 21 Interview with G. G. (b. 1937), recorded on January 18, 2014, in the village of Lipovka in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 22 Interview with G. G. (b. 1937), recorded on January 18, 2014, in the village of Lipovka in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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what helped to build conclusions about the subsequent fate of the arrested, as well as post-traumatic adaptation. The displacement of traumatic memories from the collective memory, seeking to create a sense of safety, led to gaps between generations and their alienation from each other. As a consequence, the cultural code that had previously formed the basis of traditional identity started to disappear. For this reason, there was silence concerning the arrested ancestors. In addition, in order to secure survival, there was also the desire to hide their religious views, which had been forbidden by the state. It is very common in the mechanisms of post-traumatic social adaptation to combine negation and silence. Being one of the means of self-protection, negation is related to the unwillingness to admit allegedly “dangerous” phenomena with the potential to harm people’s good reputation. The fact that in the Czarist era ishans and murids used to be the most respectable people in the Muslim ummah [“community”] changed very little in the villagers’ attitudes. The idea of nonconformist beliefs that clash with the Soviet regime even today still strikes fear in their descendants. Negation as an adaptation to a traumatic situation helps people cope with difficult memories of the past. Isolation and self-isolation The village of Bichurino in Bardymskiy District of Molotovskaya Oblast` was where Sharifulla Tlyashev lived after his arrest in 1948 and accusations of professing Ishanism. Were the accusations grounded? Sharifulla Tlyashev was taken in a way that was well-tested by chekists (Soviet authorities from the secret police).23 As in other places of Molotovskaya Oblast`, there appeared a provocateur disguised as a devout man eager to join the community. The man had collected enough evidence to arrest Sharifulla Tlyashev as a religious person. According to the case papers, Sharifulla Tlyashev was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. However, he had not been imprisoned for that long, and he passed away in the same village of Bichurino. After his experience of being arrested, he was petrified to openly read prayers.24 The fact that Sharifulla Tlyashev “locked himself” within the family demonstrates his evident wish to adapt to life 23 Interview with B. T. (b. 1925), recorded on January 25, 2012, in the village of Bichurino in Bardymskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 24 Interview with B. T. (b. 1925), recorded on January 25, 2012, in the village of Bichurino in Bardymskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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in a dehumanized state that penalized its people for unfavorable views. Another way to adapt to traumatic existence is a sort of self-isolation, including withdrawal from social activity and a reluctance to display one’s opinions and beliefs. This mechanism helps a person to feel master of his life “only within a very restricted reality which is cut off from the rest of the world that seems frightening and incomprehensible” (Novikova 2010, 31). It is accompanied by marginalization, which is a manifestation of a change in identity and deprivation of a traditional status and the respect of other people. In the village of Malyi Ashap in Ordinskiy District of Perm Region, stories were told about another prisoner from 1948, Gabdulzyan Sagadtinov. After being released, he spent his last years in Kungur but in the end was buried in Malyi Ashap.25 His religious interest was quite logical, as his father Sagatdin was a mullah and had strictly observed religious traditions.26 He had received a religious education in the madrasa of the village of Tanyp in Bardymskiy District under the aegis of the ishan Mukhamadgata Mansurov. During the first period of imprisonment, he was sent to Siberia with extremely cold temperatures, and then he was transferred to Tajikistan or Uzbekistan.27 Due to the contrast in the climate, many priests died. Gabdulzyan Sagatdinov survived only because he had been taken as a shepherd by someone up in the mountains.28 Somewhere between 1953 and 1954, his relatives received a letter from him and replied with a letter signed by the chair of the selsovet (rural council) that he had agreed to write after he had been well fed. Shortly after that, Gabdulzyan Sagatdinov came back. After his imprisonment, he lived in Kungur, locked within his personal life, but he was always open and hospitable with his relatives. When he told his nephew in 1967 about the sufferings he had experienced, he could not hold back the tears.29 The fellow villagers remember that he died in the 1960s.

25 Interview with A. M. (b. 1933), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Malyi Ashap in Ordinskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 26 Interview with N. V. (b. 1940), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Malyi Ashap in Ordinskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 27 Interview with N. V. (b. 1940), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Malyi Ashap in Ordinskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 28 Interview with N. V. (b. 1940), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Malyi Ashap in Ordinskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 29 Interview with N. V. (b. 1940), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Malyi Ashap in Ordinskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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Another arrested individual was Gabdulkhai Bayazitov, who was thought to be a mullah. He had a lot of children and relatives in Kungur and UstTurka.30 His family confirmed that “he was a decent man,” and that “after he gained education he worked as a mullah.”31 After the repressions of 1948, Gabdulkhai-mullah came back in about 1953, but he never served as a mullah again. Instead, he worked at log driving.32 Thus, another mechanism of post-traumatic adaptation is to avoid the activity related to the trauma, withdrawing from social undertakings which are reminders of the lost identity, and self-isolation. Some of the murids who returned from the Gulag chose this sort of strategy for their later life to provide the basic human need for personal safety. Trauma effected an identity crisis, which was revealed in the shift of an individual from the macro- to the micro-identity, as well as refusal of group solidarity. Focusing on families and other social micro-communities resulted in the loss of former collective meanings and values, leading to social passivity. “We have hidden the Koran”: Double life and double thinking Striving to survive in conformity to the standards that were imposed on people by the totalitarian state led to a conscious choice of superficial compliance with the requirements while keeping contrary inner convictions to oneself. It certainly triggered inner splits and double thinking. As Novikova suggests, a “double life may help one to survive, to protect oneself and one’s thoughts and identity,” but at the same time there is a “habit of deception, acceptance of falsehood and elaboration of strategies to act within its borders.” As a result, “the borders between two different lifestyles gradually blur and start to ‘float’ [especially taking into account the fact that totalitarianism is trying to destroy them], moral norms get blurry too and in this case they are extrapolated onto the private life as well” (Novikova 2010, 33). The daughter of Salakhi Tavyev said that her father, born in 1886 and a kolkhoz farmer in the 1940s, was arrested in 1948 for reasons largely unknown to her. After the arrests of 1948, the act of keeping spiritual Muslim books was seen as a great danger, so many respondents hid the Koran and other 30 Interview with G. M. (b. 1938), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 31 Interview with Z. M. (b. 1918), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 32 Interview with Z. M. (b. 1918), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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religious books, burying them. Later, they could not find them or the books did not survive such terrible conditions. For example, Salakhi Tavyev’s family tried to hide their books: “The books and the Koran were hidden in 1948 under the floor in the shed. Even though water hadn’t managed to get in, the books deteriorated despite the fact that they had been locked in a box.”33 The desire to hide banned books could also be interpreted as a mechanism of adaptation to the repression trauma, a wish to avoid persecution by pretending to stay externally conformist to the requirements of the government, though later regretting the loss. This is not always a case of double standards, as it may well be said that this is based on common sense and seeking to survive. After Gadylsha Kazykhanov returned from imprisonment in 1956, he was approached by a Tatar from Moscow who might have been another provocateur. When the man asked him to read prayers, he replied: “I no longer read prayers. I’ve served a term in prison for just that.”34 It is hard to say whether the man was a provocateur, but what is obvious is that concealing beliefs from the outside world could already qualify as a means of adaptation. People who have been previously traumatized tend to close up. In some cases, the formation of a new identity led to the development of double standards, one for society and another used only with like-minded people. In this case, commitment to social compromise for the sake of survival and collective recognition was caused by a desire for safety in a threatening environment. Maintaining a previous identity “for internal use” was still accompanied by external conformism to the imposed values. Preserving commitments Some of the murids and ishans who returned from the Gulag to Ust-Turka, Batashi and Marinkino continued their practices. Piotr Sztompka refers to this as one of the forms of passive ritual adaptation to the trauma. He calls it “retreatism,” which means “ignoring the trauma, making attempts at acting in the way as if there weren’t any” (Sztompka 2001, 15). In this case, the preservation of traditions and customary rites is seen as a refuge from the trauma and, at the same time, self-preservation is fidelity to one’s identity.

33 Interview with Z. M. (b. 1918), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 34 Interview with M. G. (b. 1953), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Marinkino in the Ordinskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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Gadylsha Kazykhanov returned from imprisonment in 1954 or 1956 and died in 1967 or 1968. His granddaughter shared her memories: When he returned from prison, I started school in 1951. When he returned, he lived in Marinkino […] He was a mullah, some people said. They used to say he had been an ishan-mullah […] He could read people’s thoughts, could read people’s minds like books, mom used to say […] He was arrested for being a mullah […] And he died at home in 1967 in the village of Marinkino. He continued reading prayers after prison.35

Gadylsha Kazykhanov was a cheerful man, and he liked children. Whenever he ran into them, he would stop to play.36 The village residents say he was the ishan in the neighborhood, who practiced faith-healing and incanted for diseases.37 Sadyk Zainullin was considered a local madman: “He was called a divana, Sadyk-divana. He must have had some bizarre traits. He could cry out loud (e.g., “Allah-Khu”) and there would come a surge of energy. He had a sunny disposition. He was an interesting man.”38 This sort of perception of a person in an ecstatic state may very well point to his affiliation with Sufism, which uses prayer to induce a state of altered consciousness. Indeed, continuation of prayer practices after all of the tormenting experiences of imprisonment in the Gulag can be taken as a sign of exceptional bravery. Here we can see the strength of faith that is often typical of people who have entrusted themselves to a supreme power, with it being the idea specifically embedded in their lives. When people sharing similar values are drawn together, it boosts their affiliation and supports their faith and belief. Nancy Adler highlights this as the possibility to support “the sense of life in the context of a group and the system of affiliation it has” (Adler 2013, 74). When speaking of ishans and murids, many respondents noted their exceptional clairvoyance and clear understanding of the psychological

35 Interview with N. A. (G.) (b. 1945), recorded on January 18, 2014, in the village of Byrma in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 36 Interview with M. G. (b. 1953), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Marinkino in Ordinskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 37 Interview with Z. M. (b. 1918), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 38 Interview with Z. M. (b. 1918), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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state of people, citing the ability to read other people’s thoughts. Gadylsha Kazykhanov’s granddaughter then added: Mom said about granddad that he came back from the prison as an ishanmullah […] When someone was down with an illness, he always helped […] Mom said he charmed [diseases], read prayers to salt and then asked to press the salt against the sore spot. After he came back, Akhmatzyanmullah, Sadyk Zainullin visited him and they prayed all together […]39

The arrested brother of Gadylsha Kazykhanov named Akhmatnur Kazykhanov came back home in 1955 after he served his term somewhere in Berezniki or Solikamsk. As he was paralyzed and could not take care of himself, his relatives took him from the Gulag. He died nine months after his return. His daughter remembers that before the arrest he read books in Arabic, but after the arrest they took away all the books. Sadyk Zainullin served his sentence in Karaganda with criminals. He was given ten years, but was released in 1954-1956. For 6-8 years, he worked in the construction of the Karaganda mining and processing plant, after which he came back. He died in September 1973. 40 In the 1960s, at Sadyk Zainullin’s place there were prayer gatherings starting from two o’clock every day with old women. Gadylsha Kazykhanov also came. 41 After Stalin’s camps, the prisoners’ preservation of loyalty to their beliefs proved to be stronger than the fear for their lives. Therefore, many proponents of Ishanism opted for the moral values dating back to the distant past and pre-revolutionary times. It is not a surprise then that descendants confirm that some of those arrested in 1948 continued to practice some religious rites (e.g., incantations, funerals) after they came back from the Gulag, even without having the status of a mullah. Irina Paert notes that “Sovietization had a traumatic effect on religious life, but despite the atheist culture and repression, the generation of cradle believers were able to continue their spiritual pursuit” (Paert 2016b, 193). Nancy Adler compared communist ideas with religious beliefs and saw a lot in common. She notices that the “Gulag […] revived the existential conditions for which religions had been historically offering solutions. […] 39 Interview with N. A. (G.) (b. 1945), recorded on January 18, 2014, in the village of Byrma in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 40 Interview with M. G. (b. 1953), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Marinkino in Ordinskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 41 Interview with M. G. (b. 1953), recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Marinkino in Ordinskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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Religions provided a means to do so by offering access to the supernatural power which gives sense to security based on faith and submission” (Adler 2013, 80). As a result of the research carried out, it was established that in the madrasa of Rasuliya in Troitsk back in the Czarist days, Zainulla Rasulev had Khavyi Khannanov (from the village of Ust-Turka in Kungursky District of the Perm Region, who was repressed in 1930 and died on his way back home from prison in 1933), and Khasan Gabdulkhakov (from the village of Bazhuki, Kungur District of the Perm Region), as his disciples. 42 Most probably, as a devotee of Ishanism Khasan Gabdulkhakov worked as a mullah in the only mosque in the Perm Region (in the village of Koyanovo) from its opening in 1948 to the beginning of the 1960s. 43

Conclusion The series of arrests in 1948 undermined the religious affiliations of the population but failed to eradicate the ideas of Ishanism completely, as well as its most influential practitioners. It is substantiated by the memories of the events that were preserved over a few decades and show ties with the traditional system of values and ancestors who had maintained it. The connection between the local Sufis and Zainulla Rasulev can be defined not only by using the archives (Anti-Soviet Ishanism Establishment Case), but also through narratives. Some family members mentioned that their ancestors were connected with Ishanism. It can be claimed that among the ishans and murids were the following arrested individuals: Gadylsha Kazykhanov, Akhmatnur Kazykhanov and Sadyk Zainullin, as well as Khasan Gabdulkhakov and Rakhimzyan-mullah, who were not arrested. However, there were hardly any young disciples of the aging Sufis in the Perm Region. The preservation of traditional book culture in 1930-1940 remained exclusively a family matter and, moreover, a risky one. That is why the overall cultural level of the Muslims in the Soviet era dropped so dramatically. Many traditions were disrupted, including those of Ishanism. Nowadays, most Tatars and Bashkirs have no idea about the essence of Ishanism. The 42 Interview with Kh. Kh. (b. 1930), was recorded on January 7, 2014, in the village of Ust-Turka in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files. 43 Interview with F. M. (b. 1950), recorded on January 18, 2014, in the village of Bazhuki in Kungurskiy District of the Perm Region. Author’s personal files.

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ideas have been largely erased from the memory of most Muslims. Ishans and murids are kept only in the memories of their descendants. Here we can see the protective mechanism of consigning everything to oblivion that one could be punished for in an atheist state. Another way of adaptation is the negation of one’s ancestors’ affinity with those opposing the state ideology of atheism and sticking to their Suf ist views. Shortly after the Gulag, ishans and murids often chose isolation as a means of self-protection, trying to conceal their lifestyle and beliefs from the external world and even demonstrating that they no longer had ties with their former mystical and religious practices. Breaking bonds between relatives as a form of post-traumatic adaptation did not prove to be widespread; however, it did occur as an indication of fear of losing the social status gained in this or that clique. Double life and double thinking showed up in relation to the religious literature banned by the authorities and subsequently hidden, as well as spiritual affiliations that were clandestine. The custom of identification strategies evolved as an adaptation to social and cultural trauma, manifesting itself in a lack of confidence in both political institutions and the social environment in general. Some prisoners who returned home continued their prayer routine and proceeded on their spiritual path without changing their beliefs. Their mindsets and prayer practices may have only strengthened after Stalin’s camps. It is worth noting that memories of gatherings date back to the 1960s rather than to 1950, due to a milder political and social climate at that time. While we know that a small group of ishans and murids never ceased their activity in Marinkino, continuing their daily gatherings after the 1960s as well, the identity shift overall led to the loss of the previous principles of spirituality and patterns of everyday life, and thus this ancient mystical tradition of Muslims in the Perm Region has almost entirely faded as a result of the trauma caused by the repressions of 1948. The way of initiating arrests through a provocateur sent by the government in 1948 was very typical. People who had been traumatized by the acts of terror in the 1930s tended to close up. In order to find people following traditional views, the security services made extra efforts. In order to reveal people engaged in professing inappropriate views in conditions of life under the threat of repressions, one had to “win their trust” and show affiliation to traditional spirituality. People who managed to survive the war, who had been on the front, knew how to keep an eye out for the enemy. In this case, however, the enemy was hiding behind the disguise of a “friend.” This undermined the relations between people and led to social atomization.

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The peculiar type of regional confessional identity of the Muslim population of the Perm Region with the component of Ishanism remains in the past. The destruction of the cultural code and the increasing marginalization of society were caused by dilution of the traditional identity. Therefore, addressing these issues can be considered not only as an implementation of cognitive interest, but also as a key that gives access to the cultural codes of the past lost in the post-memory of the Sufi tradition of the Urals.

References Aarelaid-Tart, Aili. “Istoricheskaja sociologija. Teorija kul’turnoj travmy (opyt Jestonii).” Sociologicheskie issledovanija 10 (2004): 63-72. Adler, Nancy. Sohranjaja vernost’ partii. Kommunisty vozvrashhajutsja iz GULAGa. Мoscow: ROSSPJEN, 2013. Algar, Hamid. “Shejh Zain Allah”. Shejh Zajnulla Rasulev. Bozhestvennye istiny: Per. s arab. Ufa: Kitap, 2008: 149-189. Assmann, Aleida. Dlinnaja ten’ proshlogo. Memorial’naja kul’tura i istoricheskaja politika. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2014. Gatin, Askar, Arslan Minvaleev & Il`nur Minnullin. Prodolzhenie duhovnoj cepochki preemstvennosti Zajnully Rasuleva v XX veke: opyt istoricheskogo issledovanija. Rasulevskie chtenija: Islam v istorii i sovremennoj zhizni Rossii. Materialy vseros. nauch.-praktich. konf. Cheljabinsk-Ufa, 2013. 90-94. Guseva, Uliya. Ishanizm kak sufijskaja tradicija Srednej Volgi v XX veke: formy, smysly, znachenie. Monograph/ Moscow: ID Medina, 2013 Hirsch, Marianne. “The Generation of Postmemory.” Poetics Today 29.1 (2008): 103-128. Le Torrivellec, Xavier. “Territories and religious practices among the Muslims of Bashkortostan.” Revue d’études comparatives Est-Ouest 42.2 (2011): 65-90. Malikov, Rashid. Sufizm i musul’manskoe duhovenstvo (XIX-nachalo XX vv.). Rasulevskie chtenija: Islam v istorii i sovremennoj zhizni Rossii. Materialy vseros. nauch.-praktich. konf. Cheljabinsk-Ufa, 2013. 113-127. Nasyrov Rauf. Shejh Zajnulla Rasulev. Ufa: Kitap, 2008. Novikova, Ludmila. “Mehanizmy psihologicheskoj zashhity lichnosti v uslovijah totalitarnogo rezhima.” Vestnik obshhestvennogo mnenija 3 (2010): 28-36. Paert, Irina. “Memory of socialism and the Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia.” Journal of Baltic Studies 47.4 (2016): 497-512. 2016a. Paert, Irina. “Religion and generation: exploring conversion and religious tradition through autobiographical interviews with Russian Orthodox believers in Estonia.” Generation in Estonia: Contemporary Perspectives on Turbulent Times.

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Eds. R. Nugin, A. Kannike & M. Raudsepp. Tartu: University of Tartu Press, 2016. 188-211. 2016b. Ro’i, Yaacov. Islam in the Soviet Union: From the Second World War to Gorbachev. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. Selyaninova, Gulsina. “Delo “antisovetskoj organizacii ishanizma” 1948 goda.” Prava cheloveka v Rossii: proshloe i nastojashhee. Perm: Zvezda, 1999. 72-79. Sibgatullina, Al`fina. “Islam v Povolzh’e: enciklopedicheskij slovar’.” Moscow: ID Medina, 2013. 144-145. Sztompka, Piotr. “Social’noe izmenenie kak travma (stat’ja pervaja).” Sociologicheskie issledovanija 1 (2001): 6-16.

About the author Gulsina Selyaninova is a docent at Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Russia. She has studied the history of the intelligentsia in the Urals during the period of Revolution and Civil War. Her research interests also include the history of the Muslim community and Sufism in the Urals, regional studies, oral history, and the history of everyday life. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9928-7333

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Between Closure and Redemption Internment Memory and the Reception of the Compensation Law Ulla Savolainen Abstract By analyzing oral history interviews of former child and youth internees, the chapter explores the reception of the compensation law (2014) for the internment of German and Hungarian citizens in Finland (1944-1946). These interviews are analyzed 1) in relation to and as reflecting the paradigm of “redemptive remembering,” and 2) as interactional events characterized by negotiations between the interviewer and interviewee. The chapter suggests that negative representations of the compensation reflect the tensions between the goals of compensations as instruments of retrospective justice, prevailing cultural conceptions of memory, and ideals for dealing with difficult pasts. Moreover, such frictional engagement between different aspects of compensations is also argued as generating meaningful reflection on applications and implications of memory in general. Keywords: compensation, retrospective justice, internment, oral history, cultural memory

Introduction During the latter half of the 20th century, discourses of trauma and human rights have dominated Western conceptualizations of memory and understandings of how difficult pasts should be dealt with on individual and societal levels. Different legal instruments – such as truth and reconciliation commissions, reparations, compensations, and public apologies – have

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch06

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become common practices in dealing with difficult pasts (see, e.g., Pettai & Pettai 2014). Societies recovering from conflicts and periods of repression have used these public instruments of reconciliation in order to redress past violations. For the most part, the expanding field of retrospective and transitional justice rests on the presupposition that solidarity and a peaceful future depend on reconciliation and the settling of past injustices. (Rigney 2012, 252-253; Shaw 2007, 186.)1 At their core, the practices of retrospective and transitional justice reflect the so-called paradigm of “redemptive remembering,” which is based on ideas of the detrimental nature of silence and the necessity of telling the truth and “coming to terms” with the past in order to heal and create a better future (Shaw 2007). The paradigm of “redemptive remembering,” largely universalized and naturalized (in the West), is also underpinned by a therapeutic script related to the necessity of healing the wounds caused by past wrongdoings through victim-centered truth politics (Humphrey 2005; Shaw 2007, 189-193). However, as Rosalind Shaw (2007; see also Kennedy 2018) has noted, when applied with insufficient consideration of historical or cultural context, or the situation at hand, instruments of retrospective justice may become sites of frictional engagement. Anna Lowenhaupt Tsing (2005) coined the concept of friction to interrogate global interconnection and “universals” mobilized by phenomena (e.g., science; capitalism) dependent on such connection. According to Tsing (2005, 4) “[c]ultures are continually co-produced in the interactions I call “friction”: the awkward, unequal, unstable, and creative qualities of interconnection across difference.” When applied to notions of memory and instruments of retrospective justice, on the one hand, friction may give rise to contestation, even to the extent that their practical implementation as compensations, apologies, and truth commissions may be perceived as repressive. On the other hand, as sites of frictional engagement, these instruments and notions may also become productive in unexpected ways. (See also Shaw 2007; Kennedy 2018.) Notwithstanding the fact that compensations and public apologies are often found to be correct and necessary by both the victims compensated and the institutions carrying out the compensations, programs aimed at reconciliation and restitution have also been surrounded by controversy. 1 Even though efforts to make up for the iniquities of the past had already been made before the latter half of the 20th century, the Second World War, the Holocaust and other recent genocides, as well as transitions from state repressions during and after the Cold War period have established their position as official instruments and processes of dealing with difficult pasts (Elster 2004; Ahonen & Löfström 2012, 88; Shaw 2007, 189).

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These controversies often relate to asymmetric and even repressive structures that are built into these programs. (Immler 2009, 205-206.) Frictions around acts of making up for past injustices are also the focus of this chapter. By examining how former child and youth internees in Finland describe and evaluate the law of compensation related to the internment of German and Hungarian citizens in Finland in 1944-1946 in the context of an oral history interview, my aim is to understand memory frictions related to internment memories in general and the reception of this law in particular. The law came into effect in Finland in 2014. Even though the law was initiated and promoted by ex-internees themselves, rather than dictated “from above”, the law was received and evaluated over the course of interviews with varying degrees of disappointment by the persons entitled to this compensation. As I have argued elsewhere, victims’ dissatisfaction with respect to the law stems from a sense of being excluded from the processes of defining the law rather than from its contents as such (Savolainen 2018). By combining the analytical angles of oral history research with the ones developed and deployed in cultural memory studies, in this chapter I will explore the interconnection of personal experiences mediated in interview situations, and cultural and public memory. This means that I will analyze the interview speech 1) in relation to and as reflecting the wider framework of cultural memory, namely, the paradigm of “redemptive remembering” (Shaw 2007) that characterizes instruments of retrospective justice, and 2) as interaction characterized by intersubjective negotiations between the interviewer and interviewee with regard to the aims of the interview (see, e.g., Abrams 2010, 54; Briggs 1986, 2-3). My understanding of compensation builds on Nicole Immler’s notions of the relationship between restitution and memory. According to Immler (2009, 206), key to restitution is media and the way it either communicates or passes over the issue. She also suggests that restitution is itself a memory medium, an intermediary between family memory and collective memory. In this chapter, I suggest that in the case of internments in Finland, the negative representations of the compensation reflect the tensions between the goals of compensations as instruments of retrospective justice, prevailing cultural conceptions of memory, and ideals of dealing with difficult pasts. Moreover, I suggest that through this frictional engagement, compensations also generate meaningful reflection on applications and implications of memory in general. As such, not only does compensation mediate between personal/private and cultural/public memory, it may also “trigger” memories and the related reflection and thus has an effect on how the past and its consequences are remembered, represented, and understood. As a medium

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of this kind, compensation can operate as a “site of memory” (Nora 1996; Erll 2011, 22-27; see also Huyssen 2003, 95; Rigney 2008, 346), a site of frictional engagement around which negotiations of power and agency in defining the contents, limits, and territories of memory are gathered and organized. By analyzing how former internees described their experiences related to internment and their views on the compensation law in interview situations, the more general aim of my chapter is to demonstrate the benefits of the oral history approach for the field of cultural memory studies.

Oral history interviews and memory The primary research material of my study consists of oral history interviews of individuals, most of them children of German fathers and Finnish mothers, who were interned as minors in Finland in 1944-1946. I conducted 26 oral history interviews in Finland and in Germany during 2015-2016.2 14 of the interviewed persons were women and 12 of them were men. The majority of the interviewees (23 persons) were of German background. The interview language was Finnish, in which all the interviewees were highly fluent. The persons I interviewed were born between 1926 and 1943. Hence, they were between one and 18 years of age when the internment began in 1944. The majority of these interviews (24 out of 26) were recorded and later transcribed by me.3 During my research, I was able to visit the homes of many of the interviewees. In addition to recorded interviews, these meetings included discussions that were not taped. Interviewees often also showed me memorabilia and documents related to the internment, such as drawings, photographs, letters, newspaper articles and mementos. Some persons had also written memoirs. During these visits, I photographed visual research materials, mostly photographs, documents and mementos related to the internment or other significant moments in the persons’ lives, and I recorded my observations in my field diary. My analysis is based on the understanding that interviews are (inter) subjective and rooted in the present. This means that oral history sources 2 Only one interview was conducted in Germany. 3 The lengths of the interview recordings vary between 45 minutes and 165 minutes. I asked the interviewees for consent to deposit the interview tapes in the Archives of the Finnish Literature Society after my research, and most of the interviewees agreed to this. Two of the interviews were not recorded on tape. The reasons why these two interviews were not recorded are the following: one of them was a telephone conversation and the other took place in a car while driving from place to place.

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not only tell about the past but, above all, tell about the present and the meanings given to the past in the here and now. Folklorist and anthropologist Charles L. Briggs has argued that one of the central features of an interview event is that it positions the persons taking part in the encounter into the roles of interviewee and interviewer. This might shift the focus away from the interactive speech event of an interview to another time and place. Furthermore, this movement away from the interactional context may give rise to a misinterpretation of the interview speech as a “reflection of what ‘is out there’” rather than as a discourse produced through the interaction of interviewee and interviewer. (Briggs 1986, 2-3). Following from this, I see that oral history sources cannot be analyzed by solely focusing on what is said. Besides contents when, and where something is said – should also be examined. Indeed, when produced in an interview context, oral history sources are always literally dialogic and created through intersubjective negotiations between the respondent and interviewer (see, e.g., Portelli 1997, 9-13; Yow 1997; Summerfield 2000; Abrams 2010, 54). Further still, oral history interviews ought to be understood as performance situations, and as in to all forms of verbal arts, performance is constitutive of oral history narrative. Indeed, oral history narratives produced in an interview situation are marked verbal performances, which are distinguished from ordinary speech. They are the speech acts of a performer to an audience in a certain context. (Abrams 2010, 130-152.) Moreover, in this chapter, my aim is to incorporate perspectives of oral history research and cultural memory studies in my discussion of the reception of the compensation law. Partly due to their different disciplinary and historical backgrounds (Hamilton & Shopes 2008, x-xii; Heimo 2010, 37-38; Erll 2011, 53-54), the two research fields focusing on the meanings given to the past in the present – namely, (cultural) memory studies and oral history research – have been relatively distant from each other (see, however, e.g., Kõresaar & Jõesalu 2016; Heimo 2016; Savolainen 2017a; 2020). Paula Hamilton and Linda Shopes (2008, x) have argued that due to such distance, links between personal remembering and public memory have not been sufficiently analyzed and theorized. Indeed, oral history research approaches memory from the perspective of memories, which are understood as subjective experiences, recollections, and narratives concerning the past typically produced in an intersubjective event of an interview. (E.g. Portelli 1991; 1997; Abrams 2010). Cultural memory studies, in turn, theorizes memory as a process or repertoire of representations through which the past is interpreted, constructed, and recollected in the present (Rothberg 2009, 3; Erll 2011). Memory is not only analyzed as a cognitive or narrative

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process of individual or intersubjective recollection, that is, it is understood more generally as cultural reproduction through mediation and circulation of contents and forms. (E.g. Rigney 2005; 2008; Erll & Rigney 2009.)

The Internment Internment refers to the imprisonment of persons without a court trial and often without suspicion of a crime (Robertson 2004, 130; see also Savolainen 2017a, 27-28). As a phenomenon, it is related to various concentration and forced labor camps as well as deportations (e.g. Westerlund 2008; also Khlevniuk 2004; on terminology, see Schiffrin 2001). Internments of German and Hungarian civilians in Finland stemmed from the September 1944 Moscow Armistice agreement between Finland and the Allied countries. Based on this agreement, the Finnish government was forced to incarcerate German and Hungarian citizens living and staying in Finland. (Jensen-Eriksen 2009; 2010). The backdrop of this peace agreement was the end of the Continuation War between Finland and the Soviet Union in 1941-1944, which followed the Winter War of 1939-1940, in which Finland fought against the Soviet invasion (Kivimäki 2012, 483; Vehviläinen 2002; Kinnunen & Kivimäki 2012). As a result of the Winter War, territories in Finnish Karelia were annexed to the Soviet Union and a Karelian population of nearly 450,000 persons was evacuated to the Finnish side of the border (Kuusisto-Arponen & Savolainen 2016; Savolainen 2017b; Fingerroos 2008). 4 When the Continuation War began in June 1941, Finland – allied with Nazi Germany at the time – had an active role in the German offensive against the Soviet Union. While Germany never occupied Finland, it assisted Finland in the war in many ways, such as by supplying weaponry. Indeed, in 1941-1944 Finland was highly dependent on the German military and economic help. For example, over 200,000 German soldiers were deployed in Northern Finland. Although the popular Finnish interpretation of the Continuation War has deemed it a legitimate effort to counteract the results of the Winter War, and as separate from Nazi Germany’s actions, historians today see it as closely connected to Germany’s belligerence in the East (on the Finnish memory culture of the Second World War, see, Kivimäki 2012; Kinnunen & Jokisipilä 2012). In spite of help from Germany, it became clear in the summer of 1944 that Finland could no longer continue 4

The population of these Karelian territories was nearly 12% of the Finnish population.

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the fight and it sued for peace with the Soviet Union in August 1944. The conditions of the Moscow Armistice were severe for Finland. In addition to substantial reparations, Finland had to cede the reconquered areas in Eastern Finland back to the Soviet Union and accept the 1940 borders, along with the Petsamo area in the northeast. The Moscow Armistice agreement also required Finland to expel the German forces that were still stationed in the north of the country. The refusal of German troops to voluntarily exit Finland led to the Lapland War between September 1944 and April 1945. (Kivimäki 2012, 483-484, 492-492; Vehviläinen 2002; Kinnunen & Kivimäki 2012). Moreover, the armistice agreement stipulated that German and Hungarian nationals staying and living in Finland had to be interned. This led to the internment of almost 500 civilians in the autumn of 1944. The incarceration not only applied to men and adults; children, women, and elderly persons were also interned. The majority of the internees were not militarily or politically active. Instead, they were civilians, some of whom had always lived in Finland. Among the interned persons were also Finnish-born women, who, according to current legislation, had acquired their husbands’ nationalities in marriage, or who had dual citizenship. Owing to their fathers’ nationality, the children of these couples were also German nationals. (Jensen-Eriksen 2009, esp. 24-41; 2010, esp. 133-134). While the internment of aliens or citizens is not rare during times of war, the internment of a country’s own ex-citizens who had lost their citizenship in marriage, as well as their children, can be considered as exceptional. Interned persons were placed in several internment camps, located mostly in the southern part of Finland. The Finnish security police [Valtiollinen Poliisi, or Valpo] were responsible for the internment process and the administration of the camps. The conditions in these internment camps were relatively good and the internees were not tortured. Moreover, they had access to medical care and they were provided with food. The quality of the food was, however, poor, due to general wartime shortages. Interned persons with special skills or general interests provided education to children and young people in the camps. All in all, my interviewees described the internment time in a fairly positive tone. However, these evaluations were very often followed by comments that underscored the hardships of their parents. Most of the interned persons were freed in March 1946. In addition to the eighteen months’ incarceration, the properties and belongings of German citizens were confiscated. (Jensen-Eriksen 2009; 2010; Uhlenius 2010; Määttälä 2011). Most of them continued to live in Finland, eventually acquiring Finnish citizenship.

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Evaluations of the law in the interview situation After liberation of most of the interned persons in March 1946, the internment was kept out of public view for 60 years. Due to the lack of public discussion and academic research on the topic, it has not been part of the historical consciousness of Finns either. In 2003, however, the silence broke when the Finnish public service broadcasting company Yle broadcast a documentary film by the journalist Mikko Määttälä entitled The Finland of Prison Camps [“Vankileirien Suomi”]. The film argued that the decision to intern not only men but children and Finnish-born women was made by Finnish off icials without an explicit order from the Soviet Control Committee that monitored Finland’s implementation of the armistice agreement’s conditions. Later, the historian Niklas Jensen-Eriksen (2009) confirmed this notion. This information also came as a surprise to many of the persons whom I interviewed, because until then they had believed that Finnish officials were forced to incarcerate them. Now they found out that Finland, not the Soviet Union, had made the decision. (See also Savolainen 2017a.) As I have argued elsewhere (Savolainen 2017a; 2020), the internment memory was created in the dynamic interplay between public and personal memory work. Määttälä’s documentary film initiated the process of public consciousness of the internment, which included media coverage, a research project (Jensen-Eriksen 2009; Westerlund 2010), and a nonf iction book partly based on the testimonies of ex-internees (Määttälä 2011). Moreover, former internees themselves participated in the promotion of awareness (for example, by giving interviews). They also began to demand compensation for this historical injustice. They appointed a committee comprising a few active individuals, who started to campaign for a compensation law. They had three demands: first was a symbolic financial compensation, second an apology from the Finnish state, and the thirdly a request to be included in the (medical and physical) rehabilitation program for war veterans. After approximately ten years of lobbying and campaigning, the process finally led to the enactment of compensatory legislation on September 1, 2014. The law met only one of the former internees’ demands, however: the symbolic monetary compensation. According to the law, those persons who were interned under 18 years of age or who were current or former citizens of Finland (or their children) before the internment had the right to receive compensation of 3000 euros, or 1500 euros if the internment lasted less than a month. Those who had been interned for less than three days were not entitled to

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any compensation. (Finlex Data Bank 2014).5 Approximately 50 persons were entitled to this compensation. In interviews, former internees often brought forward their dissatisfaction with the compensation law. As I have discussed in an earlier analysis (Savolainen 2018), this dissatisfaction can be categorized in terms of three main issues: 1) the amount of compensation, 2) the means of compensation, and 3) the moment of compensation. (See also Savolainen 2018.) The first problematic issue is revealed by the 3000 euros being described as too meager an amount of money to compensate for incarceration. Interviewees argued either that the amount of the money should have been bigger or that it should have been accompanied by an official apology or medical and physical rehabilitation. One of the interviewees was also bitter about the half million euros granted to the research project of the Finnish National Archives, which charted basic historical information related to the event for the purposes of preparation of the compensation law. According to this interviewee, the money that was spent on the research project should have been given to the victims as compensation. The second problematic issue relates to the means of compensation. Money is often seen as an insufficient way to compensate for internment. Some interviewees fervently emphasized that money should have been accompanied or even replaced by an off icial apology. When it comes to the apology, however, the opinions of my interviewees differed. Some highlighted the importance of an apology by describing it as the only possible way to compensate for injustices, whereas others regarded the apology as an impossibility. According to them, seeing that the off icials who actually decided to intern the Finnish-born children and women were already dead, an apology was no longer possible or sensible. The third problematic issue of compensation relates to the time of the compensation. According to my interviewees, compensation was senseless because those entitled to compensation and apology, meaning their parents, were already dead. Saying this, interviewees underlined that the true victims of the internment were their mothers and their parents, who lost their jobs and assets while taking care of children in an already diff icult situation. When interview speech is understood not only as a reflection of an interviewee’s experiences or memories but also as a product of intersubjective engagement, it is evident that these critical accounts of the compensation 5 http://www.f inlex.f i/f i/laki/alkup/2014/20140510#Pidp1076432 (accessed December 28, 2020).

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also reflect the interviewees’ understanding of my goals in terms of the interview data. Even though I did not ask my interviewees about their opinions on the best methods for making up for the past but only about their views on the law in general and on the three demands in particular (after I had learned of them), many nevertheless suggested concrete means of compensation. This is partly due to the fact that over the course of the past ten years, when a small group of former internees with the three clear demands had pushed the law forward, others who had been less actively involved had become predisposed to the idea of the compensation of past injustice as a set of concrete methods. In addition, their tendency to evaluate the best methods for compensation was arguably connected to how they understood my aims as a researcher. I had told them that I was interested in their memories of the internment and the time following that, as well as how they perceived the law that had recently come into effect. Thus, instead of an abstract idea of law as a memory medium that is linked to individuals’ understandings of the past and ethics, I asked them questions about the law. As a result, interviewees associated my interests with concrete aspects of the law, specifically how successful it was and how it could have been better. Their accounts do, however, also reflect and relate to dominant patterns of conceptualizing memory and memory practices in the post-WWII decades in the West, which in addition to the paradigms of hegemonic and traumatic memory (van Vree 2013) and the idea of redemptive remembering (Shaw 2007) relate to the global human rights discourses associated with various legal instruments and practices (see Rigney 2012, 252). Despite tendencies to conceptualize reconciliation as a set of concrete methods, interviewees’ views on the best way to achieve reconciliation varied strongly. Very often these conflicting and uncertain views did not so much relate to the actual methods of compensation as they stemmed from a more overarching doubt about legitimacy and the principle of legal compensation as a whole. (See also, Savolainen 2018.) This doubt grew clearly when interviewees weighed up the motives of those responsible for the internment, on the one hand, and the justification of their internment, on the other. Even though the actions of officials were sometimes found to be reasonable in the historical context (i.e., the fear of Soviet occupation if Finland did not implement the conditions of the peace agreement correctly), the internment of civilians, especially children and Finnish women, was typically still perceived and experienced as pure injustice. For example, this kind of doubt about the principle of the law of compensation and the balancing between evaluating the law as

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concrete or more abstract redress of injustice came up in an interview with a woman born in 1933: Ulla: What do you think about this law of compensation? Do you have an opinion on that? Interviewee: [Laughs] Well, I do think that if there is a common agreement that foreigners will be interned, then they will be interned and that’s it. But then again, if there is an agreement that elderly people and children will not be interned […] in that case there has been some kind of mistake. So, based on this, it is good [she refers to the compensation]. I do think that the previous [suggestion of the law by internees themselves] would have been good, if the medical rehabilitation would have been added to it. Of course, nothing can compensate [for the internment completely], but it does console a little bit. Ulla: So, in principle it feels good that the Finnish government made some kind of a concession then? Interviewee: Yes, yes. There could have been a small facelift, a higher price [laughs] and that kind of medical rehabilitation surely would have been a nice addition. Ulla: What do you think about this apology then? The state’s apology? Interviewee: Well, it seems to be important to some. For me, it was not so […] It was not that important. (Interview 1.9.2015.)

While considering the concrete means of compensation, principles of justice, as well as the fundamental question of whether the internment can be compensated for at all, the interviewee evaluates the compensation law subjectively as one entitled to this compensation and vis-à-vis the larger group of people also entitled to it. In mentioning that the apology “seems to be important to some,” she juxtaposes her personal views with the perspectives of others. This suggests that as part of a larger memory process, the compensation law functions as a site of frictional engagement between personal and shared experiences, and as such, also has the potential to generate critical reflection on the ramifications of memory more generally.

Frictional engagements As I have argued earlier (Savolainen 2017a), not only did the documentary film by Mikko Määttälä make people generally more aware of the topic,

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but it also functioned as a driving force behind the emergence of public and personal memory of internment. The documentary film was followed by multiple newspaper articles, which typically included personal testimonies. The film informed the general public about a forgotten historical event, and it provided ex-internees with a frame of interpretation for their internment experiences. As noted, shared frames are creative resources (for example, narratives or values which enable communication and the articulation of experiences and memories) (e.g. Goffman 1974; van Vree 2013). The information provided by the documentary brought the fairly undramatic event of internment closer to cultural frames of understanding imprisonment as resulting from more or less deliberate actions of perpetrators with power over innocent victims, and as a clear human rights violation. By claiming that the decision to incarcerate Finnish-born children and women (albeit technically German/Hungarian nationals) was in fact made by Finnish officials (meaning that the Soviet Union did not require it), the documentary f ilm depicted the internment as a crude injustice rather than a collateral inconvenience stemming from the effort to avoid the real danger, namely, Soviet occupation of Finland. Information about the active role of Finnish officials made the story of internment more unjust and more dramatic – and as such also more tellable – as it moved closer to the prevailing frames according to which other internments and prison camps are typically represented. In other words, the film provided a story of internment with proper agents, innocent victims, and perpetrators, and it added an element of exposure and surprise. Based on my interviews, the new information also caused a moral shock (see Jasper & Poulsen 1995; Jasper 1998) that mobilized ex-internees to demand justice in the form of compensation legislation. In addition, the surprise caused by the documentary film also became a key component of the internment narratives of the ex-internees. Moreover, by asserting that those interned were first and foremost victims who were treated unjustly by Finnish officials, the documentary film also mitigated the potential stigma of having a German background, which had earlier made ex-internees’ internment experiences untellable (on stigma and tellability, see Goldstein & Shuman 2012). Indeed, several of my interviewees reflected on how they had not wished to speak about the internment earlier because it could have possibly made their own German backgrounds more visible. They explained to me how they had wanted to avoid the topic altogether. (Savolainen 2017a.) One of the dominant cultural paradigms of understanding societal silences is built on the notion of power struggles over interpretations. According to this paradigm of “hegemonic memory,” silences result from

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a more or less conscious silencing or from a power struggle between hegemonic and precarious memories. Another culturally dominant model for understanding silences is the paradigm of traumatic memory, according to which silences are symptoms of trauma or unhealthy methods of dealing with trauma. (van Vree 2013.) The trauma paradigm includes the idea that the prospect of a peaceful future and overcoming the past requires dealing with difficult events rather than remaining silent about them (see Rigney 2012, 253). Moreover, trauma discourse can be seen, as Rosanne Kennedy (2018, 343) has put it, “a global technology of memory and a powerful regime of truth-telling which […] promotes the idea that talking about the past is necessary for healing and catharsis.” As I have suggested (Savolainen 2017a), in spite of the fact that the internment in Finland was represented in the media as a “forgotten” history or suppressed memory, it would be a simplification to interpret the public (and often private) silence on this topic merely a result of trauma or conscious suppression of improper or undesirable memories and history. Instead, the lack of proper frames of interpretation and an absence of the event in the historical consciousness made internment experiences untellable and unhearable (on tellability, see e.g., Baroni 2013; Norrick 2005; Goldstein & Shuman 2012; on hearability, see, e.g., Gready 2013, 242-243). After the documentary f ilm, the media coverage of internments had a vital role in the emergence of the internment memory. Indeed, the interpretation of the internments, both as represented in the media and among those interned themselves, was strongly underpinned by the extended silence around the topic. If the nature of absent memories is indeed understood either as the product of forced suppression of memory or as a pathological defense mechanism caused by trauma, it is not difficult to appreciate why the law does not satisfy the needs of the victims. One of the problems with legal instruments of reconciliation and compensation is that typically their goal is to reach closure and move forward. In contrast to this, victims – including ex-internees that I interviewed – often express that they would have also liked to continue the discussion that had only recently begun. As I have discussed earlier (Savolainen 2018), another problem with the law of compensation was that it treated individuals as representatives of a homogeneous group. Some of my interviewees felt that the law did not acknowledge interned persons as individuals, which indicated that the state was not really interested in individuals’ experiences. Due to this, some of them described the law as a tool for silencing the victims rather than as a tool for genuine reconciliation. They described the law as a device

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that forced victims and their experiences into a single, unified format. My interviewees also shared their feeling that lawmakers did not truly seek to deal with the past. Instead, their goal was to reach closure and in that way sweep the whole issue under the carpet. In addition, some of the ex-internees felt that even though the compensation claim was initiated by them, in the end they were excluded from the process. Thus, part of their dissatisfaction toward the law stems from a sense of being ignored when the details of the law were being decided. In this chapter, I suggest that even though these cultural paradigms of explaining societal silences, forgetting, and memory – the hegemony and trauma paradigms – are not sufficient to explain the actual historical reasons for silence around internments, they are still relevant and affective frames according to which memory, societal silence, as well as compensation are conceptualized and interpreted among the ex-internees. Even if silences, as in the case of internment in Finland, had not stemmed from trauma or hegemonic suppression, or at least not only from them, these culturally dominant ideas have penetrated into the language use and consciousness of the those interviewed. As such sites of frictional engagement, they are used in interpreting silences and remembering in retrospect, while also having an effect on the ways in which people represent and interpret their histories and past experiences, and how they position themselves as subjects in the past and present. What I want to highlight here in particular is that this kind of awareness of extended silence may also explain why the law of compensation has been received negatively among the former internees. I will explain this claim further. Cultural frames of understanding and conceptualizing societal silences, such as the paradigms of hegemonic memory and traumatic memory, provide individuals and communities with models for understanding how difficult pasts should ideally be dealt with. According to my interviews, both the hegemony and trauma explanations are deployed when individuals describe their own views of how the past should be represented or processed. Indeed, some of my interviewees expressed an understanding of silence as a sign of trauma, a malady, implicating that it is something that should be processed in order to strive for a better future. For instance, a similar point of view was brought forward by a woman born in 1932: Ulla: Was it a good thing that these documentaries appeared and …? Interviewee: Well, I do think that it is, you should be able to discuss everything. So, that kind of silencing, in a way, it is in a way sick. For some reason, it was done like that. (Interview 27.8.2015).

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Some of my interviewees also referred, whether implicitly or explicitly, to the idea of trauma as something that often follows from experiences such as internment and also associated it with the compensation law. They did not necessarily feel that they themselves had experienced the past negatively or suffered from trauma, however. Rather, this understanding operated as a means for mutually relating their own and others’ internment experiences. Some interviewees might also have expected traumatic experiences to have been interesting for me as an interviewee, which is understandable considering the privileged status of trauma in Western memory discourses (e.g. Bell 2006; Radstone 2007; see also Bond & Craps 2020). For example, such an idea of trauma emerges in an interview with a woman born in 1936. The next quote followed my question on opportunities for studying during the internment: Interviewee: Father tried to speak German with us at the camp. But when we came from there, we did not speak German at all any more. He totally forbade it. Ulla: Did he say it so clearly? Interviewee: Yes, yes. And then it [German skills] was gone. In fact, I also felt relieved about that. I actually did not want to speak German because I could not speak it that well. The whole camp thing was only positive for me [laughs]. I just cannot, having heard the stories of others […] Always when they tell them, I am wondering what miseries, I did not have any miseries then. I do not remember, when it is said that the food was bad there, and because of that we were weak, but I did not eat that well anyway. So. (Interview 14.9.2015.)

By comparing her experiences to those of others, the interviewee comes to the conclusion that hers are brighter. Moreover, during the interview she repeatedly brought forward how her memories of internment were actually rather pleasant. Based on her interview account, two reasons explicitly explain this. First, the interviewee compares her experience to her life before the internment, which in her case was affected by experiences of being bullied in school. Compared to that, the time of internment was fairly decent. Second, she juxtaposes her memories with the experiences of other former internees of which she has probably learned through media representations but also at meetings arranged by former internees around campaigning for the compensation law. Indeed, many of my interviewees told me of participating in these meetings and frequently referred to the experiences

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of others heard there. Further still, I would argue that the dominance of the trauma paradigm and ideas of redemptive remembering also explain interviewee’s positive experiences. That is to say, together they form a site of frictional engagement, which calls for evaluating one’s personal memories and past experiences in relation to these ideas and comparable memories of others. As such, these sites can generate unexpected associations between different scales of memory as well as reflection on memory in general and instruments of retrospective justice in particular.

Conclusions In this chapter, I have discussed the reception of the law of compensation related to the internment of German and Hungarian citizens in Finland in 1944-1946, which came into effect in Finland in 2014 for former child and youth internees. While the efforts to acknowledge historical injustice by paying compensation were intended to promote reconciliation, they initiated critical evaluations and debates among the very persons to whom these reconciliatory acts were directed. According to my research materials, the reception of the law of compensation can generally be characterized by disappointment and dissatisfaction. (See also Savolainen 2018.) The dissatisfaction toward the law was often directed toward both the contents of and the delays in the compensation. However, I would argue that the most important reason behind the dissatisfaction lies elsewhere. I suggest that the negative representations of the compensation reflect negotiations related to cultural understandings of the methods of dealing with a diff icult past. In other words, while the law of compensation and methods of transitional justice highlight the importance of memory and manifest the idea of redemptive remembering, at the same time they aim to control memory, putting an end to the discussion and seeking closure. My analysis supports the notion that while the “reconciliation paradigm” (Short 2005, 268) builds on the inherent importance of memory, it is also normative in the sense of controlling and regulating memory (Shaw 2007; see also Rigney 2012).6 These contradictory aims are inherent in the law of compensation. By aiming at closure, the law contradicts the principle of the trauma paradigm by not supporting actual discussion on the topic, and thus it fails to fulfil its reconciliatory 6 i.e., the belief that a peaceful future requires reconciliation and coming to terms with the past.

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function. Indeed, the instruments of transitional and retrospective justice can be in an awkward conflict with the cultural ideas of trauma-telling and redemptive remembering, and this conf lict may cause tension, negotiations, and dissatisfaction. In my research material, this conflict is articulated as disappointment and cynical views on the law. The compensation law does not speak to the ex-internees’ understandings of how the past should be dealt with or how they should be heard and acknowledged as victims. Aiming toward closure, compensation can be experienced by victims as an expression of inconsideration, not as a gesture of genuine repentance or as reconciliation. The victims’ dissatisfaction thus derives from the disparity between the goals and needs of the institution making the amends, on one hand, and those of the victims, who are targets of these reconciliatory acts, on the other hand. From the viewpoint of some of the ex-internees I interviewed, compensation ended up being a tool for forced closure, an instrument to end the discussion. They felt that this was hardly appropriate, as public discussion had only begun very recently, if at all. (See also Savolainen 2018.) In this chapter, I combined approaches of oral history research and cultural memory studies in an analysis of the interviews of former internees. This perspective not only affords access to conceptions and contestations of ethics, justice, and memory on various scales, but offers more nuanced insights into the relational interplay of personal and cultural as well as “vernacular” and institutional memory representations and practices. Based on my analysis of the oral history interviews, I suggest that the compensation law, alongside trauma discourses and the associated idea of redemptive remembering, can be seen as a site of frictional engagement around which negotiations on the limits, scales, and ramifications of memory and agency take place. Moreover, it invited reflection and juxtaposition between one’s own and others’ experiences. Clearly, the law and the process that lead to the enactment of the law created a sense of community with shared experiences and memories, which seemed important for many interviewees. Indeed, while perhaps eager to criticize the law itself, many of my interviewees also asserted their gratitude toward the activists who pushed the law forward. My research also shows how attempts to compensate for past justices may fail despite virtuous goals due to power assertions inherent in official law-giving processes. Instead of remaining content with a pessimistic outlook vis-à-vis legal instruments and attempts to make up for past injustices, I suggest that analysis of victims’ views from a perspective that focuses on

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tacit understandings of deference or justice (or the lack thereof) may have the potential to support the development of instruments of reconciliation to be more functional and appropriate from the victims’ perspective. I believe that in the end, this approach is also congruent with the goals of official instances that aim to reconcile the past.

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Hamilton, Paula & Linda Shopes. “Introduction: Building partnership between oral history and memory studies.” Oral History and Public Memories. Eds. Paula Hamilton & Linda Shopes. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 2008. vii-xvii. Heimo, Anne. Kapina Sammatissa: Vuoden 1918 paikalliset tulkinnat osana historian yhteiskunnallisen rakentamisen prosessia. Helsinki: Finnish Literature Society, 2010. Heimo, Anne. “Nordic-Baltic oral history on the move.” Oral History 44.2 (2016): 37-46. Humphrey, Michael. “Reconciliation and the therapeutic state.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 26.3 (2005): 203-220. Huyssen, Andreas. Present Pasts: Urban Palimpsests and the Politics of Memory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2003. Immler, Nicole L. “Restitution and the Dynamics of Memory: A Neglected TransGenerational Perspective.” Mediation, Remediation and the Dynamics of Cultural Memory. Eds. Astrid Erll & Ann Rigney. Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 2009. 205-228. Jasper, James M. “The Emotions of Protest: Affective and Reactive Emotions In and Around Social Movements.” Sociological Forum 13.3 (1998): 397-424. Jasper, James M. & Jane D. Poulsen. “Recruiting Strangers and Friends: Moral Shocks and Social Networks in Animal Rights and Anti-Nuclear Protests.” Social Problems 42.4 (1995): 493-512. Jensen-Eriksen, Niklas. Saksan ja Unkarin kansalaisten sekä heidän puolisoidensa internointi 1944-1947. Helsinki: Kansallisarkisto, 2009. Jensen-Eriksen, Niklas. “Valpon internointileirit ja niiden asukkaiden poliittinen valvonta vuosina 1944-1947.” Sotatapahtumia, internointeja ja siirto sodanjälkeisiin oloihin. Kansallisarkiston artikkelikirja / Wars, Internees and the Transition to the Postwar Era. A Book of Articles from the National Archives of Finland. Ed. Lars Westerlund. Helsinki: The National Archives of Finland, 2010. 103-134. Kennedy, Rosanne. “Reparative Transnationalism: The Friction and Fiction of Remembering in Sierra Leone.” Memory Studies 11.3 (2018): 342-354. Khlevniuk, Oleg V. The History of the Gulag: From Collectivization to the Great Terror. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004. Kinnunen, Tiina & Markku Jokisipilä. “Shifting Images of ‘Our Wars’: Finnish Memory Culture of World War II.” Finland in World War II. History, Memory, Interpretations. Eds. Tiina Kinnunen & Ville Kivimäki. Leiden: Brill, 2012. 433-482. Kinnunen, Tiina & Ville Kivimäki (eds.). Finland in World War II: History, Memory, Interpretations. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Kivimäki, Ville. “Between Defeat and Victory: Finnish Memory Culture of the Second World War.” Scandinavian Journal of History 37.4 (2012): 482-504.

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Kõresaar, Ene & Kirsti Jõesalu. “Mnemonic turn, post-Soviet memories and “memory shifts” in Estonia.” Oral History 44.2 (2016): 47-58. Kuusisto-Arponen, Anna-Kaisa & Ulla Savolainen. “The interplay of memory and matter: Narratives of Former Finnish Karelian child evacuees.” Oral History 44.2 (2016): 59-68. Määttälä, Mikko. Vihollisina vangitut. Internointileirit neuvostosuhteiden välikappaleina 1944-1947. Jyväskylä: Atena Kustannus Oy, 2011. Nora, Pierre (ed.). Realms of Memory. Rethinking the French Past, vol 1: Conflicts and Divisions. Ed. Lawrence D. Kritzman. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996. Norrick, Neal R. “The Dark Side of Tellability.” Narrative Inquiry 15.2 (2005): 323-343. Pettai, Eva-Clarita & Vello Pettai. Transitional and Retrospective Justice in the Baltic States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014. Portelli, Alessandro. The Death of Luigi Trastulli and Other Stories: Form and Meaning in Oral History. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1991. Portelli, Alessandro. The Battle of Valle Giulia: Oral History and the Art of Dialogue. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1997. Radstone, Susannah. “Trauma Theory: Contexts, Politics, Ethics.” Paragraph: A Journal of Modern Critical Theory 30.1 (2007): 9-29. Rigney, Ann. “Plenitude, scarcity and the circulation of cultural memory.” Journal of European Studies 35.1 (2005): 11-28. Rigney, Ann. “The dynamics of Remembrance: Texts between Monumentality and Morphing.” Cultural Memory Studies: An International and Interdisciplinary Handbook. Eds. Astrid Erll & Ansgar Nünning, coll. Sara B. Young. Berlin: De Gruyter, 2008. 345-353. Rigney, Ann. “Reconciliation and remembering: (how) does it work?” Memory Studies 5.3 (2012): 251-258. Robertson, David. A Dictionary of Human Rights. New York: Taylor & Francis Group, 2004. Rothberg, Michael. Multidirectional Memory: Remembering the Holocaust in the Age of Decolonization. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2009. Savolainen, Ulla. “Tellability, Frame and Silence: The Emergence of Internment Memory.” Narrative Inquiry 27.1 (2017): 24-46. 2017a. Savolainen, Ulla. “The Return: Intertextuality of Reminiscing of Karelian Evacuees in Finland.” The Journal of American Folklore 130.516 (2017): 166-192. 2017b. Savolainen, Ulla. “Miksi historian hyvitykset epäonnistuvat? Törmäävät muistikäsitykset ja hyvityksen moraali.” Historiallinen aikakauskirja 116.1 (2018): 56-68. Savolainen, Ulla. “Points and poetics of memory: (Retrospective) justice in oral history interviews of former internees.” Memory Studies 13.6 (2020): 1020-1035. Schiffrin, Deborah. “Language and Public Memorial: ‘America’s Concentration Camps’.” Discourse & Society 12.4 (2001): 505-534.

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Shaw, Rosalind. “Memory frictions: Localizing the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Sierra Leone.” International Journal of Transitional Justice 1.2 (2007): 183-207. Short, Damien. “Reconciliation and the problem of internal colonialism.” Journal of Intercultural Studies 26.3 (2005): 267-282. Summerf ield, Penny. “Dis/composing the Subject: Intersubjectivities in Oral History.” Feminism and Autobiography. Eds. Tess Cosslett, Celia Lury & Penny Summerfield. London: Routledge, 2000. 91-106. Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Friction: An Ethnography of Global Connection. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Uhlenius, Paula. “Internoitujen muistot. Muistelijoiden kokemuskuvan peruspiirteitä.” Sotatapahtumia, internointeja ja siirto sodanjälkeisiin oloihin. Kansallisarkiston artikkelikirja / Wars, Internees and the Transition to the Postwar Era. A Book of Articles from the National Archives of Finland. Ed. Lars Westerlund. Helsinki: The National Archives of Finland, 2010. 404-427. Vehviläinen, Olli. Finland in the Second World War: Between Germany and Russia. Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2002. van Vree, Frank. “Absent Memories.” Cultural Analysis 12 (2013): 1-12. Westerlund, Lars. “Internment and deportation in WWI and WWII. A comparative study with a special survey of the situation in Finland.” Sotavangit ja internoidut. Kansallisarkiston artikkelikirja / Prisoner of War and Internees. A Book of Articles by the National Archives. Ed. Lars Westerlund. Helsinki: The National Archives of Finland, 2008. 352-397. Westerlund, Lars (ed.). Sotatapahtumia, internointeja ja siirto sodanjälkeisiin oloihin. Kansallisarkiston artikkelikirja / Wars, Internees and the Transition to the Postwar Era. A Book of Articles from the National Archives of Finland. Helsinki: The National Archives of Finland, 2010. Yow, Valerie. ““Do I Like Them Too Much?” Effects on the Oral History Interview of the Interviewer and Vice Versa.” The Oral History Review 24.1 (1997): 55-79.

About the author Ulla Savolainen (PhD, title of docent) works as a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Cultures. She is a folklorist specializing in cultural memory studies, oral history, and narrative research. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7995-416X

7

Imprisonment Trauma in the Period of the Stalinist Repressions Anna Koldushko

Abstract The chapter considers the problems of sociocultural trauma caused by the repressions of the 1930s in the Urals. The reason for analyzing the traumatic experience of the Stalinist repressions is to explain the individualization of this trauma and to address the problem of commemorative practices in Soviet society. Koldushko focuses on the principal “painful issues” of imprisonment trauma, such as arrests, the conditions of life in prisons and camps, the forms of torture used against the repressed people, the difficult experience of returning from prison, and, f inally, reflexive practices, including reflections on who was guilty for their suffering. Koldushko comes to the conclusion that the traumatic experience of the repressions was characterized as a personal trauma. Keywords: sociocultural trauma, imprisonment trauma, Stalinist repressions, commemorative practices, narrative approach, traumatizing experience

It is very unfortunate that people live at home and they are not concerned with the revolution at all, but we had to suffer most of all. From the letter of Ya.G. Polozhuk, a special settler, to his wife March 29, 1932, Pydol village, Cherdyn District, Ural region

Introduction The problem of sociocultural trauma and the strategies to overcome it have become ingrained in scientific discourse. With respect to studying social

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch07

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changes, the medical term trauma was first used by sociologists (Eyerman 2013, 121-138; Alexander 2012, 5-40; Merton 1966, 299-313; Khlevnyuk & Giesen 2010, 112-117; Sztompka 2001, 6-16; Smelser 2004, 31-59). At present, the terms social trauma and cultural trauma are widely used by historians and culturologists (Aarelaid-Tart 2004, 63-72; Assmann 2014; Koposov 2011). According to Lorina Repina, “the concept relation ‘memory – identity – trauma’ is now one of the top requested tools of analysis in social sciences and humanities” (Repina 2012, 9). It should be noted that scientific works devoted to the problems of historical memory and coping with sociocultural trauma are more focused on theoretical, conceptual and methodological constructs (Eyerman 2013, 121-138; Assmann 2014; Sztompka 2001, 6-16). In Russia, the channels aiming to build the historical memory and strategies of overcoming the sociocultural trauma of generations are at an early stage of study. The areas of study are consistent with the largest social catastrophies of the 20th century (Oushakine & Trubina, 2009), with special attention being paid to the mass repressions in the USSR in the 1930s to 1940s. It is important to analyze the traumatic experiences of the Stalinist repressions because it is necessary to explain the individualization of this trauma and the fact that it is not characterized as a collective trauma. The author is also concerned by the fact that the trauma of the Stalinist repressions is realized neither by the victims nor by their family members and friends. Olga Ulturgasheva notes that the main challenges faced by scientists studying the problems of traumatic experience are related to the comprehension, interpretation, and analysis of a tragic, traumatic, and unrevealed past when archive materials are not available. Statistical and historical data and evidence of Gulag prisoners are few and far between, because prisoners died and even those who survived left (with few exceptions) no biographical sources or descriptions of their experience (Ulturgasheva 2015, 16). In this context, we should point out that the novelty of this work is in its step-by-step study of the imprisonment trauma, which was traced from the moment when people were arrested until the moment they returned from prison camps. Apart from this, its novelty is explained by the fact that the research is based both on official documents from the archives, such as personal documents (letters, petitions and complaints), records of interrogations and repeated interrogations, and notes, as well as on narrative sources. We believe that such an approach provides a holistic view of the study of the traumatic experience and offers new prospects and deeper insight into the problem.

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So, which sources can help us to establish and then interpret the state of cultural trauma and define the strategies and tactics used to cope with it? This is, first of all, information that describes reflective practices (what is called “pronouncing” the trauma, that is, the way it was experienced). The sources of information may include “letters to the authorities,” memories and “repeated interrogations” afterwards (when prisoners were questioned again, long after the previous interrogation), rehabilitation materials, etc. One more component involves interviews with children and/or grandchildren of those repressed, whose traumatic memories are indirect and interpreted by subsequent generations (so-called “post-memory”) (Hirsch 2012). It is clear that historical interviews or oral history would be the most effective approach within the context of the set objectives. However, it is clear that almost eighty years after the Great Terror, it is not possible to interview the victims. We have several interviews with the grandchildren of the victim, but for various reasons these provide little information. Therefore, it was essential to review the remaining documentary historical sources (i.e., the archived investigation files and records). Archived investigation files and records include various documents which are basically formalized official documents, such as interrogation records, warrants for a search or an arrest, indictments, sentences, etc. At the same time, they may contain unique historical sources for a study of the processes of overcoming trauma. The Russian historian Svetlana Bykova acknowledges the uniqueness of the archived investigation files and records, noting that documents relating to the political investigations of the 1930s are especially valuable sources for studying the political culture of the Soviet people. Sources of personal origin (or ego-documents) which allow identification of signs of a sociocultural trauma and/or markers of its coping are also present in ultimately formalized archived investigation files and records (Bykova 2009). The source in question is made up of the so-called “letters to the authorities.” According to Alexandr Livshin, it is “one of the most interesting examples of ‘speaking’ text and voice sources which reflect the cultural experience of the previous generations along with types of day-to-day political, social and personal interactions” (Livshin 2000, 128). Personal correspondence (i.e., letters to relatives written by prisoners who did not suspect that these letters would never reach their addressees, since they would be deposited in archived investigation f iles) is of great importance for the study. Our study is based both on previously published sources (Rehabilitation 2003; Leibovich, Ivanova & Obuchov 2004) and on

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unpublished letters (used in this research for the very first time) found in the Perm State Archive of Contemporary History (PermGANI, Perm, Russia) and in the German Federal Foreign Office Political Archive (PAAA, Berlin, Germany).12 The Urals area is the main territorial scope of the research. The Urals comprise a geographical region of Russia which lies at the crossroads of Europe and Asia and forms the boundary between these two continents. In the 1930s, it became a major industrial center of the country; it was the area where the largest industrial enterprises of the defense industry (Harris 1999) were concentrated. At the same time, for many years it was a place of political exile where prisoners were held (Topography of Terror 2012). The study is focused on the use of the narrative approach, which makes it possible to treat a historical reality as a variant of linguistic and emotional representation. Using this method of study, the author suggests that personal memories stand out for their subjectivity, personal views of the past, and fragmented recollections of facts, phenomena and processes. Coherent narratives, which incorporate reflective practices and represent an objective overview, are much less common. According to Irina Shcherbakova, the intensity and significance of memories are directly related to the level of the author’s understanding of all the events that took place in the country and their impact on his or her own destiny, although many authors lack such self-reflection (Shcherbakova 2004, 177). The narrative of suffering, which, according to Aleida Assmann, becomes the core of identity and the only subject matter of collective memory, is also essential for the study (Assmann 2016, 95). In this study, we first introduce the notion of “imprisonment trauma.” In order to describe the traumatic memories of the past, the researchers use different terminology. For example, Alexander Etkind describes the tragic past in terms of “trauma” and “grief.” He asserts that mass burials were held during the generation of terror, trauma was passed on to the first generation after the disaster, and grief was the legacy of the second and subsequent generations (Etkind 2016, 13). However, under the conditions of terror, there were survivors in spite of everything: those who were arrested and released, 1 The Perm State Archive of Contemporary History is an archive in which the documents of the party bodies of the Perm region are kept, as well as archives and investigation files on repressed citizens. 2 The Federal Foreign Office Political Archive [Politisches Archiv des Auswärtiges Amtes] is an archive of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Germany. The author used the interrogation protocols of German specialists expelled from the USSR.

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and those who survived imprisonment. It seems that the terminology of the “trauma” would be more appropriate in relation to the survivors of repressions. This trauma can consist of different levels (e.g., biological, social and cultural). We may come closer to understanding imprisonment trauma through the definition of Piotr Sztompka, which features three types of social traumatic symptoms: 1 biological and demographic levels, where the social changes are manifested as a biological degradation of the population, epidemics, mental disabilities, lower fertility rates, higher mortality rates, hunger, etc.; 2 the social level as such, where trauma affects the social structure and involves destruction of the existing channels of social relations, social systems and hierarchy, which can manifest itself in political anarchy, violation of economic exchange, family disruption and breakdown, corporate collapse, etc.; and 3 the area of a certain culture influenced by trauma (Sztompka 2001, 10). It should be noted that imprisonment trauma is not only caused by literal imprisonment. The traumatic experience in this case was experienced not only by the arrested and imprisoned, but also by their relatives and close acquaintances. We hereby propose to place it in a broader context, referring to the trauma of violence inflicted by the state on its citizens. Thus, there is a need to identify the symptoms and characteristics of imprisonment trauma. The symptoms of imprisonment trauma are particularly evident in dire conditions, characterized by sudden changes in habitual social practices and the regime of physical survival, including hunger, cold and a lack of basic living conditions, such as clothing and sleep. At the same time, imprisonment meant a targeted “eradication” of all social human traits in a person through constant humiliation, violence and torture. This phenomenon was best described in memoirs, as well as in fiction and opinion journalism (Shalamov 2001; Solzhenitsyn 1991; Glinka 2004; Volkov 1990). For a Soviet citizen who was more or less familiar with the new symbols, rules and practices of “Sovietness” but suddenly became an “enemy of the people,” their life was divided into two parts: before the searches, arrests and prison camps, and after them.

Arrest Before arrest, the life of the repressed person was full of traditional everyday activities that covered the spheres of family, daily life and

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leisure, such as family dinners, meetings with friends, and daily walks. Any arrest implies inversion, which is the reversal of the meaning of life, and involves the sudden and forced marginalization of a person. The Italian philosopher Giorgio Agamben introduces the concept of a “bare life” into the research f ield. In our opinion, it accurately characterizes the changes that occur to a person who happens to become imprisoned. The bare life is the life of a homo sacer, who can be murdered but cannot be sacrif iced. This is a certain space beyond time and laws, between social and biological death, where a prisoner depends on the will of a sovereign (in this case, on the will of a guard, supervising off icer, etc.). The starting point of becoming a homo sacer is the fact of the arrest (Agamben 1998, 4). Arrests in this period came as a shock or collapse of the world, both for the victim and for members of his/her family. The shock caused by the disappearance of a loved one was a deep trauma to relatives. One of the petitions written by the daughter of a man arrested in 1937 states, “[…] why, why did they suddenly arrest him on the 17th of October? Why did they search the flat? What did they want to find? What is he accused of? They did not tell us why they took him away. All of us are aware of his innocence, and we are ready to aff irm that under any oath […]”3 Close relatives and friends did not understand why the authorities arrested innocent people – like their father, husband or son – but at the same time they treated the arrest of acquaintances as something reasonable and justif ied. Probably this process of dividing people into “your own” and “others” was greatly influenced by the Soviet propaganda narrative, which actively employed the idea of class struggle when building socialism. That is why most people accepted the arrests of “strangers” as acceptable, but refused to understand and accept their own arrest or the arrest of their loved ones. We can see the signs of fragmentation of Soviet society in the 1930s through arrests. On the one hand, the narrative of condemnation of the victims of arrests and the acceptance of the fact of the strangers’ guilt were duly established. On the other hand, there was a rejection of the adequacy of the repressive practices with respect to “non-strangers” or “close people.” One of the respondents, whose grandfather was expelled from the USSR as a citizen of a foreign country in 1938, remembered that her grandmother lost her job after her husband’s arrest and could not f ind 3 PermGANI (Perm State Archive of Contemporary History). Folder 1. Inv.1. Folder 1446. Sheet 31.

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another for a long time. Finally, she managed to get a job at the infantfeeding center. She had three small children, and it was very diff icult to survive. 4 In their letters to the authorities asking to rehabilitate their husbands, almost all women reported that after their husbands had been arrested, they lost their own jobs and financial support: “After it [the arrest], I, as the wife of M. Bugulov, was fired and expelled from the Communist Party. I fell seriously ill with mental illness.”5 In this case, we can see an example of both biological and social trauma. The mental illness was a consequence of the loss of social status, a result of the loss of membership in the party and expulsion from the labor collective. Women who were arrested immediately after their husbands had to suffer much more. In one of the letters, the wife of Olga Baltgalv, the former secretary of the Kaganovichski District Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (CPSU (b)) in Perm, writes: “On the 20th of September, 1937, they arrested my husband and in the evening when I came home they took me.” During the f irst interrogation by the NKVD (Narodny Komissariat Vnutrennikh Del – People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs), she was charged with intentionally failing to inform the responsible authorities that her husband had been involved in counter-revolutionary activities. Baltgalv remained under arrest for ten months, and in June 1938 the investigator came to her to read the verdict of the Special Meeting, which stated that she, as a family member of a betrayer of the nation, was sentenced to forced labor for eight years.6 Asya Sendarovich was arrested shortly after her husband, too. In her complaint to the authorities with a request for rehabilitation, she described in detail the events which happened almost twenty years before: We arrived in Sverdlovsk on August 10, 1937 at 10 o’clock in the morning. Maltsev went to the regional Party committee (obkom). I waited for him in the park near the regional committee and saw how at 5 p.m. several persons escorted him from the building to the car. That was the last time I saw him. I waited for him for several days. I thought that everything would be cleared up, but this never happened.

4 Interview with Kluge Marina Rudolfovna. December 23, 2016. Personal archive of the author. 5 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1. Folder 14268. Sheet 275back. 6 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1. F. 10443. Sheet 4back-5.

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Sendarovich says that when she returned to Chusovoi, where they lived, she was forced to hand in her registration card as a candidate member of the Communist Party. She was dismissed, after which she went back to Sverdlovsk to seek a visit to the prison and a meeting with her husband: “There I tried to find out what happened to Maltsev and to demand a meeting with him. The investigator gave me a lot of promises for a month and a half. Finally, at the end of September he told me to bring warm clothes and promised to organize a visit for me.” Sendarovich prepared the care package and was told to come to see her husband on the 1st of October. She came early in the morning and stayed in the corridor until 11 o’clock in the evening: “Finally, at 11 p.m. the investigator invited me into the room and said that I was arrested. He took my documents and explained that Maltsev was an enemy of the people and I knew that, but did not report it.” As a result, Sendarovich was taken to prison, without seeing her husband, and spent nine months there. During that period she was interrogated only twice: “They invented the story that they had found several tubes in my apartment that supposedly contained some mixtures. I spat in the investigator’s face. What else could I do?” In April 1938, Sendarovich, a thirty-year-old young woman, was sentenced to eight years of forced labor as a family member of a betrayer of the nation.7 The victims remember all the details related to their arrests and hold them as their most painful recollections. The arrest was the first act in the formation of an individual trauma and a shock factor that combined emotional experiences and physical isolation. At the same time, we can consider the moment of arrest as the starting point for victimization and the beginning of the victim’s narrative formation, the main aspects of which were the circumstances of the arrest, the emotional state of the arrested person, the loss of having an ordinary family, leisure, labor or party ties, and the loss of characteristics related to being identified as a Soviet citizen.

Torture As the researchers note, the authors of the book on the history of the “Kulak” operation of 1937-1938 in the Kama River area, acts of torture against suspects

7

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were not routine.8 The NKVD officers would “simply not have had so much time and energy” to extract evidence from so many people (Leibovich, Kasankov & Kimerling 2009, 97). Such energy was especially reserved for important prisoners, who had been determined in advance to be leaders of rebel command units and had been prepared for confessions during the visiting session of the Military Division of the Supreme Court (Leibovich, Kasankov & Kimerling 2009, 97). This refers to torture used during mass operations under Order Nr. 00447, better known as the “Kulak” operation. Indeed, evidence of physical and psychological violence is much more likely to be found in the statements and letters of former party leaders. Repressive operations were superimposed, one on top of another, weaving into a bizarre knot with “national” operations – such as Polish, German and Harbin operations – in which violence was a part of the investigative procedure. The sources describing personal experiences give us an opportunity to assess the extent of the traumatization of the arrested when they were beaten and bullied by investigators. The analysis of statements addressed to the heads of the NKVD (departments, prosecutors and secretaries of VKP(b) (Vsesoyuznaya kommunisticheskaya partiya (bol’shevikov) – All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)) showed that their texts were more focused on describing the bullying and torture. For example, the arrested Ivan Petrashko pointed out that “he was summoned and put into a four-day continuous interrogation; only after a syncopal attack and heart attacks, as well as delirium caused by high temperature, was he released from this so-called interrogation without confirming any pseudo-accusations.” (Leibovich, Ivanova & Obuchov 2004, 330). Ashikhmin, the former secretary of the district committee of the party, in his statement to the prosecutor described one of the interrogations in the following way, Investigator Melnikov kept me in interrogation for 18 hours, forcing me to sign a statement with absolutely incredible accusations. When I refused to do it and told them that their methods of investigation were fascist torture, he struck me with the pistol grip on my right hand, breaking the index and middle fingers, and breaking the tendons. Since then, these two fingers do not work. After this ‘interrogation,’ I was returned to the basement and was not called for more than two months.9 8 Note: Kulaks were wealthy peasants accused as he was of being against the policy of collectivization carried out by the Soviet government. 9 PermGANI. Folder 641/1 Inv.1. File. 13466. Sheet 75back.

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With regard to Maltsev, another secretary of the district committee of the VKP(b), who was shot on January 19, 1938, the witness said that he had seen Maltsev being led down the corridor by officers of the NKVD with his hands beaten and his face bleeding. This employee said that as Maltsev was led, he shouted: “What are you doing, you, Chekists!”10 We can find the description of bullying and torture in the interrogations of foreigners expelled from the USSR, such as: “During my interrogations in Kalinin, I was subjected to severe torture by a Jewish investigator. At the same time, I had eight teeth knocked out. Because of the blows to my left ear, my eardrum ruptured, so it is deaf now.”11 Another German citizen, Eduard Kluge, reported to an officer of the Gestapo during the interrogation, “They forced me to stand for 42 hours, and the investigators, of course, constantly changed. During this time, I did not get any water or food. Nevertheless, I was offered tea, but I refused. Other prisoners told me that after this tea a person falls into a verbigerate state and signs everything.”12 Thus, violence was an integral part of the investigative process, including physical abuse and deprivation of the ability to meet basic physiological needs such as sleep, food and hygiene. These types of evidence characterize the main purpose of torture during investigation as aiming to break a person, demoralize him and force him to sign any necessary statements. The threat of violence was sometimes no less effective than its implementation. The letters written by the prisoners to their relatives are permeated with pain, horror at what was happening, and fear for family members remaining outside. One of the prisoners wrote to his wife that he had been forced to sign a document that he was in the counter-revolutionary organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party, was engaged in the preparation of an insurgency, and committed terrorist acts and sabotage. No protests and refusals to the investigator worked. “I thought it would be good if I was dead, [if I had] died in a cold lock-up. But the answer was that they would not let me die; they would torture me to make me half-broken and then I would sign anything, as others did, becoming unable to withstand the torments. And the statement was signed.” In this letter we see anxiety for a pregnant wife: I signed the document of interrogations as I was afraid that you could have been dragged to jail because of me (although even just before giving 10 PermGANI. Folder 641/1 Inv.1. File. 16213. Sheet 150. 11 PAAA. R 104565 A. Winter, Franz. 12 PAAA. R 104557 A._Kluge, Eduard.

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birth, they can do it). […] I’m afraid that you, Dusya, will suffer, too. It’s really terrible to think about what is going on. Although, according to rumors, families do not get disturbed anymore. Although there are up to 300 women here […]13

It is known that violence against women was quite routine. In the statement on the case review and the cancellation of the verdict, Shlyapnikova, a prisoner of Ukhta-Izhma punishment camp, writes: “The investigation was extremely rude. Repeatedly the investigator beat me. He made me sign all the document of interrogations.”14 The traumatizing experience of violence reflected in the memories of women who survived the Gulag can be found in the memoirs of Elena Glinka (Glinka 2004, 376-380), in Meinhard Stark’s book Frauen im Gulag: Alltag und Überleben 1936-1956 (Stark 2003), the memoirs published by Nina Kamm (Kamm 2009), and others. Jörg Baberovski uses the term “space where violence is possible” (Ermöglichungsraum) or “space of violence” (Gewaltraum). These terms characterize a certain social situation which dramatically increases the likelihood of violence, makes it possible, stimulates and even demands it (Baberowski 2012, 7-27). Prisons and camps became such “spaces” in a concentrated form. Legal norms did not work there, the law was not observed, moral norms were discarded as unnecessary, and human dignity disappeared. A prisoner had to abandon all his human, social traits and become a thing. As Etkind notes, the life and work of the Gulag was determined not by the logics of production, but by the logics of torture. Torture camps altered the nature of people across the entire country. The use of torture in prisons and camps turned victims into “wasted people that were indifferent to everything except for bread rationing and hierarchy in the camp barracks” (Etkind 2016, 47). The violence experienced in prisons – both physical and psychological – was seared into their memory and influenced their future life. People remembered torture for a long time. The use of violence sends society certain signals. Violence structures social actions even when it does not directly threaten a person. The fear of violence limits opportunities for action (Berends 2015, 44).

13 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1. File. 1161. Sheet 48-48back. 14 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1. File. 8077. Vol 9. Sheet 21.

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“Convict” (zk) branding or a hard return15 After their return from camps, former prisoners bore a heavy burden of memories of humiliation, bullying and torture in their previous lives. They hoped that their torments were finally over, but the reality was often not what they thought it would be. At home, no one was waiting for them. After her release, Sendarovich could not get a job; she was turned down because of her conviction. In her memoirs, her niece Rita Stein writes that Sendarovich’s life was very lonely; there was neither husband nor children (Stein 2016).16 After their release, many people remained in the same districts where they served their sentences (Kolyma, Kazakhstan, etc.). The reasons were usually the same; either there was no one to whom they could come back to or nowhere to go, and there were also travel bans during wartime. Conviction for a former political prisoner meant that it was impossible to return to the point at which it all began. In his letter, Ivan Ashikhmin, the former secretary of the district committee, writes that absolutely impossible conditions were created for former political prisoners with the “restriction of rights, persecution of ‘former prisoners’ by short-sighted people (of whom there were unfortunately still a lot), and persecution of families, especially children.”17 Families were destroyed, which was unbearable for mothers. Lidiya Golysheva, who was sentenced to eight years of working in the camps, writes that she was deprived of her maternity rights. “When I was arrested, my three children aged from 8 to 15 years were left in the house. Despite my pleading, I was not allowed even to say goodbye to my children and give some advice on how to live without their father and mother. Later the children lost each other, as they were sent to orphanages in different cities.”18 Baltgalv also writes about the broken ties with her children. After her arrest, the children stayed with their grandmother without any financial support, and they were soon sent to an orphanage. The traumatizing factor for Baltgalv in prison was that her mother died of exhaustion. On September 20, 1945, Baltgalv was released but stayed to work in the Karaganda region, as she had nowhere to go and nobody to follow. Only three years later, she managed to move in with her son but relations with him did not work out. Later she writes in a letter that she lives alone and works a lot: “I 15 Zk, an abbreviation of the word prisoner (zaklyuchennyi). It was used when referring to prisoners in a derogatory manner. 16 PermGANI. Folder 641/1 Inv.1. File. 16213. Sheet 130back. 17 PermGANI. Folder 641/1 Inv.1. File. 13466. Sheet 76. 18 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1 File. 11275. Sheet 7.

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am already 54 years old, my health and strength have been undermined, and I am a morally destroyed person.”19 Arrests and long imprisonments destroyed family ties between parents and children, which also had a disastrous impact on the children who were forced to drastically change their lives; the children of arrested people were sent to orphanages and grew up without their parents. Brothers and sisters were separated and sent to different cities, and children died quite often. The destruction of traditional family ties and personal relationships between children and parents led to the fact that former prisoners who returned from the Gulag were alone. There was no place for a former convict in Soviet society, as rehabilitation in the family, as well as at work, was extremely difficult. Propaganda played a great part in this process. At a meeting of progressive combine operators in 1935, Stalin delivered his famous statement that “a son is not responsible for his father,” which became a kind of a watershed between the generations. To explain the irreconcilable differences between two different worlds, Etkind uses the term “non-recognition” and notes that the occasions of non-recognition between close people after release demonstrate how drastically the state invaded the deepest, most private aspects of family life and kinship. The next of kin did not recognize each other because the state readjusted both of them; each of them was changed in their own way (Etkind 2016, 86). This “non-recognition” led to a continuous isolation of former prisoners in society and outside the camp. Foreigners expelled from the USSR also underwent trauma related to the loss of families. In 1938, Eduard Kluge was deported to Germany and had to leave his wife and three children in Kizel. He spent many years trying to get his family to join him but without any success. He died in solitude in 1948. Fritz Baltes, who was the criminal defendant and participant of the show trial in Kizel, was sentenced to capital punishment and was eventually deported to Germany. His wife and son stayed in the USSR. According to the memories of his brother’s wife, Baltes worked in Recklinghausen at the mines, lived a secluded and lonely life, and never talked about what happened to him. He died in 1975. After their release, former political prisoners faced difficulties in finding work, housing and building personal relationships. Even after rehabilitation, the stigma of a “former prisoner” did not allow return to a normal life. When former political prisoners came back, they had to knock on many doors to f ind any work, even unskilled labor. The main theme in their 19 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1 File. 10443. Sheet 5-5back.

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letters to the authorities was that “nobody wants to hire me when they see my resumé” (Rehabilitation 2003, 61). In the words of Valentina Bilibina, “I was only allowed to have unskilled jobs. Everywhere I was rejected as an enemy of the people.” The trauma inflicted by the state was so strong that few people succeeded in adapting to normal life. It was necessary to constantly fight, write complaints, demand and beg. It was unbelievably hard for a person to regain property which had been taken away because of arrest searches. During the arrest, the apartment was searched. As a result, personal belongings were confiscated. The story of Anton Gamper, an engineer and teacher who was Head of the Department of Descriptive Geometry and Graphics at the Molotov Mining Institute in the 1950s, serves as an example of how one was forced to fight for property. Until January 1938, Gamper had been a quite successful and respected person. And yet, at a certain moment, everything started to crumble around him. Because Gamper was German by nationality and considered to be part of the “German operation”, his whole family was arrested. The “German operation” was specific repression against Germans living in the USSR. The repressive machine worked very quickly and severely: by January 1938, both of his sons had been shot, and only his daughter was released. One could say that given these circumstances, the father was very lucky. On November 21, 1938, a decree was issued for the termination of the investigative case towards Gamper, and he was released from the prison of Nizhny Tagil.20 After his release, Gamper had absolutely nothing – no apartment, no property, and even no clothes. He immediately initiated litigation proceedings to get his apartment and property back. To this end, Gamper wrote complaints to various authorities (the NKVD, the Prosecutor’s Off ice, the Party and Soviet authorities), including letters to Stalin, Kalinin and Shvernik. Eventually he appealed to the court with a statement of his claim, and even to the Supreme Court of the USSR. Prior to his arrest, Gamper had lived in a three-room apartment with a bathroom. As he wrote in June 1957, “My old apartment had three rooms and a bathroom, which was quiet and warm.”21 According to Sheila Fitzpatrick, it was typical of Russian cities during the Stalin era that people lived in communal apartments, in which different families had a room. Gamper succeeded in regaining his piano, cello, books, paintings, table silver and

20 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1 File. 10443. Sheet 17. 21 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1 File 12116. Sheet 78.

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ornaments. Unfortunately, he did not manage to get the apartment back, and he received only a small compensation. In this case, the emotional upheaval of the trauma can be described in terms of the strategy of retreatism (Merton 1966, 299-313). As Gamper clung to the wreckage of his previous life, he tried to hide himself from the trauma. This process took place at a time when his family had been destroyed and his destiny underwent degradation and marginalization. The struggle for his property was not only a desire to restore his former status, but also to physically survive. Many archives and investigative files contain a folder named “Case of Return of Property.” Sometimes this struggle was led by the children of the repressed people.

What am I to blame for? Responsibility for repressions A letter of May 1938, written by the Solikamsk prisoner Alexey Shchegolikhin to his wife, has one very important comment. Shchegolikhin writes that “he is forced to stay with special settlers [deportees], who were the majority in prison ‘whose behavior and conversations were hostile. And we have to be among them, object to them and have arguments.’”22 As we see, the prisoner does not identify himself as a prisoner; he despises special settlers, he believes that his arrest is a mistake that should soon be corrected, and at the same time the arrest of a deportee appears to be fair to him. He accuses local NKVD officers of his unjust arrest, and he believes that the authorities will figure it out and justice will be restored. The letters from prisons which we have at our disposal do not contain targeted accusations; they are more likely to be an act of despair (Leibovich, Ivanova & Obuchov 2004, 350). The letters written by former political prisoners released from the camps contain similar arguments; these are people who are already broken but still looking for justice from the authorities. In her study, Nanci Adler describes a unique feature of the victims of Stalinist repressions who were released from the camps; they continued to believe in communist ideology and to support the entire belief system used by the regime to justify repressions (Adler 2013, 33). This statement is true for members of the Communist Party who were imprisoned. Analysis of letters requesting rehabilitation shows that former political prisoners appealed to the authorities and wrote about the unjustified attitude towards them, but they did not blame the authorities for what had happened. For 22 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1. File 1161. Sheet 48back.

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example, Alexander Chernavin writes in his letter, “Thank you very much indeed for everything you have done, as the Central Committee has finally liquidated the plagues of our party!” (Rehabilitation 2003, 59). Indeed, people had unlimited trust in the authorities. Sergey Borisov, former Secretary of the Party Committee in the city of Kizel, wrote in a letter addressed to the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1955, I believed in the governing body which was headed by Yezhov. For me, that time was not ‘Yezhovism’ as they say now, but the time of Yezhov who was sent to this work by the Central Committee of our Party. I wondered why all this was happening and came to the conclusion that you can’t chop wood [real enemies] without making chips fly.23 I turned out to be this chip, either a big or a small one. In the end, it led me to what the investigator was talking about at the human level. If something is done, then it has its purpose. And in my mind I could not be bitter towards anyone. For me, resistance seemed unnecessary and useless.24

Borisov was punished twice for a non-existent crime: the f irst time in 1938 and the second time in 1949. He spent half of his life in the camp, but nevertheless he defended and justified the government. Even the loss of a high social status and transformation from secretary of the city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks to a laborer did not change Borisov’s mindset. Based on these cases, Adler finds that religion and the communist ideology are identical. Prisoners were helpless in the face of an unlimited power; they were deprived of their previous support within society, condemned for their imprisonment, and forced to work in desperately bad conditions. Another factor that speaks of the similarity between religion and communist ideology is that the “Gulag recreated such hard conditions of survival for which religions have traditionally offered solutions,” because “throughout the whole historical period up to the present time, people had to survive unpredictable and uncontrollable catastrophies, and it was more than a human can bear to resist them,” while “religions provided a cure for them by offering the access to a supernatural power that gives significance and meaning to the safety which is based on faith and obedience” (Adler 2013, 80).

23 Russian proverb: “лес рубят щепки летят” (you can’t chop wood without making the chips fly). 24 PermGANI. Folder 641/1. Inv.1. File 15214. Sheet 183.

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Concluding remarks Imprisonment trauma is always associated with violence (i.e., repressions, wars, genocide). Despite their diversity, traumatic symptoms are expressed as a result of several crucial issues. In terms of the period of Stalinist repressions, the main traumatizing effects in the USSR were arrests, the conditions in the camps, torture and the difficulties of rehabilitation after returning from prison. Responsibility for the sufferings experienced by other people was another painful memory. It should be noted that the arrest as a fait accompli became a “point of no return.” Psychologically, these are the hardest memories, which are preserved in detail. In most cases, the traumatic experience associated with the conditions in prison were not reflected on in prisoners’ memoirs. The reason for this was the need for physical survival, as elementary biological needs were brought to the forefront. In the camp, prisoners were simultaneously exposed to many factors, such as hunger, disease, hard work, cold, lack of family, and isolation from the outside world; these all merged into everlasting pain. The release from camp back to a previous life was desperate because it was so hard to find work or accommodation, and there remained a fear of being isolated, even from relatives, who may not have wanted to have anything in common with a former prisoner. The issue of responsibility for all the sufferings which had been inflicted by the state remains one of the major unresolved problems for subsequent generations. The role of government and society should be prominent in terms of commemorative practices. However, we find few attempts to reflect on this experience. In Russia, there were no large public organizations (except for the Memorial Society) that tried to comprehend the experience of repressions and help former prisoners adapt to the conditions of their new life. And violence and torture in prisons and camps in the 1930s-1940s are not a strong focus in current historiography. As the researchers note, the lack of attention to Soviet violence has become a notable tendency (Etkind 2016, 51; Ulturgasheva 2015, 16). Society has not yet realized the trauma caused by the repressions as trauma inflicted by the government, the very system of terror that was the basis of the Stalinist regime. We can state that the problem of the traumatizing experience of imprisonment is still relevant, since the trauma has not been realized or overcome by society. It is important to note that the “pronunciation” of traumatic memories and their actualization is the most important tool for turning individual traumatic experiences into collective ones, and it is impossible to heal and overcome social trauma without it.

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References Aarelaid-Tart, Aili. “Teoriya kul’turnoi travmy (opyt Estonii)”. Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya 10 (2004): 63-72. Adler, Nancy. Sokhranyaya vernost’ partii. Kommunisty vozvrashchayutsya iz GULAGa. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2013. Agamben, Giorgio. Homo Sacer. Sovereign Power and Bare Life. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998. Alexander, Jeffrey С. “Kul’turnaya travma i kollektivnaya identichnost’.” Sotsiologicheskii zhurnal 3 (2012): 5-40. Assmann, Аleida. A Long Shadow of the Past. Memorial Culture and Historical Politics. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2014. Assmann, Aleida. Novoe nedovol’stvo memorial’noi kul’turoi. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2016. Baberowski, Jörg. “Einleitung: Ermöglichungsräume exzessiver Gewalt.” Gewalträume. Soziale Ordnungen im Ausnahmezustand. Eds. Jörg Baberowski & Gabriele Metzler. Frankfurt a.M.: Campus, 2012. Berends, Yan. “Fizicheskoe nasilie: podkhod k istorii i povsednevnosti kommunisticheskoi diktatury.” Povsednevnaya zhizn’ pri sotsializme. Nemetskie i rossiiskie podkhody. Moscow: Politicheskaya entsiklopediya, 2015. Bykova, Svetlana. ““Nakazannaya pamyat’”: svidetel’stva o proshlom v sledstvennykh materialakh NKVD”. Neprikosnovennii zapas 2 (2009). Accessed February 8, 2017. https://magazines.gorky.media/nz/2009/2/nakazannaya-pamyat-svidetelstvao-proshlom-v-sledstvennyh-materialah-nkvd.html. Etkind, Alexander. Krivoe gore: Pamyat’ o nepogrebennykh. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2016. Eyerman, Ron. “Sotsial’naya teoriya i travma.” Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie 12.1 (2013): 121-138. Glinka, Elena S. “Kolymskii tramvai” srednei tyazhesti. Dodnes’ tyagoteet. T. 2: Kolyma. Sost. S.S. Vilenskii. Moskow: Vozvraschenie, 2004. 376-380. Harris, James. The Great Urals: Regionalism and the Evolution of the Soviet System. New York: Cornell University Press, 1999. Hirsch, Marianne. The Generation of Postmemory: Writing and Visual Culture after the Holocaust. Columbia University Press, 2012. Kamm, Nina. Weggesperrt. Frauen im Gulag. Erinnerungen. Berlin: Karl Dietz Verlag, 2009. Khlevnyuk, Dariya & Bernard Giesen. “Triumf i travma.” Sotsiologicheskoe obozrenie 9.2 (2010): 112-117. Koposov, Nikolai. Pamyat’ strogogo rezhima: Istoriya i politika v Rossii. Мoscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2011.

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Leibovich, Oleg L., Magdalina A. Ivanova & Leonid A. Obuchov. Politicheskie repressii v Prikam’e. 1918-1980: Sbornik dokumentov i materialov. Perm: Pushka, 2004. Leibovich, Oleg, Alexandr Kasankov & Anna Kimerling. “Vklyuchen v operatsiyu». Massovyi terror v Prikam’e v 1937-1938 gg.”. Moscow: ROSSPEN, 2009. Livshin, Аlexandr. “Vlast’ i obshchestvennye nastroeniya poslerevolyutsionnoi epokhi (po pis’mam vo vlast’)”. Kuda idet Rossiya? Vlast’, obshchestvo i lichnost’. Мoscow: MVShSEN, 2000. Merton, Robert. “Sotsial’naya struktura i anomiya.” Sotsiologiya prestupnosti (Sovremennye burzhuaznye teorii). Мoscow: Progress, 1966. 299-313. Oushakine, Serguei & Elena Trubina. Travma: punkty. Мoscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009. Rehabilitation = Reabilitatsiya: kak eto bylo. Dokumenty: fevral’ 1956 – nachalo 1980-kh godov. Sost. A. Artisov, Y. Sigachev, V. Chlopov & I. Shevchuk. Vol. 2. Moscow: MFD, 2003. Repina, Lorina P. “Opyt sotsial’nykh krizisov v istoricheskoi pamyati.” Krizisy perelomnykh epokh v istoricheskoi pamyati. Ed. Lorina P. Repina. Moscow: IWI RAS, 2012. 3-37. Shalamov, Varlam T. Vospominaniya. Мoscow: АSТ: Аstrel: Оlimp, 2001. Shcherbakova, Irina L. “Pamyat’ GULAGa. Opyt issledovaniya memuaristiki i ustnykh svidetel’stv byvshikh uznikov.” Vek pamyati, pamyat’ veka: Opyt obrashcheniya s proshlym v KhKh stoletii. Chelyabinsk: “Kamennyi poyas”, 2004. 168-185. Smelser, Neil. “Psychological Trauma and Cultural Trauma.” Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. J. C. Alexander, R. Eyerman, B. Giesen, N. J. Smelser & P. Sztompka. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 31-59. Solzhenitsyn, Alexandr. Maloe sobranie sochinenii: T. 3: Rasskazy. Moscow: INCOM NV, 1991; T. 6: Arkhipelag GULAG, 1918-1956. Moscow: INCOM NV, 1991. Stark, Meinhard. Frauen im Gulag. Alltag und Überleben 1936-1956. München: Carl Hanser Verlag, 2003. Stein, Rita. Vyberi zhizn’. Memuary. 2016. Accessed February 8, 2017. http://www. proza.ru/2016/04/05/1159. Sztompka, Piotr. “Sotsial’noe izmenenie kak travma (stat’ya pervaya).” Sotsiologicheskie issledovaniya. 1 (2001): 6-16. Topography of Terror = Topografiya terrora. Perm’. Istoriya politicheskikh repressii. Sost. Sergey Shevirin. Perm: Mamatov, 2012. Volkov, Oleg. “Pogruzhenie vo t’mu.” Roman-gazeta 6 (1990): 1-122. Ulturgasheva, Olga. “Nasledie Gulaga v sovremennoi povsednevnosti” // Laboratorium. Zhurnal sotsial’nykh issledovanii. 1 (2015): 15-25.

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About the author Anna Koldushko is associate professor at Perm National Research Polytechnic University. Her scientific interests focus on issues related to repressions in the USSR in the 1930s, Soviet everyday life, as well as the problem of the socio-cultural trauma of repression in a totalitarian society. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5478-6545

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Fragmented Construction of Cultural Memories in Turkey How Women Acting in Civil Society Perceive the Kurdish Issue Serpil Açıkalın Erkorkmaz and Dilek Karal

Abstract Within the theoretical framework of cultural memory, the chapter scrutinizes how events that are substantial collective memories were deeply reflected in the narratives of women acting in civil society in Turkey and developed counter-memories on the Kurdish issue, peace, and gender roles. Through examining the patriarchal character of Turkish modernization and construction of women’s identities, the authors seek historical roots of social schisms among women deriving from 32 in-depth interviews conducted with women from civil society organizations, civic initiatives, and women’s organizations in Turkey. The authors contend that identity, as a composition of ideological, religious, and ethnic differences, is the major determinant of women’s segmented cultural memories in Turkey on the Kurdish issue, peace, and gender roles. Keywords: women acting in civil society, cultural memory, Kurdish issue, identity

Introduction The year of 2013 marks one of the most significant steps to reach reconciliation and achieve peace in the history of the Republic of Turkey’s ethnically based “Kurdish issue”. However, as this process ceased in mid-2015, hopes of achieving a peaceful settlement were once again dashed, and the

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch08

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perspective on the Kurdish issue returned to the traditionally memorized perspective of the past, and security and nationalism perspectives came to the fore. At this point, how different groups in society imagine the past and mutual perceptions in inter-groups dynamics gain importance. Additionally, polarization among women acting in different civil society organizations became more visible. Among these groups, women’s perspectives display a combination of gender roles alongside their memorization of the Turkish Republic’s modernization history, and their polarized arguments regarding reconciliation represent how ethnically- and religiously-based identities have shaped counter-memories of women for years. Turkey’s recent history is a history of modernization, and progress in gender equality is one of its significant aspects. In this regard, it is not easy to ignore gender when considering reconciliation initiatives in Turkey’s recent history (Bora 2010, 9). In this chapter, we scrutinize narratives on the Kurdish issue and gender roles of women enrolled in the civil society sector in Turkey as two significant sub-topics in our research project.1 Understanding cultural memory formations of women acting in civil society is noteworthy since they act as a pioneer group among women in Turkey in policy making. First, examining the patriarchal character of Turkish modernization and the construction of idealized identities for women, we seek the historical roots of social schisms among women in Turkey. We keep as an overarching argument that polarizations among women acting in civil society are rooted in an early Republican construction of ideal citizenship. We assert that women’s identity choices affect formation of their cultural memories. Second, we try to answer how women’s cultural memories shape their perception of “threat” regarding the Kurdish issue and gender. Among the above-mentioned events that are relevant to the cultural memory of recent Turkey, we chose the Kurdish issue as a representative topic for our analysis since it turns a spotlight not only ideological identity variations among women but also ethnic differences. Initially, a major aim of the research project was to examine women’s perceptions of peace and justice within the context of the Kurdish issue. Yet, during the interviews, we realized that the women interviewed also developed highly polarized views and diverging cultural memories when sharing their perceptions of the Kurdish issue and gender roles. While 1 The data draws from the project funded by the Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey (TÜBİTAK) in the framework of the ERA.Net RUS Plus program. We are grateful to project coordinator Fatma Hülya Şimga, project researcher Zeynep Gülru Göker, and project assistants Izem Aral, Güney Kuru and Özgür Yalçın. We are also grateful to Gail Schilling for her contributions in the editing of the chapter.

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many of the women explained their willingness to cooperate with other women as a general opinion, the de facto position of “Turks versus Kurds” and “secular versus Islamic” women signaled limitations of women in certain communicative areas. For us, that needed special attention. Second, although women pointed to “motherhood” and “womanhood” as some common grounds against male dominance, some of them, especially those who identified with a certain group or identity, had developed a latent sense of threat from other groups. In light of this background, we chose to examine women’s cultural memories and perceptions of threat as a complementary study. This chapter starts with an introduction to the historical roots and current determinants of identity-formative divisions in Turkey dating to the late Ottoman Empire. An introduction to the social structural and historical background of schisms enables an understanding of the character of “state-sponsored feminism,” which represented an idealized way of being a woman in the early years of the Republican era. Placing a secular Turkish woman at the center of identity formation, this def inition made many outcasts in a multicultural society built directly after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. In addition, the construction of segmented cultural memories in different groups becomes more meaningful with a reference to the historical roots of women’s modernization in Turkey. We continue our chapter by explaining our methodology, after which we discuss identity as a composition of ideological, religious, and ethnic differences. We argue that identity is the main determinant of women’s polarized views and segmented cultural memories around the Kurdish issue and gender roles. Along with references to our interviewees, we discuss the role of identity in shaping cultural memory. In this chapter, we borrow theoretical concepts from modernization theories, cultural memory theories, and counter-memory discussions. In the last part of the chapter, we try to answer how women’s cultural memories shape their perception of threat in relation to our search for a common path of discussion among women. We conclude our chapter with a dialogue on the possibilities of living together in peace, despite painful memories, and intergroup threat perceptions among women.

Patriarchal modernization and social polarization among women Hegemonic narratives of the Turkish Republic have long undermined the multiple and diversified narratives and memorialization of historical events.

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In particular, narratives and cultural memories of ethnic and religious minorities, or of people of a certain public opinion (as in the case of Islamists), did not find a place in the writing of early Republican national history. Similarly, cultural memories have been represented in a patriarchal discourse where gendered perspectives are largely missing or a woman’s cultural memories are voiced within a unified identity designated by a specific type of woman: the Turkish secular Muslim woman.2 Bringing reflexive accounts of women’s own histories, we intend to add to literature that is critical to patriarchal narration of historical and present milestones in modern Republican Turkey. In this chapter, we limited ourselves to a narrative of the political topics and issues specific to the post-1923 era when the founders of the country defined Turkey as a modern republic. We included additional topics brought into discussion by our respondents themselves such as the Gezi Protests of 2013. Memory studies have been gaining significance in Turkey as a means of transferring the experiences and narratives of especially marginalized groups in national memory. The studies also open up discussions on previously ignored historical topics. Along with alternative memorialization of historical events and multiple narratives of sociopolitical issues, women’s narratives were largely missing in Turkey’s modernization history. Only recently have a few studies started to focus on women’s narratives (Durakbaşa & İlyasoğlu 2001; Akal 2003; Bora 2005; Çakır 2006). In this part, we seek the historical roots of social disparities among women acting in civil society in Turkey by examining the patriarchal character of Turkish modernization. We scrutinize the possible effects of modernization history on the construction of women’s identities and polarized perceptions of social issues. Considering the groups of women covered in our study, we mainly focus on discursive polarizations among women who define themselves secular, Islamist, or Kurdish, as well as the debates they bring to the table. These ideological and ethnic debates are significant, since they are rooted in the late Ottoman Empire and were carried out and fostered during the Republican years. These debates are still major determinants of women’s polarized political and social views for our discussion.

2 Here we refer to a French type of secularism that is based on the French concept of laïcité. Translated into Turkish as laiklik, it is ingrained as secularism among six fundamental and unchanging principles of the Republic: nationalism, populism, statism, secularism, and revolutionism/reformism. For further readings on the issue, see Feroz Ahmad’s The Making of Modern Turkey (1993).

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Early reforms by the Republic aimed to create a society around modern principles and modern political and economic dynamics. Reformers believed that remnants of the old regime, such as the Ottoman language (Osmanlica), religious symbols (such as the çarşaf and fez), and religious orders (tarikat) should be abolished from the public sphere for a contemporary (muasir) Turkey. The turban and fez were outlawed by the Hat Law in 1925. The single-party system hampered opposition or revival of conservatism on the one hand, while creating an authoritarian and patriarchal rule seen as key for the promotion of reforms in society. New laws made polygamy illegal. The laws also gave the right of divorce to women as well as to men, and civil marriage was made obligatory (previously, religious marriage had been adequate). New laws also made marriage between Muslims and non-Muslims legal and abolished different inheritance rights of men and women. After the 1930s, numerous work opportunities were introduced to women; they could become lawyers, judges, police off icers, and teachers. In 1934, women were given the right to become candidates for parliament, as well as suffrage. During the 1935 general elections, eighteen women were elected to parliament with a relatively high level of representation (4.5% of a total of 399 members of parliament (MPs)). The number of women MPs did not exceed this percentage until the 2007 general elections, when fifty women MPs were elected (9.1% of a total of 550 MPs) to parliament (TÜİK 2012, 5). Institutionalization of the public sphere as part of the power of the state gave women tributary roles as supporters of state ideology. Alev Çınar (2005, 65) points out that the public appearance of women in the early years of the Republic was “a state-sponsored feminization of the public sphere,” which promoted modernity, secularism, and civilization. For Çınar (2005, 65), this type of feminization of the public sphere “served to strengthen the patriarchal basis of the state power.” As long as the state controlled women’s bodies and public appearance, it was considered powerful. Akin to what Ayşe Kadıoğlu (1998) defined as “schizophrenic identity,” women could gain public visibility and power in return for for their surrender to principles of ideal citizenship. This period was described as the phase of rights granted from above and the foundation years of state feminism. Ottoman women activists were alienated, since they were perceived as the continuation of the previous mindset (Altınay 2000; Toska 1998). The Women’s Union was the first women’s organization to promote reforms and rights. However, since it was assumed by the leading party (Republican People’s Party) to have attained its goal of equal citizenship, it was dissolved in 1935.

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Notably, distance between diverse groups of women had been drawn mainly by the state reforms dating back to the late Ottoman Empire, even before the establishment of the Republic. First, the existing debate on worldviews between secular Western-style elites and traditional Islamist counter-elites became more visible (Göle 1997). In the words of historian İlber Ortaylı (2006), this “new life” increased the popularity of the alafranga type of Western-leaning thought and the visibility of comparatively more unconstrained women in the urbanized areas of the empire.3 Similarly, in the later transformation to a secular state, the public sphere and especially the public visibility of women were structured in accordance with the progressive ideals of the age. The second major polarization became visible with a reference to ethnic differences rooted in the history of the Ottoman Empire as a multiethnic and multicultural empire. Hakan Yavuz (2001, 1) contends that the transition from Ottoman Empire to the nation-state model was “the major reason for the politicization of Kurdish cultural identity.” The Republic was built mainly upon the dominance of Turkish nationalist motives. In the Republican constitution, Muslim ethnic minorities were accepted as “Turk” without referring to any differences in ethnicity, race, language, or religion.4 Mesut Yeğen (2009) notes that Kurds were accepted as “prospective Turks,” since the citizenship of Kurds was (and still is) ambiguous in official discourse. Along with recognition issues, sociopolitical dynamics fueled the discrepancies between the Kurdish population and the Turkish state. The Kurdish women’s movement developed as a part of the Kurdish national movement. The 1980s and particularly the 1990s were the most problematic periods in terms of restriction of the Kurdish language and political rights, due to unabated conflict between the state and the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party/Partîya Karkerên Kurdistanê). Thus, Kurdish women were subjected to the double trauma of conflict and living in a patriarchal environment. Kurdish women’s victimization by traditional marriage applications, sexual violence (incurred in the conflict zone), socioeconomic deprivations, and post-immigration difficulties could find a response in the advocacy networks of civil society mainly after 2000s.

3 Literally, “in the style of the Franks,” or doing something in a European manner. 4 After large debates on the constitutional definition of Turkish citizenship in the Turkish General National Assembly (TGNA), Article 88 of the first constitution of the Republic (1924) stipulated that “the people of Turkey, regardless of religion and race, as regards citizenship are called Turks” (Köker 2010, 55).

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Particularly since the 1980s, Turkey’s social and economic dynamics have been changing in favor of privatization and globalization. In addition, Turkey’s population has drastically changed in the last sixty years, making alternative life choices and discussions more visible in the public sphere. New channels of communication have opened up alternative media for marginalized groups, along with a critical approach towards national history. As Neyzi (2010, 3) notes, particular historical events – including but not limited to the establishment of the Republic in 1923, military coups and the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state – came under renewed scrutiny after that time. These disparities formed the roots of two major debates maintained among women today: the secularism-Islam debate and the Kurdish issue. The political landscape of Turkey is predominantly formed around the conflicting Turkish Republican, Kurdish, and Islamist narratives of the nation. These issues are observed as the main factors in women’s self-definition of their identity in our study.

Methodology of the study During the project we conducted a total of 32 face-to-face, semi-structured, in-depth interviews between May 2016 and June 2017. These interviews were conducted with civil society representatives and academics from five cities in Turkey: İstanbul, Ankara, İzmir, Trabzon and Diyarbakır. The interviews for Diyarbakır had to be conducted in İstanbul due state of emergency conditions in the region in recent years. The main criteria for the selection of these cities were their geographical representation and their number of women’s civil society organizations. Second, these cities also represent different ideological tendencies in Turkey. To generalize, while metropolitan cities like İstanbul and Ankara represent various ideologies, İzmir and Trabzon, in particular, represent secular nationalist and conservative nationalist ideologies, respectively. Additionally, Diyarbakır is largely a Kurdish-populated city and Kurdish organizations dominate civil society activities there. Semi-structured questions helped us to discern women’s interpretations of the Kurdish issue and gender. Interviewees from organizations and experts were chosen from three categories: solidarity associations, women’s organizations working on women’s rights and gender equality, and rights-based organizations focusing on conflict resolution and collective memory. At the beginning of the interview process, we organized a focus group with scholars of conflict resolution, memory studies, and gender studies. Additionally, we interviewed scholars and experts.

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These interviews started with questions related to the general activities of their organizations and developed through such questions as the role of women in peace building, their collaborations with other organizations, and their perceptions regarding the construction of general societal reconciliation. We asked about their views on armed conflict, their remembrances and their collective memories, as well as their thoughts on the possibilities of living together in the current political atmosphere. As a result of the chosen topic for the study, all of the interviewees were women from different age groups, occupations, and ideological backgrounds. Ideologically speaking, all women interviewed fell into one or more of the following categories: secular, conservative, liberal, socialist, and/or feminist. Regarding ethnic origin, interviewees self-identified as Kurdish or Turkish women. Since religious affiliation is sociologically regarded as an intimate issue in Turkey, we did not ask about women’s religious preferences unless women themselves openly stated them.

Conceptualizing cultural memory through the lens of identity and feminist studies To analyze the present-day narratives of women enrolled in civil society in Turkey on the Kurdish issue, peace and their gender roles, scrutinizing the effects of the cultural memory along with identity may offer a new understanding for us. Identity is not limited to ethnic origin; it is also a combination of social class, social status, cultural background, gender, religious affiliation and even the space (e.g. neighborhood preferences) in these studies. Identity is defined in Pierre Bourdieu’s concept of habitus (Bourdieu, 1990) in relation to an individual’s social history, social status, cultural capital, personal habits, and lifestyle preferences. In this extensive def inition, identity embraces not only similarities within the individual’s own group, but also includes status symbols and cultural differences by means of which the individual defines himself or herself. This kind of identity perception helps the individual to identify himself or herself in relation to social and cultural distances and differences from others. Along with identity, cultural memories can significantly affect social polarization. Leyla Neyzi (2010, 3) links social polarization in Turkey to cultural memories: “The country is increasingly divided into conflicting groups whose differences vis-à-vis contemporary issues are linked to different interpretations of the past.” Cultural memory helps individuals construct a common identity among people of a common culture. It represents “the

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public categorizations, evaluation, and interpretation of the historical events considered relevant by which the political and cultural self-image of a community roots itself” (Assmann, as cited in Schraut and Paletschek 2008, 269). Feminist scholarship has been attempting to underline the significance of gender in the memorialization and transmission of cultural memory in national memory. Women’s cultural memories are formed by their attachment to a certain identity. As is generally claimed in feminist studies, even this identity is formed around male-oriented culture. Marianne Hirsch and Valerie Smith (2002, 6) link cultural memory to power and hegemony discussions: “What a culture remembers and what it chooses to forget are intricately bound up with issues of power and hegemony, and thus with gender.” Thus, engendering cultural memory does not directly mean stripping it away from male dominance and patriarchal discourse. However, it should also be noted that in identity-formative processes, women are not passive conveyors of ideology (Bora 2010) or individuals shaped out of cultural memories. Women not only remember these events when they construct a cultural memory, but they also attach themselves to a certain identity, rewriting remembrances rooted in it. Women’s problematic encounters with and being outcast from different identities not only help women to define their identities, but also create certain intergroup threat perceptions among women. Within this context, we borrow the concept of “threat” from the field of psychology, where the term is used to refer to certain factors that it is built upon: personal death, physical collective annihilation, symbolic collective annihilation and past victimization (Hirschberger, Ein-Dor, Leidner and Saguy 2016). In addition, we extended the concept to include an individual’s own perceptions and feelings of threat, such as discomfort in certain situations and feelings of being threatened, expressed by women. In its broad definition, we included women’s subjective / reflexive feelings of threat even though there might be no visible or verifiable ground for their perceptions. From this point of view, women’s distress about being outcast was a perception cutting across distinctive identities.

Role of identity on women’s cultural memories; intergroup threat perceptions in the context of counter-memories approach Nationwide surveys agree that social polarization in Turkey has been developing strongly since early 2000s. Polls also underline that identity

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is the strongest determinant in shaping people’s diverse perceptions of sociopolitical issues (KONDA 2010; Ipsos-KMG 2011; Çelik, Bilali & Iqbal 2017). In this section, we scrutinize whether women’s diverse identities construct segmented cultural memories. In this line of thought, we maintain that identity and identity-related cultural memories are major determinants of an individual’s perception of sociopolitical issues. Second, via examining data from interviews, we try to answer how women’s cultural memories shape intergroup threat perceptions regarding the Kurdish issue and gender. Paul R. Brass (1996, 85) claims that one group’s encounter with the other group creates a sense of attachment to a certain ethnic group, and thus events such as migration and encounters in the urban space should be highlighted as the processes that exacerbate ethnic tensions. When considering Kurds’ internalization of their identity and development of a sense of unity among themselves to protest the “power” of the state, this identity is clearly not only formed by their own perception of themselves but also developed in relation to out-group experiences. A Kurdish feminist woman detailed how basic encounters with other identities might create crises among women: Seven or eight years ago we attended a meeting on women’s protection houses together with other non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in Izmir. An older Kurdish woman wanted to speak in Kurdish when it was her turn to speak as a Kurdish mother. Chaos occurred. Other women (Turks) did not let her speak. She could not speak Kurdish. Women protested against her by knocking on tables: pat-pat-pat. […] Even three years ago we faced similar situations and tried to convince other women’s organizations to let Kurdish women attending the meeting speak in Kurdish. They blamed us. We could not get together on peace. (Solidarity and women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, İzmir).

Since our study covered women’s organizations from five cities, it is helpful to observe the urban mark in women’s narratives. In addition, as most Kurdish migrants move to deprived areas or neighborhoods lacking knowledge of Turkish, they also suffer from others’ perceptions of them (Research on Forced Displacement in Turkey, 2006). Commenting on historical exile punishments, the economic migrations of the 1950s, and the military’s village evacuations in the 1990s, Zeynep Gambetti and Joost Jongerden (2015, 3) state that the “Kurdish issue is not solely and no longer one of identity and

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of the colonization of a particular region.” In this regard, encounters with other groups in an urban environment are significant when developing one’s identity. As discussed by Ayşe Betül Çelik (2005) earlier, encounters with other social groups also politicize women in the city. One interviewee’s (a secular Kurdish woman) reference to a previous study by her organization confirms that forced displacement history and human rights violations politicize people: Once we conducted research on forced displacement. People who faced greater abuse of their rights wanted to go back to their villages more than others. Forced displacement politicized them. (Solidarity association member, personal communication, İstanbul).

Deniz Gökalp (2010) argues that the displacement of Kurdish women and the all-encompassing violence of their daily lives have engaged them more in Kurdish-inclined political ideologies by increasing their consciousness and driving them to use rights-based representations. Therefore, while some women questioned the meaning of life in the new cultural structure of the city, those who had lost their husbands and could manage to break with tradition and escape the rules of the patriarchal family transformed into more powerful female agencies (Gökalp 2010). Some Kurdish women active in civil society expressed their concerns about being labeled negatively by other women’s organizations all the time. These concerns make them uncomfortable and threatened among women even in civil society activities. Similarly, considering threat perceptions and conflicting identities, a Kurdish woman stated her discomfort about miscommunication: even when they say “peace,” for others it means “terrorism” (Rights-advocacy organization representative, personal communication, Istanbul). Women’s testimonies draw on an imagined historical narrative of memories, including both social constructions and real events (McDowell 2004). Within the context of threat perceptions and multiple interpretations of events, even words are stripped of their true meanings and start to signify or represent different things in competing discourses. Considering women’s wording of diverse cultural memories during our interviews, these combating narratives were revealing. For instance, when women from diverse organizations commented on their experiences with the state or defined the conflicts between the state and the PKK, they used polarized wording. Some of the Kurdish women referred to the state as “the system,” and one specifically showed her discomfort when she accidentally said “our state,” referring to

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the Turkish State. In line with this, nationalist Turkish women in the study referred to the PKK as “terrorist,” whereas Kurdish women preferred to refer to them as “guerrilla.” Such distinct wording and definitions of events and remembrances surely created multiple readings of national history, as well as polarized and threatening views of each other, within multiple contexts. In this sense, women’s construction of alternative remembrances before the hegemonic narrative of national history is signif icant in opening a space for counter-memories. Counter-memories intrinsically carry a critique of mainstream power and discourse relations, creating anti-hegemonic narratives (Foucault 1977; Medina 2011). By constructing their own wording and discursive tools, women also generate multiple memorialization of historical processes and power relations transferred through their groups. Different women’s competing narratives of the past represent multiple aspects of the fragmented nature of cultural memory and history in Turkey. Similarly, while one of the fundamental rights demanded by Kurdish women centers is on language, usage of Kurdish – both in educational institutions and in the public sphere – has been perceived by Turkish nationalists as a step for further federation demands. The use of the Kurdish language disturbs those for whom Turkish should be the only common language in public meetings. A nationalist Turkish woman commented on the issue as follows: They sometimes use the words such as “Kurdish woman” rather than “woman” […] Why Kurdish woman? For example, I am a Laz woman. We never say Laz, Turkish, Georgian, Abkhazian woman, because we exist in all ethnicities. We had a meeting […] A man started to talk in Kurdish and another translated his speech. After half of his speech, he started to talk in Turkish. During my turn, I started to talk in the Laz language and no one understood anything. I asked “Do you realize the problem now? We are in a meeting on the civil constitution and the constitution is written in the common language of the country. This friend talked in Kurdish and then he switched to Turkish. If you know Turkish, why did you prefer to talk through a translator?” We also struggled for the use of Kurdish, but we also need a common off icial language for contact. If we are here to talk about the constitution, we should have a common language, common flag, and common law […] Saying you are a Kurdish person, you bring your privilege forward. (Women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, Trabzon).

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This emphasis on “commonality” and the expectation of an expression of common values in speaking, appearance and language represent general characteristics of the nationalist perspective. All of these fundamentals are perceived by nationalists as collaboration under a common supra-identity. However, it is also an authoritarian imposition of the dominant power’s own values over others. Another interviewee with a headscarf, who defined herself as a Muslim Kurd, shared her fragmented memory of language education in her extended family: I always had a Kurdish identity […] Though my family talked to each other in Kurdish, they made an effort not to teach my siblings and me the Kurdish language. When I was a child, I had a perception that Kurdish was a language used by family elders to not be understood by children. This Turkish-Kurdish separation was developed later on. When I was visiting my village, my grandmother didn’t know a word of Turkish. Even until her death we couldn’t speak with her. We used sign language and, interestingly, we could manage to connect. I listened to a lot of tales from her that I didn’t understand […] I remember once when I was in fifth grade one of my friends called me a terrorist. (Women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, İstanbul).

Although our interviewee’s family tried to protect her from social pressure by not teaching her the Kurdish language, she could not escape from being labeled a terrorist by her classmate, probably just because of her ethnicity. Neyzi (2010, 3) associates with fear some parents’ reluctance to transfer their experiences to their children: Fear remains an important factor leading parents to choose to not transmit their experiences to their children. In other cases, individuals may be raised to live in parallel worlds, or parallel contexts, each of which may be associated with different narratives. This results in complex, divided subjectivities and a convoluted, tortured and often traumatic relationship to the past.

Perspectives on gender roles and motherhood organizations Throughout this study, while sharing their perceptions of the Kurdish issue and gender, women referred to traumatic individual memories, such as the loss or torture of personal acquaintances in the conflict, and collective

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memories of the following: the 1960, 1971 and 1980 military coups; forced displacement; February 28, 1997; the Gezi protests of 2013; and conflicts between the state and the PKK. Additionally, as discussed earlier, historical polarizations also affected people’s perceptions of diverse sociopolitical issues, which merged with traumatic cultural memories; as self-stated by women in our study, this led to a further divergence of views. Along with cultural memories, personal experiences such as forced migration history, socioeconomic expectations and encounters with diverse groups can also be listed among the determinants of identity-formation processes of women in Turkey. In its broad definition, feminist and secular women in Turkey approached religion as a tool for women’s submission and religious symbols alike. On the other hand, for conservative women,5 secular empowerment discourse was antithetical to Islamic principles. Hülya Şimga and Zeynep Gülru Göker (2017) argue that feminists’ and Islamists’ polarized views on gender equality foster partisan politics and make collaboration difficult on problems that women witness in Turkey. Conservative women’s concentration on removal of the headscarf ban and their demands to be included in the public sphere led them to focus on group-based specific demands in the late 1990s. In our study, we interviewed both Turkish and Kurdish conservatives from different organizations. Their hesitation to take women’s rights or religious principles as a reference point for the gender issue was a common problem in our interviews. Most also complained about being portrayed as subjugated women by seculars. A conservative Turkish woman commented on gender and polarization among women’s organizations: On issues of education, school attendance of girls, increasing the number of women in politics and decision-making mechanisms, or violence against women, we are more easily united with the others […] Yet, for example, at the CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) meeting some of them [other women’s organizations] said, “We don’t want to sit with women wearing the headscarf,” and they left the meeting. But later they also understood their mistakes […] But 5 Since Islamist is a very broad and all-inclusive term and its verbal connotations are sociologically value-laden in different political systems, hereafter we prefer to refer to these women as “conservative Muslim” or “conservative,” as this term is preferred by them while referring to their identity. To note, all conservative Muslim women in our study first ideologically defined themselves “Muslim” as an encompassing identity.

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after the Gezi events, the separations began again. It has been a long time since we have not signed a common document […] We participated with an organization in Diyarbakir to show our support for peace. (Women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, Ankara).

In line with this perspective, an elderly Kurdish conservative woman from another organization explained why they oppose feminist and secular ideas: When a secular women’s group says religion itself enslaves women […] we cannot unite with them because we don’t think so. Okay then, you can continue to think so. At the end of the day, I may also think that disbelief leads to other things. Yet if they think that I will never be free because I am religious, it is already not possible for them to act with solidarity. (Solidarity organization, personal communication, Istanbul).

We asked women about the major issues of polarization among different women’s organizations and their perspectives about gender roles in Turkey. Regarding the definition of gender roles, a socialist, self-defined non-feminist Kurdish woman commented on the major issue of polarization between her group and conservatives: It is our views about the family. Conservatives think that family is a must, as a part of social structure. We say that the current form of family structure enslaves the woman in the family and it is lifelong […] We defend that the family structure should evolve into a different form. That’s why our discourses on women’s struggle are polarized. (Women’s rights organization, personal communication, Istanbul).

Threat perceptions and polarizations among women are present in these conservative women’s statements. First, the woman mentioned protests against her in the women’s organizations’ collective for wearing a headscarf. Our interviewee’s reference to the headscarf issue is quite symbolic, and it should be evaluated as a reference to the decades-old debate between seculars and Islamists who view the issue from opposite angles: one as a religious obligation and woman’s right, the other as a symbol of a woman’s submission and (sometimes) even a protest at secular values. The headscarf issue has been a significant topic of discussion in Turkey since the 1960s. Entrance to universities and working in public offices were banned for women wearing headscarves until recently. For Alev Çınar (2005), the body has been a significant battlefield for nationalistic ideologies and

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modernizing interventions. After the establishment of the Republic in 1923, women were encouraged to exchange their headscarves for modern clothing. Although there was no open ban, the headscarf was rarely visible in the public sphere. The 1980 coup d’état and the February 28, 1997 event are two important milestones, during which state regulations intervened in women’s clothing use in the public sphere. A secular feminist commented on how memories of these events caused traumas that distance different groups of women from each other: For instance, for conservative women, February 28 is a tremendous trauma that resulted in women’s struggles on diverse fronts. Women in socialist movements were acting in line with the socialist agenda more before September 12, 1980. However, their womanhood was ignored. They shifted into feminist movements. Kurdish women chose another form of struggle, based on the distinct conditions of their geography. Yes, our past […] Women’s past traumas harden women’s organizations’ collaboration and change our ways of struggle. (Women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, Trabzon).

Our interviewees also referred to the Gezi events of 2013. These events are a good example of ideological polarization and segmented cultural memories in Turkey. Generally speaking, most conservatives held a cautious stand against the events, or some (supporters of the government) openly criticized it, while seculars fiercely defended the protests. Apart from these groups, smaller anti-capitalist Muslim groups appeared in the protests, this group being formed as a third way opposition against the government. Yet, references to both the individual perception of threat and collective memory of a public event still present how disparities are shaped by women’s identity as well as their cultural memories. A secular Kurdish woman living in the Aegean city of İzmir,6 who represented a women’s NGO, argued that their peace-related activities have been supported only by socialists and very rarely by other women. Considering their relations particularly with secular nationalist women, the interviewee said, “We couldn’t come together with them on the peace issue” (Women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, İzmir). Last but not least, during the ceasefire ending armed conflict (between the state and the PKK) after the 2000s, Kurdish women organized experiencesharing and solidarity organizations, calling themselves by the common 6 Izmir is known for its secular nationalist population.

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name of “peace mothers.” Formed around motherhood culture, elderly women whose children and relatives had been forcibly displaced or killed, tortured and arrested, especially during the 1980s, came together around these organizations to voice their claims. We interviewed Kurdish mothers from these organizations. When we visited such an organization in Istanbul, women welcomed us at the door and hugged us. Such a warm welcome was unique, considering the official atmosphere in other organizations. These women’s narratives of severe memories and events were also hard for us as researchers to hear. These Kurdish women referred to the 1980 coup d’état, forced displacement and the destruction of villages by soldiers during the 1990s as significant events that created segmented cultural memories. Along with these sociopolitical events, individuals’ own experiences were also significant when sharing perceptions on such issues as torture when in custody, forced displacement and the loss of a close acquaintance in the conflict or due to arrests. As self-stated by some of these women, people who experienced or witnessed traumas had difficulties trusting in justice. Moreover, their feelings of threat from out-groups were more severe. Within this context, when defining justice, a Kurdish woman stated: “Either Kurds or Turks or considering Turkey, we have this reality. Everybody’s sacred only belongs to them. Everybody’s justice only covers them” (Solidarity organization representative, personal communication, Istanbul). According to this study’s interviews, mutual exclusion exists between secular-nationalist NGOs and Kurdish rights advocacy organizations. One secular Kurdish women’s representative from Izmir also pointed to polarizations between Kurdish and Turkish secular nationalist women, particularly in a city famous for its secular and nationalist feelings. She confirmed that understandings of peace and justice are quite limited due to social polarization: I think women want to live in peace only with people who share their thoughts. Everybody wants to live in peace with people who are like them. There is no tolerance towards differences. And this social polarization is increasing. (Solidarity and women organization representative, personal communication, Izmir).

Women’s testimonies underlined that our first argument regarding the role of identity in transcribing cultural memories is quite significant. At the same time, our study also shows that this relationship between identity and cultural memory is an active one. Cultural memories also construct

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certain identities for women. As stated by women, both traumatic individual memories and social memories politicize them. Sometimes, these memories generate counter-memories (as discussed by some Kurdish women) and make women more expressive in their identity, as indicated both by conservative and secular women.

A way out? The possibility of living together in peace Until this point, we have shared the roots of social polarizations among women, the role of identity in construction of cultural memory and how women perceive each other as a threat as a result of certain differences between them. We observed that many topics – including but not limited to opinions about the Turkish Republic and state authority, the Kurdish issue, conflict between the state and the PKK and related memories and traumas, family structure, gender roles in society, perceptions of religion, and perceptions of feminism – are stated by women as reasons for polarization between women’s organizations. Yet, although these women’s perspectives on the Kurdish issue differed, their perspectives on several issues were similar. Now we want to share a dialogue on how women in Turkey can live together despite challenging memories and competing narratives and identities. To start with, in our research, gender-based “womanhood” and “motherhood” were stated many times by women to be a common ground, transcending all other identity categories included in the research, such as age, education level, gender and ideological preferences about the Kurdish issue. Women from different backgrounds f ind it easier to address daily encountered problems common to all women than ideological issues. The most inclusive protest in the women’s movement has been that against the rape and wanton killing of a university student by two men in 2015. In particular, new language based on mothering and losses have framed both Kurdish and Turkish women’s stance. Additionally, some NGOs have used this discourse in their activities. Women in all of the groups in question first defined themselves as a “woman” or “mother” before any other identity. In this regard, women more or less first express common concerns when they discuss specific social problems that women face: the glass ceiling in society and employment, challenges in being part of male-dominated discussions, harassment, and physical, psychological, or economic violence against women. Sharing similar problems in a male-dominated social environment has made them more prone to seek answers to these issues

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through women’s networks and organizations. These should also be noted as possible means for overcoming difficult memories and living together in harmony. A secular Kurdish woman commented on the possibilities of living together and reaching common definitions of peace and justice by uniting in terms of womanhood. She explained that, regarding her ideology, she belongs to certain groups, but as a woman she does not represent an ideology. I am a Kurdish woman, a leftist Kurdish woman, and an oppositional Kurdish woman. In those terms, I am a part of a social group. But considering women’s collectives I am not representing any group […] In this regard, a way to peace and justice can be found in diversity [among women]. I believe that. Maybe it will be hard to define [peace and justice] together […] but it is possible. (Rights-advocacy organization representative, personal communication, Istanbul).

Another secular Kurdish woman claimed that she wears multiple identities, but she underlined that women share common problems. She also notes that Kurdish women face problems of womanhood more assertively than other women: Since we are women, we face many common problems. For instance, we might face violence, rape, hurdles in social life, etc. But Kurdish women face these problems more intensely because they are also expected to take part in the current conflict in an organized manner […] That’s why I always say that I have multiple identities: being an Alevi, Kurdish and a woman. (Rights-advocacy organization representative, personal communication, Istanbul).

Second, although the center of power and authority changes depending on the state, male-dominated social group, or ethnic group, family or religion, most women are challenging patriarchal structures on their own terms. As Carol Delaney (1991) notes, women continuously witness the patriarchal authority defined as God, the state, the neighborhood and the family (father or husband). While Kurdish women express concerns about the hardships of being organized members of the Kurdish movement in a male-dominated environment, secular women underline common problems related to male dominance in Turkey. In addition, conservative women think that they are confronting common misunderstandings about how they define their body

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physically and their existence. A secular Turkish feminist commented on the issue as follows: We can be collaborative and bridge different groups. Overall, we share similar pains. Look, we are all helpless against patriarchy. Transsexuals, refugees, all of us […] The state itself is also very patriarchal. We are all victims before different powers. We should unite in our victimization […] For example, women united after the murder of Özgecan Aslan. Women from all groups came together in protests. Our womanhood was hurt, and we were hurt all together. (Women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, Trabzon).

Women also touch on how diverging cultural memories underline the distance between the state-produced hegemonic cultural memory and their own remembrances. One of the Kurdish women prescribed “mourning together” for the losses of both Kurds and Turks during the armed conflict as a remedy to overcome painful memories of the past (Rights-advocacy organization representative, personal communication, Istanbul). Kurdish women, particularly those coming from the underdeveloped area of Southeast Turkey, predominantly focused their discourse on regional discrepancies and Kurdish nationalist and cultural rights. Even coming from different backgrounds, women underline common issues as well as local problems. A secular nationalist Turkish NGO representative from the northern city of Trabzon explained her encounter with Kurdish women in women’s organizations’ meetings, as well as her own quest for unity: I want to be together with others under the supra-identity of women’s identity. I think we managed that because we conducted dialogues with different parts of society […] We have discussed issues with women coming from the Southeast [of Turkey] and everywhere, side by side. Occasionally we disagree and debate, because sometimes they [Kurdish women] excessively bring Kurdish identity and Kurdish women’s problems forward, and they want to discuss the identity problems of Kurdish women. If there are women, women’s problems are all the same – the same in the Black Sea region, the Southeast region and the Middle East. Maybe in some places they are oppressed more, and in some other places oppressed bodily. Maybe in the Black Sea region they are oppressed because of work; in the Southeast they might be oppressed because of their sexual identity, as they are forced to marry at an early age. It is different in different places,

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[but] all women live under oppression. (Women’s rights organization representative, personal communication, Trabzon).

To sum up, although women carry their traumatic, painful memories in their narratives, all of the women interviewed are also challenging patriarchy in society. They repeatedly bring their quest for unity to the table under different umbrella identities, such as “womanhood” and “motherhood.” Most are disturbed and feel threatened when labeled by out-group members; however, they are still courageous enough to come together with diverse groups and listen to each other’s claims. Women’s pursuit of common ground despite multiple polarizations is quite meaningful when Turkey’s current political atmosphere and long state of emergency measures are considered.

Conclusion In this chapter, we examined fragmented cultural memories of women acting in civil society in Turkey regarding the Kurdish issue and gender. First, we argued that identity and identity-based memories were major determinants of women’s diverging narratives regarding the Kurdish issue and gender. Confirming our first argument, our study additionally contended that cultural memories, individual traumas and threat perceptions also affect women’s identity-formative processes. We realized that there is an active and complex relationship between identity and cultural memory. Both determinants affect women’s perceptions of the Kurdish issue and gender, and they continuously reshape each other. Along with historical polarizations, cultural memories, and personal experiences – such as forced migration history, socioeconomic expectations, and encounters with diverse groups – can also be listed among the determinants of the identity-formation processes of women in Turkey. Additionally, women mentioned speaking in Kurdish, wearing a headscarf, wording the Kurdish conflict differently, and rights-based, Islamic-oriented understandings of gender and family as additional reasons for fragmented cultural memories among them. As self-stated by women, segmented perceptions on these issues also affect the individual’s perceptions of threat from other social groups in society. Women’s testimonies from mothers’ experience-sharing and solidarity organizations and from the organizations that worked with forcibly displaced people confirmed that a history of forced displacement and human rights violations politicizes people more. Women who are not expected to be

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politicized whatsoever in daily life but whose relatives or children faced forced disappearance or were lost, tortured, or arrested found themselves in these organizations. In our study, we did not focus on women’s specializations in detail. However, we should note that Kurdish women lawyers from Eastern or Southeast Turkey have joined rights advocacy organizations in significant numbers. These educated women’s personal experiences and professions in law are an advantage and lead them into representative positions in women’s organizations. Lastly, our study presented Kurdish women’s narratives in the challenging context of other women’s perceptions of the Kurdish issue and gender. As presented in our study, multiple views towards these issues represent competing discourses and remembrances of women coming from diverse ideologies and ethnic backgrounds. We believe that our study not only reveals fragmented cultural memories of women but also contributes to a gendered narrative of Turkey’s recent history. We hope that determining the problematic aspects of women’s perceptions of “other” might provide more clues about the formation of societal peace and justice.

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About the authors Serpil Açıkalın Erkorkmaz (PhD) has studied Middle East Studies as well as migration and gender studies. She authored Women’s Civil Society and Citizenship in Turkey and Tunisia (2020). Apart from her academic studies, she works as a senior consultant in the civil society field. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5592-1240

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Dilek Karal (PhD) is a sociologist and women’s rights activist with a focus on migration, ethnicity and women studies. Karal authored Ethico-political Governmentality of Immigration and Asylum: The Case of Ethiopia in 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan. She is also an experienced humanitarian worker contributing to women rights and immigrant rights. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6351-4349

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Survival Strategies Constructed through Material Aspectsof Everyday Life in Postwar Soviet Society Anastasia Kucheva

Abstract The author considers the Second World War and its impact upon Soviet society through the currently relevant problem of cultural trauma. Analysis of the archive materials and interviews collected by the author made it possible to reconstruct the everyday life of Soviet people. The author studies adaptation models formed through material aspects of food, nonfood items, and accommodation. The author explores the transformation of gender relations, society’s understanding of war as a traumatic event, the reflection of military experience, and its involvement in the context of collective memory. The mechanisms by which the participants of social upheavals learned to survive the negative impact of traumatic events can be characterized as a process of routinizing the trauma. Keywords: everyday life, Second World War, cultural trauma, adaptation strategies, reflection on war memory

Introduction Soviet society in the 20th century experienced considerable social upheavals caused by rapid changes, which embraced different fields of social life and influenced the main values, beliefs, and rules of society. These upheavals had negative consequences. Such upheavals can be called traumatizing events, according to the terminology used by Piotr Sztompka (Sztompka 2005, 475). For a long time, many of these events, including their aspects and

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch09

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effects on society, were not analyzed by researchers, resulting in collective trauma not being reflected. This has harmed the collective identity of the nation. Therefore, the chapter aims to include in the scope of the study the “everyday” layer of routine life, forced labor, chronic hunger, and poverty, as well as crowded living conditions, in order to identify perceptions of the Second World War and its consequences in the postwar period. Because the experience of war is embodied in the historical memory of generations, it determines our attitude toward the future and our destiny. What is more, it helps us to understand who we are, where we are from, and where we are going (Alexander 2004, 10). The concept of “trauma”, which is a medical concept, is widely used in new research. Traumatic experiences are also being analyzed in the fields of sociology, anthropology, history, and linguistics, and as a result a separate discipline, Trauma Studies, has been formed. As diverse as injuries can be, so unique can be the methods of working with them, approaches to their understanding and overcoming. In research, there is a concept of the main characteristic of trauma, which is the destruction of reality, familiar to the subject, and therefore there is a need to develop individual models of response to trauma. In general, trauma leads to problems of constructing subjectivity and collective identity. The use of the concept of trauma makes it possible to explore the key events of modern history from a new angle. The Second World War is one of those events which has not been completely processed, due to its scale and level of tragedy, and thus it has not been integrated into the collective memory. This war represents a truly traumatogenic social upheaval, which had a destructive effect on both the people who experienced the war and all the subsequent generations. Despite a considerable number of works devoted to the Second World War, it is not yet clear to what extent it is interpreted by society as a traumatic event, whether society is still “living in” the trauma or remains in the post-traumatic situation, whether the negative war experience has been integrated into the social consciousness, or it has features of collective trauma which have not been reflected. The anthropological approach to studying the past, which, first of all, presumes an appeal to a human’s world, is the basis of this study. The study relies on the multidisciplinary method, which demands using the methodological and theoretical apparatuses of sociology, historical psychology, and cultural studies. Due to the concept of trauma-forming, as well as the use of the trauma paradigm, the results of historical events need to be based on the understanding of cultural trauma as it is accepted in the above

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fields of research (see, e.g., Sztompka 2001; Alexander, Eyerman, Giesen & Smelser 2004). This chapter aims to interpret the state of the social trauma and reveal the adaptation of Soviet society to this trauma in the postwar period. The chapter focuses on the post-traumatic phases by analyzing different types of adaptation to the trauma and detecting survival strategies of the population in societal changes. By the term “survival strategies,” is meant a combination of techniques, methods, and practices used by people to adapt to severe and constantly changing conditions of life. The chapter studies the consequences of the Second World War for Soviet society from novel perspectives. As noted, a large number of “silence” zones were formed in the Soviet society, including those related to negative consequences of the Second World War. These were not fully discussed or understood at individual and collective levels (see, e.g., Gudkov 2005). A large number of those who died at the front, as well as in the rear, because of inhumane conditions, fear, and hard post-war years – all those things that, according to Gudkov, entail a whole layer of experiencing the everyday hopelessness of war and postwar existence – were forced out of the collective consciousness (Gudkov 2005, 88). In the post-war years, a tendency to withdraw from the traumatic war experience was formed in the collective consciousness. The official narrative of updating the winning component of the past events was established. This was due to the objective historical significance of the Great Victory, the spiritual uplift of the nation, which became the basis for overcoming the devastating consequences of the war. So personal testimonies and experiences were relegated to the background. Besides, the actual living conditions, survival, overcoming the consequences of war primarily in respect of material wealth, enabled people to leave behind painful topics related to the war. It can be assumed that in the post-war years, the painful war experience was not comprehended either on an individual or a collective level. Even though the injuries, pain, and sufferings caused by the war were clearly observable, showing its victorious side was of paramount importance in the formation of the war memory. Understanding the war as a victory supported social optimism, as the very fact that the destructive event had occurred meant that new opportunities for renovation and change would follow (Alexander 2003, 87). This led to the non-triumphal side of the war being displaced from the collective memory (Gudkov 2005, 88). Consequently, because the traumatic experience of the Second World War was not fully

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integrated into the public consciousness, it acquired features of untreated collective trauma. The diff iculties of the post-war period did not imply the creation of conditions to express trauma on a personal level. The experience of personal experience did not find a place in the official discourse, since society was perceived as an association of strong people who must cope and overcome. This was supported officially. The desire not to focus on the negative experience of the war prevailed at the state level. Only positive victorious results were brought to the fore, in an attempt to unite the nation in a difficult historical period. In the post-war years, the interpretive field for understanding the negative consequences, characterized as trauma, was just beginning to form. Writing was one of the ways to develop it, since literature is a medium where the traumatic experience is appealed to, comprehended, and transmitted to the next generations. This is also a way that helps to overcome the trauma. The time to study the traces left by catastrophic events in the individual consciousness and collective memories come later – in the 1960s and the 1970s. However, in the post-war period, a common historical narrative reflecting the traumatic war experience had not developed. The process of injury recovery, promoting the understanding about the war trauma, was not completed. A society where collective trauma is not reflected in the traumatogenic or post-traumatogenic periods remains in a state of “still experiencing” the trauma. This causes problems in collective identity formation in subsequent historical periods, the emergence of an identity crisis, the transition of identities to the social micro-level, and the individualization of identification strategies (Degtyarev 2013, 28). The research data consists of various historical sources. The use of interviews (oral historical sources) is one of the most effective approaches in identifying cultural trauma. Information collected from the respondents who survived the event is of great importance. Memories gathered from individuals who survived the Second World War are valuable because they describe real-life experiences and reflect understandings of the events by different people. The author has a large archive of interviews collected in 2006-2013 in the territory of Perm Krai and the Tyumen region, as well as an archive of interviews from the Center for Oral History of Perm State Pedagogical University (Andreeva, Gausova & Selyaninova 2010). The interviews were undertaken not only by the author of this chapter but also by students as part of their program course in Russian History. As an assignment,

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students were asked to conduct biographical interviews with their relatives who survived the Second World War. As a rule, the idea of a conversation with their grandparents seemed strange to the students. They believed that they already knew their lives well enough. However, in the course of the assignment, the students not only learned details of the lives of their relatives which had not previously been heard, but they also grew closer to the older generation. The description of the everyday life of their grandparents during the war and post-war periods, including sometimes complete deprivation, amazed the students. It turned out that they had not heard of this earlier, and the lives of their relatives were revealed to them from a new perspective. It should be noted that here there is a difference between individual, private memories of the past war and collective or group understandings of it. The students were only familiar with the latter, i.e., perception of the war as the Great Victory. As indicated above, the layer of everyday military and post-war experiences turned out to be “dropped,” forgotten, and untold. A total of 46 interviews were analyzed for this chapter. These were unstructured biographical interviews of individuals who were born in 1916-1937 (29 women and 17 men); they were between 4 and 25 years old at the start of the war. The narrators belonged to different social groups, and even to different generations. The first group consisted of mature people who already worked, the second group was represented by adolescents, and the third one was represented by children. The interviews revealed the different life experiences of the respondents. Some of them were soldiers on the front line, who had had to participate in military operations, some were trapped during the Siege of Leningrad, and some were involved in building the defensive anti-tank ditches near Moscow; others lived as noncombatants in remote cities and villages. This wide range of respondents illustrates the versatility of how they all perceived the war as trauma.

Survival strategies in postwar everyday life This section seeks to answer how individual people experienced the everyday life of Soviet society in the postwar period based on the interviews and archive materials. The new conditions during the war put people in a desperate situation which drove them to their utmost ability to adapt and search for opportunities to provide themselves with the things necessary to survive and retain their identity.

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Stories of post-war life usually describe the food shortage, because that time has remained in people’s memory as the period when they “were always hungry” and “were starving.” According to the respondents and historical data, for the first two years after the war, there was a serious lack of food. Specialists characterize the post-war situation as “hidden hunger,” that is to say, persistent malnutrition (Zima 1996, 95). In the post-war period, the state met the minimum needs of the population through a rationing system (or coupon system). Until 1947, there were four groups of redeemable coupons for various categories in Soviet society, such as workers, employees, dependents, and children under 12 years old. The allowances of food were subject to strict regulations: the bread allowance represented the daily intake of bread, while other food allowances were calculated every month. For example, first-level workers were allowed to have 800 grams of bread a day, second-level workers were only allowed 600 grams, employees could only count on 500 grams of bread, and children had the right to get only 400 grams of bread a day. The most painful memories of the post-war period were associated specifically with the rationing system; perhaps the limitations that it imposed were the most traumatic. The food which could be obtained through the rationing system was not enough for people to survive. To satisfy their needs, people had to find different solutions, such as swapping their things to get food or growing vegetables by themselves. It is easy to agree with Lappo (2005) that, in general, Soviet people never lost their contact with Mother Earth. On the contrary, their connection became even stronger in a period of change which was accompanied by the degradation of daily life. In the postwar period, the gathering of forest mushrooms, berries, and plants became the main source of items necessary to survive. According to the respondents, the main foodstuffs were potatoes, beets, wild sorrel, nettles, and berries. Milk, meat, butter, and sugar were rare. The situation was particularly critical in the early spring when the stores kept for the winter ran out. In a letter dated 1947, there is the following description of the nutrition intake budget of a family with six members: […] things are not going well. Potatoes have run out, and on the market, a bucket of potatoes costs 75-80 rubles, which is enough only for two meals in our family. So, our menu is very modest: most of all, bread and tea.1 1 The State Archive of Social and Political History of the Tyumen Region (SASPHTR). F. 7. Op. 4. D. 13. P. 208.

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The city market had a special function; it became a place for exchange. People had to sell everything that they had been taking care of and storing for themselves to buy bread for those who were hungry and shoes for those who were barefoot (Bukin 2004, 110). One of the respondents recalls: Before the war, my mother had almost twenty pairs of shoes, which at that time was a luxury, but this was hardly surprising for us because dad was a miner and earned a very good living. We had a lot of beautiful dresses. During the war and right after it, as I remember, my mother like many other women took anything we had at home to sell or exchange for potatoes or cabbage. They brought, for example, a bucket of potatoes to eat for some time. That was the way we survived.2

The exchange of goods and products took place not only in the cities but also between people living in cities and villages. One of the forms of selfsufficiency was profiteering [meshochnitestvo], which was a means of getting food in return for personal belongings and goods produced in factories. To make such exchanges, the city people left their children alone and went on long journeys, which took them from several days to several months. When I was 15 years old, I went to the villages with women to swap things. There was a factory producing matches near our house. Therefore, I had matches, soap, packs of makhorka (a sort of tobacco), and some other things that my mother could get for the exchange. And there we could change things into what they could give us (a piece of fat, some cereal) and all this was brought home. Once there was a very difficult trip for me. It was strange winter weather, and I did not know what to choose, either valenki (felt woolen boots) or boots. I wore boots, but at that time there was a severe frost. When I arrived home, my teeth started aching terribly. I could not bite anything. I thought it was because of the sunflower seeds which I ate during the trip. But it turned out that my feet were severely frozen in my boots. After this trip, the teeth fell out. Nevertheless, I brought a lot of good things from this trip. I had a hot water bottle with me and I brought it full of homebrew (a sort of alcohol). And after my return, my mother took this homebrew to the market, exchanged it and brought me a military padded jacket with unstriped sleeves. I was wearing it for a long time and was proud of this jacket. (Selyaninova 2010, 175). 2 Interview with L.V. Rybolovleva recorded by the author, December 5, 2010. Author’s personal files.

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The shortage of food gave rise to different types of deviant behavior, such as stealing. The rationing system of distributing food and industrial goods attracted dishonest people. In cities, some shop assistants did not starve, since they were engaged in theft. This pattern of action is characterized by social theorists as “the use of the system for themselves” (Kozlova 2005, 173). A fairly common criminal practice was fraud in the use of grain and other rationing funds. For example, in 1947 in one small factory, there was a case of theft of rationing cards, amounting to 910 kg of bread, 111 kg of sugar, 332 kg of cereals, 132 kg of fats, and 392 kg of meat and fish. The theft was committed by the cashier who was responsible for issuing bread-rationing cards. But it was not possible to hold the offender accountable, since he fled the city.3 Unfair administrators of factories and institutions misused their authority and made money off other people’s misery during the post-war years. Based on the assumption that “the system is too big and complex to treat it as something which was a part of them,” such people used tricks and deceit. For example, a head of the orphanage house was convicted of stealing food that was intended for the children. In 1946, she stole food worth more than one hundred thousand rubles. She was sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. Hunger and a chronic lack of food seduced some people into crime, whereas in other circumstances they would hardly think of breaking the law. Previously, one may have read about major thefts or misuses initiated by officers, but there was also the case of students at the school of mechanics stealing 15 kg of barley when they helped to unload it during the night. This was due to their inability to get food in a different way. In this case, one barley-napper was sentenced to eight years of forced labor camp work. Illegal activities, especially the theft of rationing cards and food from canteens, shops, and factories, were means of physical survival and reflected one of the dramatic realities of post-war everyday life. The shortage of food in wartime, being among the factors that traumatize the memory of witnesses, however, was assessed as a narrative of a special period, as a temporary burden caused by the war. In the post-war period, there appeared a lack of food, which created problems such as the criminalization of society, the inability to return to the pre-war way of life, the destruction of food traditions and even upbringing. Therefore, a search for survival strategies that would be effective over a long time was required. Moreover, the protracted nature of trauma caused by food shortages could be a further cause for erasing the memory of the consequences of the negative experience of previous years. 3

SASPHTR. F. 7. Op. 4. D. 13. P. 13.

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Cooperation and collectivism as an adaptation to the housing problem The war exacerbated the housing problem. The extreme situation made people adapt to living anywhere possible. According to the recollections of the respondents, during the war and post-war periods, people lived in basements, cellars, bathhouses, and so forth. Employees and their families often settled in tiny rooms and closets located in buildings owned by municipal enterprises. The housing problem was not just difficult, it was critical. People could expect to have only elementary living conditions. As a result, one house accommodated several families separated by plywood partitions. People had to settle in kitchens and corridors. For example, a letter by Gregory T., which was received by the city committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks on January 8, 1947, depicts the situation: I am a member of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks since 1924. I served in the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army from 1920 to 1945 and was discharged from the army due to age. My living conditions are very poor: my family consists of five adults, and we all live in a 14 sq. m. walkthrough room which can accommodate only 2 beds, one for my wife and me, and another one for my old mother. My daughter sleeps on the floor and my son sleeps on the chest. The children are students but they have no opportunity to do their homework at home. Our house consists of four rooms separated by plywood partitions. There is no quiet place in the house, which is home to 24 persons, including six children. 4

The common answer to appeals was “no opportunity to satisfy your request.” The urgency of the housing problem that people faced every day in the postwar period created different attitudes among them. The lack of privacy could not but give rise to negative emotions and conflicts between people. However, the same phenomenon led to the fact that a special social and psychological atmosphere arose. Neighborly relations, which were similar to family relations, were full of shared emotions, both happy and tragic, such as receiving letters of condolence, collective mourning for the deceased, celebrations of common festive feasts, and demonstrations. This time was characterized by mutual assistance and collectivism. These latter aspects were remembered by people as the primary values of their everyday life. 4

SASPHTR. F. 7. Op. 4. D. 13. P. 208.

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The collective experience of problems in an extended family, in the community of neighbors and fellow countrymen, is a typical feature of the life of people who grew up in the conditions of the village and the countryside. For citizens the “housing issue” was a painful attribute of post-war life, that formed a negative experience and stimulated people to search for optimum venues to realize the dream of a private apartment paradise. Thus, housing problems became an additional element in the subsequent glamorization of the post-war past; for example, the romanticization of communal living, which is relevant against the background of total isolation in the conditions of megacities, becomes a part of collective memory.

Clothing made of military uniforms Clothing is not only meant to satisfy a person’s biological needs for warmth and security of the body. It also reflects the social and cultural position of the person who wears it, demonstrating his or her financial status and aesthetic taste. The severe natural and climatic conditions of most regions of the USSR highlighted the importance of clothing in keeping the population alive. Specific features of the immediate post-war period influenced people’s clothes: men had to continue wearing a military uniform, such as a soldier’s shirt, jacket, greatcoat, quilted jacket, and tarpaulin boots. Often people altered the military uniform, trying to make it look like peacetime clothing, but, as evidenced from photos, the suits and coats were still reminiscent of wartime. One can get an idea of the essentials of an average citizen. They consisted of a couple of dresses, a skirt and a blouse for women, and a pair of trousers and shirts for men. Of course, people wanted to be well-dressed, and thus women crocheted white collars to complement dark dresses. Shoes purchased at a local shoe factory were usually worn with short white socks. In the postwar years, many Soviet people did not have the opportunity to dress up, even to a small extent. The archives include thousands of complaints, requests, and demands of citizens asking the state institutions to provide them with necessary clothing. Workers did not go to work on occasion because of a lack of warm clothes and shoes, and children in kindergarten walking outside in the winter had to borrow each other’s outerwear.5 People could buy new things in shops. However, ready-made clothes were bought relatively rarely, not only because of their scarcity but also due to 5 The State Archive of the Tyumen Region. F. 698. Op. 1. D. 161. Pp. 12, 13, 79, 80; F. 312. Op. 1. D. 252. Pp. 407-419.

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high prices. Sometimes people living in the provinces were brought clothes from Moscow, Leningrad, and other large industrial cities by their family members, who had gone there on business trips.6 Another way to get clothes was through the state distribution system. The factories received requests for essential items. In this case, an applicant’s living conditions were checked, and if a real need was confirmed, he could get the necessary clothes through the state support system. However, it was often that the requests were satisfied in unpredictable ways. For example, the family of a soldier, which consisted of a wife and two children of three and five years old, applied to the regional party committee for help. They had absolutely no shoes, coats, dresses, skirts, or bedding. The family’s status was checked, but it was decided to give them “1 pair of children’s boots, 1 female dress, 1 piece of clothing for the baby.”7 Urban residents could acquire not only new but also secondhand clothes, which could be bought or exchanged in a flea market. The fact that readymade suits were not affordable for the majority of urban residents was connected with the difficulties of acquiring them in stores or the market, and this led to the necessity of sewing clothes. People either sewed clothes by themselves or asked for help from women neighbors who knew how to do it. This was more affordable, and it was also beneficial for ordinary citizens. Tailoring skills made it much easier for a woman and her family to survive in the postwar period. As a rule, after the war, people in cities were poorly dressed, as they wore things that were sewn at home or which they had bought before the war and repaired. Nevertheless, among the general population, some people had greater prosperity and privileges than the majority. Families of the Soviet party’s nomenklatura (persons in key administrative posts) and representatives of the economic, military, scientific, and cultural assets connected to it comprised such residents, representing no more than 5% of the population, according to Veniamin Zima (Zima 1996, 55). This was the stratum in the postwar years where one could find urban women of fashion who sought to stand out from the general public. One resident of a provincial town remembers the time of her youth in the postwar period: Of course, there was fashion! For the sake of fashion, just to follow it, we were ready for anything. As we were a part of a group of friends that liked 6 Interview with М.М. Semovskikh recorded by the author, April 13, 2009. Author’s personal files. 7 SASPHTR. F. 124. Op. 4. D. 92. Pp. 216-219.

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theater and concerts, and those friends were all such important people in the city, we also wanted to dress up accordingly. The situation suited us. The most important thing in clothes was elegance. Oh, especially in the theater it manifested itself. Earlier when you came, the people walked and showed their dresses during the intermissions. My sister and I had dresses made of fine cloth. We bought very thin cloth, and she had furs of white ermines since the prewar times, and we decorated our dresses with this fur. It was true that when we came to the theater, everything was fine for us. In my opinion, these blue dresses were known by the whole city.8

In general, people tended to treat their clothes with particular care. Only prosperous families could afford to buy a lot of new clothes. Most people could not buy new clothes when their old clothes wore out, so a new piece of clothing was deemed a significant event. In such circumstances, every piece of clothing became “everlasting” (Gerasimova & Tchouikina 2004, 70). The “immortality” of clothes was to extend their service through alterations and to continue wearing clothes of elder brothers or sisters. Of course, the multi-functionality of the clothing was a sign of the poverty that prevailed in postwar society. The need for comfortable and beautiful clothes can be considered natural for people who have survived the war and are ready not only to rebuild destroyed cities but also to build their personal lives. The inability to meet this need is a negative attribute of memories of the post-war period, and the source of this narrative is often called the war, i.e., the lack of clothing over a number of years is explained by the post-war devastation and the need to restore more important sectors of the national economy rather than light industry. Analysis of the sources describing postwar everyday life leads to the conclusion that the war destroyed people’s normal routines. Traumatic social changes manifested themselves in what deprived a person of confidence, persistence, and security. The war had a negative impact on every person, which resulted in everyday life being defined in terms of overcoming the difficulties caused by the war. The essence of post-war life was a strategy of survival, and the main feature of the period was to satisfy the basic vital needs of the people, including food, shelter, clothing, and security.

8 Interview with Е.А. Nikonova recorded by the author, December 1, 2011. Author’s personal files.

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The crisis of gender identity The war changed the demographic balance, leading to a shift in the social roles of women and altering their functions in the family and society as a whole. Women were involved in work at factories as much as men, and actually, they replaced them in many industries and jobs. At the same time, the chores around the house still belonged to women and were the woman’s duty. An expression common among Soviet women summed it up: “Working as a horse and ox, acting as a woman and a man.” The war had a destabilizing effect on families. This was manifested in an increasing number of single-parent families consisting of mothers and children left without husbands and fathers, elderly parents who had lost their children, and orphaned children living either with their relatives or in neighboring families. As the war was considered common grief, children without parents were treated as “communal.” They were brought up by the whole community, local authorities provided them with food and clothing, and their neighbors helped them by doing what they could.9 Mobilization of the male population (mostly young and middle-aged men) and their high rate of mortality in the war led to a demographic change in age and sex structure, which was characterized by a predominance of postwar children, adolescents, and women. The proportion of men in the population decreased significantly. Predominantly, it became a female society. People referred to a “shortage of men.” As one of the interviewed women, who was young in the postwar period, remembers: Men were few. My husband met me in the park on the dance floor. We married and I was glad that it happened.10

Another woman interviewed recalls that after the war, her father returned home and their female neighbors came to their house: We had all the women from our street come. It seems that only women lived there. Men were few. So they came to us and said to my mother, “Let us at least sit on your husband’s lap, please. At least we can feel the smell of a man.” Of course, it entailed a pure and kind meaning.11 9 SASPHTR. F. 7. Op. 1. D. 1287. P. 128. 10 Interview with V.I. Zholobova recorded by the author, October 20, 2010. Author’s personal files. 11 Interview with Opaleva recorded by the author, December 12, 2011. Author’s personal files.

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People brought up during the war and postwar years think back on their mothers with gratefulness: We survived the war and after it only because of my mother. She put in so much effort, though she was such a small, thin lady, but there was no choice! Somebody had to take care of the family.12

It seemed that the end of the war might return women to their usual role as the ones taking care of the hearth and home. However, postwar living conditions forced women to assume a new pattern of behavior. In single-parent families who had lost their breadwinners, the leading role was transferred to women. Even if the family was complete, the salary of one man could not satisfy the needs of all family members. Only two working parents guaranteed a normal life in the postwar reality, rather than just surviving on the brink of poverty (see, e.g., Gradskova 2007). In the “post-war” world, everything still “rested on fragile female shoulders.” It was the women who had to come up with solutions to survive, such as how and what to feed the hungry children, or how to distribute the available clothes so that all the family members could go outside. Women had to be smart to solve all the problems of life: The salary was not enough, as my husband and I did not earn a lot, so I also sewed clothes. I sewed clothes for neighbors when they asked and earned some extra money. Usually, I came home, did some things about the house in the ogorod [a plot of land, enabling small, one-family farming], and then had time to sew.13

The changing role of women during the war and in the post-war world indicates the crisis of gender identity. Due to external negative factors, the social group of women with its characteristic set of functions, values, and attitudes took over the functions of the male group. Externally imposed social roles indicate a crisis of gender identity as a result of the impact of a traumatic event. Zdravomyslova and Temkina use the concept of “gender mobilization” to describe the situation of the war and post-war years: women were engaged in those activities which used to be predominantly occupied by men 12 Interview with Rybolovleva recorded by the author, December 5, 2010. Author’s personal files. 13 Interview with Zholobova recorded by the author, October 20, 2010. Author’s personal files.

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(Zdravomyslova & Temkina 2003, 310). After the war, the symbolic value of men increases, and women are partially displaced from the positions they were forced to occupy. Many researchers describe the Soviet gender order as a kind of democratic one, which was defined by state policy and ideology, and which set strict basics for people’s living. These basic rules obliged the woman to exercise the functions of a “working mother”. This meant that women were assigned the roles of workers, mothers, and, in the deficit-based economy, almost all professional family services were added (Ayvazova 1998, Zdravomyslova & Temkina 2003).

Reflections on the postwar experience Respondents who survived the war and post-war periods did not understand it as a trauma. The post-war period can be characterized as a latent one in terms of awareness of its catastrophic impact on people’s lives. This can be explained by the fact that the memories were consciously avoided, as it was too painful to think back on the losses and sufferings of the war. This was caused by the need to survive in the difficult post-war period. In addition, there was a special perception by the population of the post-war time as a peaceful period predominantly characterized by themes of desire for a better life and belief in the bright future, which were caused psychologically and supported by the government (through an end to rationing, lower prices, etc.). People were optimistic, as they had managed to survive the great misfortune of the war; compared to that, the postwar difficulties were treated as temporary and something they could cope with (see Zubkova 2000). The collectivist ideology also played a special part in substituting the traumatic war experience. The paradigms of sacrifice (an individual life is not important, as the whole Soviet idea is important), heroism, and courage were intended to eliminate attention to individual problems. The social f ield through which a person passes in life is a result of rethinking and interpreting the past and the future from the standpoint of the present. According to Elena Sergeychik, a person interprets his or her personal history, creating a complete picture from different facts which may change their meanings and boundaries during life (Sergeychik 2016, 67). Since the postwar period did not support people’s reflections on the experience, a problem of analysis about overcoming the trauma caused by the war and assigning particular importance to it, belongs to reflections on the war and postwar periods, realizing in the present moment the

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role of certain events in life. It is believed that historical identity involves narrative because a biography is a story about oneself that uses symbols of the social and cultural environment. The narrative aspect of identity is very important, as life is integral only if it can be expressed in a narrative form. At the deepest level, memory is included in constructing one’s identity employing the narrative function. After many years, the people who suffered from the war and the postwar periods have the possibility and ability to assess the impact that the war had on their lives, and they want to pass this experience on to future generations. Almost all the respondents that we talked with were the initiators of the talks about the impact of the war on their destiny. Traumatic experiences in the memories of respondents are treated as a “zero cycle” of their lives (Oushakine 2009, 6). A continual turning back to still existing things (i.e., to something still being possible) and to the missed opportunities of the past are present in most stories. Let me give a few examples of the respondents’ memories, as they characterize typical effects of the war on people’s lives: the possibility or impossibility to get an education or choose a profession, the impact on health, and the shift in moral values. I did not go to university to get an education because my father was killed and my mother could not manage to do everything on her own. She needed my help. I always had excellent marks. I would have easily passed the exams if there had not been the war and if my father had been alive. We would have lived well. He was pushy, so he would have got it all set up.14

And: When the war began, there was no question of getting an education. I applied for a job at an evacuated motorcycle factory, which was returned to the city of Gorky. So then we left. In 1947, I came back home and looked for a job in the factories. But I failed at that. I was ill all the time because of a stomach ulcer. Then I could finally obtain a job at a garment factory by a finger’s breadth. Well […] we had neither childhood nor youth. We had nothing.15

14 Interview with Bykovskaya recorded by the author, May 18, 2012. Author’s personal files. 15 Interview with Ponomareva recorded by the author, March 1, 2010. Author’s personal files.

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The theme of health, undermined by the war, often appears in the stories of people who lived through the war years. I graduated from the 7th form in 1941. It didn’t happen that I could continue the education, as I was sent to the factory. The work was very hard and we lived in the cold. How it was! I’m still ill from those times.16

And: In 1941-1943, I was in besieged Leningrad. I worked in a hospital. It so happened that all students of our institution were evacuated, but I was late to leave. So they left without me, and I stayed to work. I have lifted heavy things, endured cold and hunger [pause] Therefore, I don’t have children.17

The respondents evaluated the war as an event that dramatically sealed their fate and formed a stable life position. For example, the hunger that always accompanies stories about the war years determined their attitude to food for the rest of their life. There were always hungry people […] Well, we always wanted to eat during the war and after it. Until now, this attitude towards food [being] precious or something remains, even though so many years have passed. We know bread’s true value, we do know it! And although today we have everything sufficiently, I cannot bear that someone does not eat up the remains of food.18

Talking about their life path, the narrators naturally connect the impact of the war on their future profession. One of the respondents, a maxillofacial surgeon, recalls: During the war, there were hospitals for the wounded. Head and neck injuries were the most frequent. We, students, cared for patients. Maybe that’s why I chose this profession for myself in the future because I got used to that.19 16 Interview with Zholobova recorded by the author, October 20, 2010. Author’s personal files. 17 Interview with M.P. Shelkovnikova recorded by the author, December 5, 2010. Author’s personal files. 18 Interview with Semovskikh recorded by the author, April 13, 2009. Author’s personal files. 19 Interview with Nikonova recorded by the author, December 1, 2011. Author’s personal files.

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Of course, God helped my father. Three times mother saw him off to the front and three times he came back. There were wounds and many operations. His stomach hurt, and it was difficult for him. And we took care of our parents. Maybe due to this, we have five physicians in our family! And everybody took care of the parents. They must live on was the focus for us. After the war, we understood the value of health and life.20

Stories written down many decades after the war contain information not only about the post-war period but also about people’s whole lives, including narrative judgments about their successes or failures. It turned out that the life trajectory of each of them was primarily determined by the effects of the war. Despite the time gap that separates the present time from the war of 1941-1945, any person’s life, including its very essence, is impregnated with consequences experienced because of the war, which is still the main reference point in life and a criterion for everything that happens from then on. The war became a symbolic “inception” in the Soviet and postSoviet memory: everybody remembered the war and everybody faced it. Therefore, the war is reflected and fixed in the memory, as well as in the self-consciousness, as something that drastically changed future life.

Conclusion Summarizing the life stories of people, I conclude that the processes involved in memory formation about the war cannot be attributed to reflexive descriptions of purely military or civilian life, that the interpretative field of memories about the experience of the war years is actively formed in the post-war decade. It is also important that the collective memory of the war is formed in the context of various individual adaptation strategies of the post-war period, due to external circumstances of a shortage of food, clothing, and individual housing. In the postwar period, the population was focused on physical survival as the main strategy of the trauma adaptation. After studying the materials reflecting the state of post-war society, we concluded that the strategy of individual passive traumatic healing was used. A collective experience of overcoming the trauma of war was formed, based on negative living conditions, which, on one hand, deprived people of comfort and well-being, but on another hand, contributed to their 20 Interview with Opaleva recorded by the author, December 12, 2011. Author’s personal files.

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unity. The diversity of traumas motivated society to search for resources for survival: to survive in new circumstances, to provide themselves with food, clothing, housing, to be able to raise children, and wait for other, more prosperous times. The desire to avoid danger, to isolate oneself from it or to ensure one’s insensitivity to its impact, to find a special niche in which one can hide and survive adversity. To take actions that prevent the threat and its realization is also typical of post-war life, which makes it possible to qualify the post-war period as passive from the point of view of “coping with trauma”. The mechanisms by which the participants of social upheavals learned to survive the negative impact of traumatic events can be characterized as a process of routinizing the trauma (i.e., adaptation to trauma when people are being traumatized). Simultaneously, a certain pattern of perception of the past is formed. It is marked by a consistent poetization of military everyday life and the achievement of the Soviet people. As a result, concerns about clothes, food, and accommodation, according to the rating scale of the Soviet person and hero, seem deliberately petty and even shameful. This ideological background serves as an additional sublimator of problems that, as generations change, are romanticized into a story about happy life in a free country. In conclusion, such an experience of analyzing oral and written memories in the context of studying individual and collective memory with traumatic events of history is relevant today, when there are almost no living witnesses of the war years, but their children (the generation of children of the post-war decade) can still become good storytellers. Additionally, the analysis of memory mechanisms can be a favorable basis for global comparisons of post-traumatic experiences of people living in different countries suffering the trauma of a recent war.

References Ayvazova, Svetlana Russkie zhenshchiny v labirinte ravnopraviya (Ocherki politicheskoj teorii i istorii). Мoscow: RIK Rusanova, 1998. Alexander, Jeffrey. С. The Meaning of Social Life: A Cultural Sociology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003. Alexander, Jeffrey C. “Toward a Theory of Cultural Trauma.” Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Eds. Jeffrey C. Alexander, Ron Eyerman, Bernhard Giesen, Neil J. Smelser & Piotr Sztompka. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. 1-30. Alexander, Jeffrey C., R. Eyerman, B. Geisen, N. Smelser & P. Sztompka. Eds. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004.

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Andreeva, Lyudmila, Gauzova, Tamara & Gulsina Selyaninova. Eds. Dorogami vojny. Vospominanija veteranov fronta i tyla, detej vojny: sbornik interv’ju. Perm: Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University, 2010. Bukin, Serguei “Bjudzhety rabochih semej v Sibiri v gody Velikoj Otechestvennoj vojny.” Social’no-demograficheskoe razvitie Sibiri v XX stoletii. Vol. 2. Novosibirsk: Nauka-Centr, 2004. Degtyarev, Alexander. “Sociokul’turnaja travma v formirovanii rossijskoj identichnosti.” Gumanitarij juga Rossii 3 (2013): 26-35. Gerasimova, Ekaterina & Tchouikina, Sofia. “Obshhestvo remonta.” Neprikosnovennyj zapas 34.2 (2004): 70-77. Gradskova, Yulia. Soviet people with female bodies. Performing beauty and maternity in Soviet Russia the mid-1930s-1960s. Stockholm: Stockholm University Press, 2007. Gudkov, Lev. ““Pamjat’” o vojne i massovaja identichnost’ rossijan.” Pamjat’ o vojne 60 let spustja: Rossija, Germanija, Evropa. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2005. 83-103. Kozlova, Natalia. Sovetskie ljudi. Sceny iz istorii. Moscow: Evropa, 2005. Lappo, Georgy. “Rossijskij gorod – simbioz gorodskogo i sel’skogo.” Demoscope Weekly November 7-20, 2005. Accessed March 1, 2016. http://www.demoscope. ru/weekly/2005/0221/analit06.php. Oushakine, Serguei. “Nam jetoj bol’ju dyshat’? O travme, pamjati i soobshhestvah.” Travma: punkty: Sbornik statej. Eds. S. Oushakine & E. Trubina. Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2009. Selyaninova, Gulsina. “Kartochnaja sistema, meshochnichestvo, naturalizacija i drugie sredstva vyzhivanija sovetskih ljudej v tylu i na okkupirovannoj territorii v gody Velikoj Otechestvennoj vojny.” Chelovek i vojna: Vospominanija veteranov fronta i tyla, detej vojny. Perm, Perm State Humanitarian Pedagogical University, 2010. 168-177. Sergeychik, Elena. “Istoricheskaja identichnost’: territorija i karta.” Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Philosophy and Conflict Studies 1 (2016): 63-71. Sztompka, Piotr. “Social’noe izmenenie kak travma (stat’ja pervaja).” Sociologicheskie issledovanija 1 (2001): 6-16. Sztompka, Piotr. Sociologija. Analiz sovremennogo obshhestva. Moscow: Logos, 2005. Zdravomyslova, Elena & Anna Temkina. “The Public Construction of Gender in Soviet Society.” The Journal of Social Policy Studies 1 (3/4) (2003): 299-322. Zima, Veniamin. Golod v SSSR 1946-1947 godov: proishozhdenie i posledstvija. Moscow: The Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, 1996. Zubkova, Elena. Poslevoennoe sovetskoe obshhestvo: politika i povsednevnost’ 1945-1953 gg. Moscow: Rossijskaja politicheskaja jenciklopedija (ROSSPJeN), 2000.

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About the author Anastasiya Kucheva is a historian at Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Russia. Her PhD thesis studies the life of Soviet people in post-war society within the context the history of everyday life. Her main fields of research are cultural trauma and oral history. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0865-3538

10 Living Together Memory Diversity in Latvia Zane Radzobe and Didzis Bērziņš Abstract The chapter concentrates on the diversity of memories of the 20th century in contemporary Latvia. It analyzes practices of memory of Latvians and Russian-speakers, and it investigates the case of Holocaust memory. The research deals with memory policies and the practices of the groups, drawing conclusions on how the ritualization of memories is used to establish competing discourses of national history and identity. The ritualistic practices of memory are analyzed as a chain of counter-memory practices. The chapter suggests that resistance against the off icial discourse of history is an ongoing process. Keywords: ritualization of memories, memory policies, national history, identity, memory discourse, counter-memory

Introduction This chapter examines the diversity of memory in Latvia at the beginning of the 21st century, explaining the historical contexts of creation and the contemporary practices of competing group memories within a new national state. Latvia regained its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 and was immediately immersed in the process of creating a new discourse on national history, while simultaneously trying to come to terms with historic traumas: the Second World War, loss of national independence, and the Soviet occupation. At the core of the memory policy of the new state was situated the perspective of the titular nation, namely, that of ethnic Latvians. In this chapter, we argue that the ritualization and performance of the

Salmi-Niklander, Kirsti, Sofia Laine, Päivi Salmesvuori, Ulla Savolainen, and Riikka Taavetti (eds), Friction, Fragmentation, and Diversity: Localized Politics of European Memories. Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press 2022 doi: 10.5117/9789463726757_ch10

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group’s memory has been a crucial factor in developing and strengthening dominant historic discourses. However, this process also marginalized memories of other groups and created competing, mutually exclusive discourses and memory practices in contemporary Latvia, notably those of the Russian-speaking minority, as well as Holocaust memory. Therefore, the aim of this chapter is to place the coexistent yet incompatible memory discourses in the context of post-Soviet democracy to explain why and how they were developed, as well as to establish the strategies of performance and ritualization used to create and express the values and identities of the groups in commemorative events. Interpreting memory as a dynamic process, we will also argue that the performances of memory, closely connected to the shifting power relations in society, are often best understood as a practice of counter-memory, that is, remembering as an act of resistance.

Ritualization of memory and counter-memory Ritualization of memory is understood in this chapter in both its ideological and structural context. According to Catherine Bell, ritualization is primarily a strategy of construction of power relations effective within social organizations (Bell 2009, 197). Ritual relies on significant, meaningful, formalized actions and verbal expressions, and it entails the creation of an imagined, socially experienced, or mythologically constructed reality that serves to unite a specific group by stressing similarities of values and experiences. To use a structure proposed by Victor Turner, a ritual typically consists of four stages: a breach from the established norm; mounting of crisis as factions are formed; the process of redress, as formal and informal mechanisms of crisis resolution are employed; and reintegration, involving adjustment of the original cultural situation. The structure of a ritual is therefore identical to that of drama, although, as stressed by Richard Schechner, who developed performance studies based on Turner’s research, ritual is necessarily concentrated on reaffirming or creating solidarity (Schechner 2010, 189), while theater (art in a broader sense) can at times highlight conflict and friction instead. Based on Turner’s understanding of ritual, Schechner arrived at a distinction between two types of performances: social dramas and aesthetical performances. Although in this study we will be describing both groups of practices by using the term ‘performance,’ it is important to highlight the principal structural differences between them to stress that ritualization

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of memories is achieved by a complex system of performative practices, either sanctioned by the state, political parties and other stakeholders, or by seemingly spontaneous civic or artistic activities. According to Schechner, both social dramas and aesthetical performances structurally consist of two levels: visible or actual, and hidden or virtual. On the surface, social dramas display social and political action and its goal – efficaciousness – while the hidden level consists of performance techniques or staging used to construct the actual. Aesthetic performances, on the other hand, display their techniques in the foreground while concealing the social and political effects they produce. Furthermore, hidden and visible levels of each kind of performance form a whole on their own while also being connected in an infinite loop with each other, so that social and political actions of social drama have a direct effect on social and political actions of aesthetic performances, performative techniques of aesthetical performances influence performative techniques of social dramas, and so forth (Schechner 2010, 211-218). This constant circle of repetition allows us to analyze both social dramas (commemoration policies and events) and aesthetic performances (art projects) as part of a ritualistic circle and tool of memory ritualization. It is important to stress that rituals of memory need not be state-organized or directly supported but can also be an expression of individual initiatives complying with or challenging the limits of accepted discourses. In this context, Michel Foucault’s understanding of power as a relation that does not intend to act on persons or things directly, but influences actions instead, is of importance. In his essay “What is an Author?,” Foucault discusses “author-function,” explaining how certain discourses achieve visibility and hegemony by being promoted by legal and institutional systems, including, but not being limited to, the press, educational institutions and academics, artists, and so forth who define what “the norm” is (Foucault 1980, 130132). The figure of author for Foucault is not an individual, but a blueprint of accepted actions and discourses that are meant to be imitated. Thus, with each separate performance of an accepted discourse its hegemony is strengthened and it becomes more widespread. However, the established discourse can also be contested by groups within society that feel marginalized or misrepresented, and this process also applies to memory practices. Foucault defines counter-memory as a resistance against the official discourses of historical continuity, emphasizing that the struggle against political power and the “regime of truth” is an ongoing process (Foucault 1990, 95). For Foucault, resisting dominant ideologies (identified by him as oppressive by design) has always been a

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process of pluralization and intersecting oppositions of different agents of memory. Foucault stresses that the power relations are an interrelational process, with power pressing down but also being constantly pressed back by the repressed. Thus, the term ‘counter-memory’ relates to a process of different groups and individuals trying to influence the existing knowledge (e.g., “regime of truth”) and struggling for recognition of a certain discourse of the past. It is important to stress that although the past is the object of the struggle, the reason for it – the distortion of power relations – is located in the present.

Historical memory contexts To understand how the current diversity of memory of different groups in contemporary Latvia has formed and how it functions, one should start with the historical context. After the fall of the Soviet Union, previously dominant discourses of the history of the 20th century generated by the occupying power could no longer be applied in the changed circumstances of an independent state. Discourses on national history are closely related to national identity and the nation as a self-reflecting body; therefore, as a new national identity was created, a “completely new history of Latvia,” to paraphrase Latvian history books, was needed with the previously marginalized Latvian nation at its center. The model of the nation chosen was ethnic rather than civic, since the latter stresses that all nations are constructed and made – thus being subject to potential demise – while the ethnic model instead promotes sacral, mythological, fated origins of a nation. In the latter case, the national state regaining independence could be identified as a return to the norm, rather than historical coincidence. The creating of such a historic narrative was the objective of official channels and institutions of the state exercising a position of power – envisioning and constructing identity and discourses and supporting them by means of legislation, education, state-funded research, and representations in art. It should also be noted that different kinds of memory practices, as opposed to written history, became very topical. As with most Eastern European countries that found themselves in a postcolonial situation,1 in the early 1990s an anti-Soviet discourse was 1 Two competing terms exist in Latvian research concentrating on the late 20th century. Social researchers tend to use term ‘post-Soviet,’ while the humanities use ‘postcolonial.’ In

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established. The main strategy used to implement the new policy of memory was to oppose Soviet heritage directly, so that disassociation with the Soviet experiences would be final. To achieve this goal, a link with the first independent Latvian state had to be established to stress the attributes of the new national identity, especially ethnic Latvian narratives and values. It could be argued that to an extent, the process in the early years closely resembled that of a counter-memory practice where the ethnic Latvians, now the political and cultural majority in an independent state, still identified themselves as a minority, opposing the established and sanctioned narratives of the Soviet Union due to the traumas of the occupation. However, the glorification of a national (understood at the time as ethnic Latvian) past ceased to function as a tool of resistance and instead led to unexpected social schism. As a byproduct, two distinct groups were created: Latvians and Russian speakers.2 In the context of the 1990s, the leading public figures in political and social fields, as well as the media (press and the arts) were opponents of the Soviet Union, whether as part of the Third Awakening movement,3 Latvian exile community, or the first post-Soviet generation. The Soviet perspective of the past was replaced almost exclusively by an anti-Soviet, exile vision of it. 4 The exile community of Latvians, formed for the most part after the Second World War and consisting of refugees that fled occupied Latvia for ideological reasons, was perceived as keepers of the values of the first independent state and also the values of a democratic society. Therefore, discourses historically significant to the exile community (Soviet repressions, survival of ethnic Latvians under duress in both occupied Latvia and the globalized Western this context, ‘postcolonial’ is often chosen due to the emotional subtext; it does not specifically stress the Soviet heritage in the present while maintaining the discourse of national suffering and marginalization in the past. 2 It should be stressed that the minority of Russian-speakers in Latvia is not def ined by ethnicity, but rather by the language of choice used by people of diverse ethnicities who had relocated to Latvia during the Soviet occupation. Although previously a province of the Russian Empire, Latvia did not have a large Russian population before the Second World War, the dominant ethnical groups being Latvians and Germans. 3 By tradition, three National Awakenings exist in Latvian history. The First is connected with the New Latvian movement of the 1880s, which resulted in the creation of national selfawareness; the Second culminated in Latvia declaring independence in 1918; and the Third is connected with the social and political movement of the 1980s, which resulted in the regaining of independence. 4 After the restoration of Latvia’s independence, the Latvijas Ceļš (“Latvian Way”) political party, which was a powerful force in Latvian politics from 1993 to 2002, became a significant representative for Latvian exiles. See Plakans 2011, 415-424.

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world) became the embodiment of a national narrative and were rarely, if ever, contested, while all the other topics were marginalized. In comparison to the Soviet times, the agenda of memory policy changed dramatically. Most of the events commemorated before the regaining of independence were marginalized and the heroes who had previously been praised were relabeled enemies, while the suffering and survival of the Latvian people became the most common theme in commemorations. The so-called blank spots of history (events that had been concealed or misrepresented during the Soviet period for ideological reasons) became topical (Plakans 2011, 419, 427). Yet, the focus was ethnic and the narratives created represented almost exclusively black-and-white reading of history, which labeled potential controversies as marginal. This attitude characterized the majority of the discursive practices of the late 20th century in Latvia on different channels – starting from the official memory policy of the state to representations of national history and its memory in the media and arts, where a new set of national myths was being created. It is important to stress that the discourses created in this process have been very influential, effectively reestablishing not only the national history in the context of the 1990s, but also memory discourses of ethnic Latvian society, including personal and family histories.

The case of Latvian Holocaust memory Bearing in mind the short period of time within which change was achieved, one has to assume that it was not only due to mere repetition of the official discourses, but also because of the specific involvement of groupremembering and the ritualization of memory. Memory events, as well as secondary texts dealing with social and cultural memory, must be taken into consideration as tools in implementing official memory policies in actual settings, but also facilitating a process of collective, social remembering as a ritualistic practice that offers the potential of a cure and creates community. That the ritual nature of the memory process, rather than official memory politics alone, is of importance in establishing memory discourses can best be demonstrated by the example of the memory of the Holocaust in Latvia, an issue that is officially part of the commemorative calendar of Latvia but has not been topical for either Latvian or Russian-speaking memory groups, as it has been marginalized. The early memory politics concerning the Holocaust must be viewed in the context of ethnic Latvian memory politics. Kattago notes that the

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restoration of independence in Europe was predominated by the interest of titular nations during the Second World War and afterwards; therefore, information about other tragedies was marginalized, especially if those tragedies involved local collaborators (Kattago 2009). This also applies to Latvia. Although officially the Latvian state condemned both the Soviet and Nazi regimes, the declaration “On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia” of May 4, 1990 demonstrated that the Soviet occupation took precedence in Latvian political memory. While the Nazi occupation and its crimes were not mentioned at all, the Soviet regime, its ideology, and its values were condemned (Par Latvijas neatkarības atjaunošanu, 1991). The discursive practice created here resembles that of a contest of suffering. The “Declaration on Latvia’s Occupation” adopted in 1996 by the Parliament of the Republic of Latvia (Deklarācija par Latvijas okupāciju, 1996), for example, states that “during occupation, the USSR accomplished targeted genocide against the Latvian nation.” However, the “Declaration on the Restoration of Independence of Latvia” notes that “the Nazi Germany that established a regime carried out deportations and other repressions against inhabitants [italics added by the authors].” The Repatriation Law (passed first in 1995) indirectly compares the genocide against the Jewish people with the genocide against Latvians by stressing that “the gravest genocide was during the period of communist terror by the USSR when hundreds of thousands of innocent people were deported to various death camps” (Repatriācijas likums, 1995). As anthropologist Vieda Skultans has noted, a link does exist between remembering the Holocaust and remembering deportations: Soviet repressions and the element symbolizing them – deportations – have become a significant part of the Latvian identity, similarly to the Holocaust being a significant element forming Jewish self-awareness (Skultans 1997). This approach allows construction of a positive identity, the identity of a victim for the ethnic nation. However, victimization as a construct also excludes suffering of others (or even suffering caused to others) from the public domain. The official stand on Holocaust memory shifted at the end of the 1990s, as Latvia was moving to become a member of NATO and the European Union and a more transnational view of the past and pluralistic perspective of memory had to be adopted. In 2011, the Guidelines on National Identity, Civil Society and Integration Policy (2012-2018) document was drawn up by the Ministry of Culture and adopted by the Government of the Republic of Latvia. It contained a chapter on social memory stating that “minorities and their culture are integral and an important constituent of Latvia’s

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society and cultural sphere. Any representative of minorities has the right to maintain and develop their language and ethnic and cultural identity” (Nacionālās identitātes, pilsoniskās sabiedrības un integrācijas politikas pamatnostādnes 2012.-2018.gadam). The inclusion of the Holocaust in the political agenda of Latvia was a deliberate sign that Latvia was officially moving in the direction of liberal European values. However, the changes in the official commemoration policies translated poorly into practice. At the official level, remembrance of the Jewish tragedy now holds a fixed place in the calendar of public commemoration, but the issue of commemoration has been complicated. Holocaust Memorial Day, July 4, for example, has not been included in educational programs, as July is a summer vacation month in schools. In many regions, Holocaust remembrance events are organized according to the local calendar in compliance with the dates when the local Jews were killed, mostly at the end of July or the beginning of August. International Holocaust Remembrance is also commemorated on January 27, November 30, or December 8 (when the massacre of the Latvian Jews in Rumbula took place). But the fragmentation of the calendar has meant that no commemorative events extending beyond the ethnic Jewish community have been created.

Latvian memory practices The official remembrance calendar in Latvia is crowded, with five of the mourning days dedicated to commemorating the victims of the communist terror: March 25 and June 14 commemorate deportations to Siberia,5 June 17 commemorates the occupation of Latvia by the Soviets in 1940, August 23 commemorates the German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact of 1939 that resulted in Latvia being occupied, and the first Sunday of December is dedicated to remembering the victims of genocide by the totalitarian communist regime against the Latvian people.6 The number of official remembrance days clearly demonstrates the extent of the trauma at the core of Latvian society, while the different strategies used for commemoration also highlight the techniques of memory ritualization. 5 In 1941, about 15,000 Latvian citizens were forcibly removed to Soviet labor camps in Siberia, followed by about 43,000 in 1949. 6 This remembrance day also includes Latvians killed by the Soviets before and after the war, including, for example, the ethnic purges in the USSR between 1937 and 1938 when about 70,000 Latvians were killed.

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At the official level, the most prominent of the previously mentioned events is connected with the two dates of deportations. It should be noted that although the commemoration events themselves are of a formal nature, they serve to reaffirm the existing discourses and identities rather than questioning them. Therefore, the events are closely connected with ethnic Latvian memory. The events are organized at several sites of deportations, while the key event is organized in Riga and starts with a procession from the Museum of the Occupation of Latvia to the Freedom Monument, where an orchestra performs the national anthem of Latvia and official speeches of high-ranking politicians and leaders of the civic organizations take place. The speakers include the President, the Speaker of the Saeima (Parliament), and a Chairperson of the Association of Latvian Politically Repressed Persons, reflecting on the history of the deportations. There are typically crosses and wreaths decorated with Latvian, Lithuanian, and Estonian flags, held by the participants of the procession, mostly senior citizens (deportees themselves). It ends with the participants collectively placing their flowers at the foot of the monument. The event resembles a funeral, and the symbolic location is a sign of the object of the wake – the independent state – with deportations being a sacrif ice in its name. A very similar procession takes place on March 16, Remembrance Day of the Latvian Legionnaires. However, the context differs greatly, revealing major differences in the memory discourses in Latvia. The Latvian Legion consisted of military units during the Second World War, including both volunteers and illegally drafted soldiers, whose purpose was to strengthen the Nazi forces against the Soviet army in the region. In 1998, March 16 was recognized by the Latvian state as an official day of remembrance, since the Latvian Legion is emotionally connected with the idea of national resistance during the Second World War. However, the official status of the date was abolished two years later due to the controversy that annually accompanies the commemorative event. On the level of aesthetic organization, this commemorative event closely resembles that dedicated to the Soviet repressions: there is a procession to the Freedom Monument and placing of flowers, thus stressing the idea of sacrifice. However, the major difference in this case is that while on the dates of remembrance of the deportations the march consists of passive victims of the past, on March 25 the participants are active participants of history: senior soldiers of the Second World War, as well as their contemporary supporters, and right-wing politicians of the Latvian state and Russian civic

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organizations, often with ties to Russia. This event, in comparison to the one previously described, is also heavily televised and discussed publicly (both nationally and internationally), since it is connected with mutually exclusive ideas of history: the Latvians see it in terms of national resistance and the trauma of failure; Russian-speakers see it as active condemnation of the Soviet army and, by extension, glorification of the Nazis. To break down a typical narrative of memory within an ethnic Latvian group of the late 20th century in the context of ritualistic structure, commemorative events can be viewed as an example of social performance. In this case, the past event remembered (typically the deportations of 1941 and 1949, Soviet repressions, etc.) is established as trauma, a break with the normality of the pre-war independent state. The past is then opened during the commemorative event, symbolically re-experienced and evaluated, so that in the end the normality of the present that bears significant similarities to the normality of the pre-break past could be restored by expressing a definite attitude toward the trauma and reaffirming the values of the pre-break situation. On the surface here are historical facts, as well as interpretations of their meaning (stressing the inhumane nature of the Soviet regime or the message of survival of the ethnic Latvian society). The hidden level consists of performance techniques, such as the public repetition of survivors’ memories, which stress the collective and comprehensive nature of repressions, as well as symbolic actions (remembrance of the fallen, use of national symbols, etc.), aimed at stressing the unity of the group, which shares a common past and values expressed by the symbols the group recognizes. The events are also accompanied by aesthetic performances that approach the same subject (national history, memory), but the focus is reversed. Externally we see artistic techniques usually aimed at creating powerful metaphors to explain past experiences and build emotional empathy with the victims. On the virtual plane, questions about social and political history are raised, and the meaning of the representations is offered; however, the process itself is less rational and factual than that of social events. Since it is not the aim of this chapter, we are not going to discuss representations of national history in Latvian art in the ’90s in detail, but it should be noted that the overall tendency in literature, theater, and cinema alike was to create a distinct opposition between Latvian characters (usually seen as victims and depicted in psychological detail) and the Soviet regime, represented as faceless (the villains are usually episodic or depicted without any personal background), in order for the audience to always identify emotionally with the suffering. What is important in the context of the remembrance of the Legion is that suffering within the context of the ethnic

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national structure exclusively involves Latvians, since their personal losses (deportation, draft, exile, etc.) are merely a symptom of the cause that distorted the reality and broke “the norm,” namely, the Soviet occupation and the loss of independence. Combined together, both kinds of performances have also created a distinctive post-memory scene. In particular, young members of the ethnic group, people who themselves did not experience the traumatic events of the 20th century, nevertheless strongly identify with the suffering of ethnic Latvians.

Commemorations by the Russian-speaking community However, such a ritualistic nature of memory prevents people with differing experiences and memories of the 20th century from being integrated into society, since a black-and-white reading of ethnic Latvian history labels them as strangers or the enemy, depending on the closeness of the challenged narrative to the national identity. The Russian-speaking community here is the main example, since it and the Latvian majority do not share a time-organizational axis with Latvian society due to the non-existence of a common, “pre-break” past. From a ritual point of view, for the Russianspeaking community the norm of the past is also the pre-war situation, but the trauma differs: the Russian-speaking memory group recognizes Nazi Germany as the cause of the break with the norm and, therefore, the Soviet victory as its re-establishment. This is clearly demonstrated in the main commemorative event annually organized by the Russian-speaking groups: the Victory Day celebrations on May 8. The date here is of particular significance, since Russian speakers hold it as marking the end of the war, while the Latvian community sees May 8 as the date of Soviet victory and, therefore, the beginning of the occupation. It is important to stress that numerous public discussions have demonstrated that both the Latvian and Russian-speaking communities see the Second World War as a traumatic event. Neither glorify the Nazis, and the attitude toward Soviet history relates to changes in the current economic and social situations of both groups. However, since a black-and-white reading of history is promoted and commemorative events as rituals carry great symbolic significance (reaffirming certain values every year), the formulation of whether the war ended through the defeat of Nazi Germany or due to the victory of the Soviets is crucial for the identity of both groups. In recent years, the Victory Day celebration has gathered as many as 100,000 participants, mainly from the Russian-speaking community of

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Latvia, signifying rising levels of disassociation with the official memory practices of Latvia. The commemorative event is organized as an outdoor festival, stressing the idea of celebration and community. Although there is a small portion of attendees that comes to place flowers by the monument in a mournful atmosphere, thus commemorating the Second World War as a devastating event, the majority celebrate with official speeches by Russian-speaking politicians, the Russian ambassador, and ambassadors of countries that are friendly with Russia. The event is accompanied by patriotic wartime music and stories of the heroism and selflessness of the Red Army, and it ends with a concert and fireworks. There are also large screens, and participants can watch the military parade in Red Square in Moscow and the speech of the President of Russia. In recent years, symbols of the Soviet regime, as well as those of the Russian Federation, are a prominent feature of the event. Although the process is highly politicized and supported by ideologies of contemporary Russia gradually returning to a Soviet interpretation of 20th-century history, it is worth mentioning that in the national context the memory of the Russian-speaking minority functions as counter-memory by a group whose experiences have been marginalized by the “regime of truth” in the Latvian state. Although a significant difference applies – Russianspeaking inhabitants in Latvia number as many as ethnic Latvians and their memory practices are supported by official Russian commemoration practices and secondary texts – this memory group in Latvia is no less closed and oriented toward a single-minded reading of history than ethnic Latvians.

Living together: Toward a memory of a civic national identity However, the memory practices of the official state and obvious controversies of the different group memories, combined with social and political aspects (such as the gradual spreading of liberal ideologies and awareness of civic society, as well as growing dissatisfaction with the government of Latvia in connection to the economic crisis of the early 21st century), have recently led to a new set of public memory practices that can also be described in relation to Foucault’s counter-memory. Although by no means a mass movement, the trend is characterized by the involvement of the post-Soviet generation, which also uses strategies of ritualization of memory, albeit with different goals. Rather than affirming the ethnic divide, they choose to defy the dominant discourses of established memory groups in order to create a memory discourse that is more in tune with a civic national identity.

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What is specific in this case is the fact that unlike the groups we have touched upon previously, this trend does not share a specific discourse regarding history, but rather the attitude of resistance that is best expressed in different aesthetic performances, which serve here as a platform for discussion of national history. It is interesting, however, that they all share the ritualistic nature of the remembering process, using the form of the ritual as a means of social change. This is achieved by utilizing performances as an intended reaffirmation of the dominant discourse that many ethnic Latvians have come to rely on, as witnessed by public discussions on what and how history should be represented (for example, in national cinema) and by a rather strong political opinion that misrepresentations can, in fact, endanger the national identity. These artworks rely on a specific element of any ritual, such as liminality as a situation of pause, or a break with the established norm that must be overcome. Traditionally, the liminal stage is overcome and a reaffirmation of the given concludes the ritual, solidifying the group that is involved in it. This is what we have already seen in the examples above. Every commemorative event as a ritual is performed to arrive at a previously defined goal – strengthened identity – and since the ones opposing the pre-given are already outside the group involved in the ritual, the status quo is never truly questioned. However, the very nature of the ritual (in this context, the commemorative event or performance) also makes it a potential danger to the dominant discourse, since it is not merely a repetition but also holds the possibility of revolt against the tradition if someone from the group celebrating the ritual opposes the given, in which case a new conclusion of a ritual needs to be agreed on by those practicing it. As an example of this strategy used in recent years by a multiethnic group of the younger generation of artists, we would draw attention to a series of historic novels, We. Latvia. The 20th Century, which is dedicated to the national history of Latvia. There is a complete set of 13 novels, discussing the history of the 20th century, published from 2015 to 2018 in accordance with the celebration of the centenary of the national state. Most of the books have appeared on bestseller lists. The period is equally divided between authors, so that every novel deals with a decade or so of the 20th century, focusing on different aspects. The artists had liberty to choose their subjects, but they are still centered around the anchor points of Latvian history: the uprising of 1905, the First World War and the Independence War, the proclamation of the independent state, the interwar period, the Second World War, deportations, and daily life during the Soviet occupation. The series is advertised as relying on oral history sources, including the authors’

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own family histories, as well as press materials from the respective periods. In short, despite being fiction, the works strongly stress the potential of recovering “the real” history. However, the material chosen by the authors is in most cases almost directly contrary to the narratives of the ethnic Latvian memory group. To name just a few examples, the communal apartment – which in the cultural memory of Latvians symbolizes the loss of private space, when people were forced to live together with complete strangers in close proximity and often dire circumstances – is described in the series with a certain nostalgia, in relation to a surrogate family or the lost unity of society. The novel discussing the period around 1918, when the national state was created, is dedicated to the sexual exploits of a young vagrant who is completely uninterested in or even aware of his sociopolitical surroundings. The 1970s is briefly shown through the lens of a love triangle between a Soviet officer, his wife, and a Latvian girl, in which the officer’s wife, a character who would traditionally be either faceless or a villain, is in fact the heroine of the story, while the Latvian (traditionally the victim) is shown as loose, morally corrupt, etc. To generalize, the series refuses to remain within the limits of one’s own ethnic memory space while adopting the narratives topical to “the other,” especially if those are in stark contrast to the attitudes of one’s own group, and they refuse to interpret individual memories in the context of the grand narratives of history. This is of importance because of the contrast with the practices of the closed ethnic memory groups, and it is clearly connected with the civic model of identity by trying to locate more diverse – thus, potentially inclusive – discourses of history. The strategy and aims of the series can best be described in the authors’ own words, as expressed in a public discussion in the Museum of Writing and Music in 2015 (Diskusija par romānu sēriju Mēs. Latvija, XX gadsimts). Māris Bērziņš, the author of a novel on the Second World War with specific focus on the Holocaust, claims: “Yes, I worked with memories… [But] it is rather funny that people who were maybe 10 or 12 at the time say: that is how it happened […] I don’t believe in their memories; I find them rather romanticized.” The moderator of the discussion proceeds to characterize the patriotic undertones of the series and its significance in representing “the new history” by quoting the historian Ineta Lipša, who wrote in her review of Bērziņš’s novel that the idea of the series is connected with the need to recall and to emotionally relive the past of the 20th century in Latvia, not only to eliminate the mutilation of social memory of the readership established during the Soviet times, but also to seed and strengthen

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contemporary interpretations [of social memory]. This is in fact a sign of the postcolonial situation in which the genre of the historical novel reflects the writers’ need to come to terms with their history, previously usurped by the colonializing regime, to push back on official versions of the past once enforced. It is the need to create a new national history, especially on those events that have been previously misrepresented or censored by aggressors or their issues.

To which Berelis replies: “Yes, but isn’t the national history a mutilation of its own? It is also a mutilation, the only difference – it’s done by another group.” The series does not stand alone in its quest of challenging memory practices. In recent years, Latvian theaters, as well as the national cinema, have also persisted in offering their audiences performances that are in stark contrast with what the dominant discourses would suggest. The artists also seem confident in the fact that representations can in fact effectively change how the public remembers. The mechanism is described by historian Kaspars Zellis, also present in the discussion: [T]hese works are important because they will create what we call the grand narrative of history, the one that shapes how society thinks. People form their individual memory on the premises of this ‘grand history’ – what they have learned at school, what they read in novels. So don’t be surprised, gentlemen, that soon your narratives are going to be repeated in individual life stories as well. (Diskusija par romānu sēriju Mēs. Latvija, XX gadsimts).

Whether a change is effectively going to happen remains to be seen. Of course, it also depends on the political and economic circumstances that influence memory practices. However, the proposal alone signifies a specific dissatisfaction with the dominant discourses of traditional group memories in contemporary Latvia in the context of civic society, as well as awareness of the potential influence of counter-memory practices.

References Bell, Catherine. Ritual Theory, Ritual Practice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009. Deklarācija par Latvijas okupāciju. August 22, 1996. Accessed November 14, 2017. https://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=63838.

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Diskusija par romānu sēriju Mēs. Latvija, XX gadsimts. October 2015. Accessed November 14, 2017. https://rmm.lv/diskusija-par-romanu-seriju-mes-latvija-xx-gadsimts/. Foucault, Michel. Language, Counter-Memory, Practice: Selected Essays and Interviews by Michel Foucault. Ed. Donald F. Bouchard. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1980. Foucault, Michel. History of Sexuality. Vol. 1. An Introduction. New York: Vintage, 1990. Kattago, Siobhan. “Agreeing to Disagree on the Legacies to Recent History: Memory, Pluralism and Europe After 1989.” European Journal of Social Theory 12.3 (2009): 375-395. Par Latvijas neatkarības atjaunošanu. August 21, 1991. Accessed November 14, 2017. https://likumi.lv/doc.php?id=75539. Plakans, Andrejs. A Concise History of the Baltic States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011. Repatriācijas likums. October 24, 1995. Accessed November 14, 2017. http://likumi. lv/doc.php?id=37187. Schechner, Richard. Performance Theory. New York: Routledge Classics, 2010. Skultans, Vieda. “Theorizing Latvian Lives: The Quest for Identity.” The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 3.4 (1997): 761-780. Nacionālās identitātes, pilsoniskās sabiedrības un integrācijas politikas pamatnostādnes 2012.-2018.gadam. December 12, 2012. Accessed November 14, 2017. Accessed March 2, 2021. https://www.km.gov.lv/sites/km/files/media_file/ km_130515_prec_nac_ident_pilson_sab_un_itegr_polit_pamatnost_2012-20181. pdf.

About the authors Zane Radzobe is Program Director and Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, University of Latvia. [email protected] Didzis Bērziņš is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Latvia and Claims Conference University Partnership Holocaust Lecturer at the University of Latvia. His research interests include the Holocaust, social memory, national identity, Nazi propaganda, media ethics, and media collaborationism. [email protected]



About the Authors

Serpil Açıkalın Erkorkmaz (PhD) has studied Middle East Studies as well as migration and gender studies. She authored Women’s Civil Society and Citizenship in Turkey and Tunisia (2020). Apart from her academic studies, she works as a senior consultant in the civil society field. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5592-1240 Laura Ardava-Āboliņa is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the Department of Communication Studies, University of Latvia. She examines the meaning and commemoration of Latvian National Awakening period (1986-1991). [email protected] Didzis Bērziņš is a Senior Researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology at the University of Latvia and Claims Conference University Partnership Holocaust Lecturer at the University of Latvia. His research interests include the Holocaust, social memory, national identity, Nazi propaganda, media ethics, and media collaborationism. [email protected] Priska Daphi is Professor of Conflict Sociology at Bielefeld University, Germany, and founding member of the Institute for Protest and Social Movements Studies in Berlin. She is author of Becoming a Movement. Identity, Narrative and Memory in the European Global Justice Movement (Rowman & Littlefield International, 2017). [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8216-1566 Kirsti Jõesalu is an ethnologist, working as a researcher and lecturer at Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her main fields of research are the social memory of socialism and oral history. Her most recent project (together with Kõresaar) investigates Baltic museums from the perspective of mnemonic pluralism. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1756-047X

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Dilek Karal (PhD) is a sociologist and women’s rights activist with a focus on migration, ethnicity and women studies. Karal authored Ethico-political Governmentality of Immigration and Asylum: The Case of Ethiopia in 2019 by Palgrave Macmillan. She is also an experienced humanitarian worker contributing to women rights and immigrant rights. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6351-4349 Anna Koldushko is associate professor at Perm National Research Polytechnic University. Her scientific interests focus on issues related to repressions in the USSR in the 1930s, Soviet everyday life, as well as the problem of the socio-cultural trauma of repression in a totalitarian society. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5478-6545 Ene Kõresaar is Professor of Oral History and Memory Studies, Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu, Estonia. Her research interests include World War II and socialism, post-communist memory politics, oral history, commemorative journalism and museums. Her most recent project (together with Jõesalu) investigates Baltic museums from the perspective of mnemonic pluralism. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9611-0460 Anastasiya Kucheva is a historian at Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Russia. Her PhD thesis studies the life of Soviet people in post-war society within the context the history of everyday life. Her main fields of research are cultural trauma and oral history. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0865-3538 Sofia Laine (PhD, title of docent) is a Research Manager (fixed term) in Youth Research and Development Centre Juvenia at South-Eastern Finland University of Applied Sciences. Her multidisciplinary research has focused on young people’s political and cultural engagements, volunteer work and art education. Her previous edited book focused on young refugees and youth work in Europe (Youth Partnership, Youth Knowledge #24). [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4153-8344

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Jurijs Ņikišins is Research Fellow and Assistant Professor at the Sociology Department of the Faculty of Social Sciences, University of Latvia. His research interests focus on political values, attitudes and behavior, as well as relations between ethnic and linguistic groups in heterogeneous societies. [email protected] Zane Radzobe is Program Director and Assistant Professor in the Department of Social Sciences, University of Latvia. [email protected] Päivi Salmesvuori (ThD, title of Docent), is senior researcher in the Faculty of Theology, University of Helsinki. She has researched issues of gender, power, authority and religion from the Middle Ages to the present day. She is interested in enhancing the cooperation between Academia and policy makers. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7948-8883 Kirsti Salmi-Niklander is a senior lecturer in Folklore Studies at the University of Helsinki. She was the coordinator for the ERA-NET RUS. Plus-project LIVINGMEMORIES – Living together with difficult memories and diverse identities 2015-2017. Her fields of interest include oral history, vernacular literacy and working-class culture. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0552-1801 Ulla Savolainen (PhD, title of docent) works as a senior researcher at the University of Helsinki, Department of Cultures. She is a folklorist specializing in cultural memory studies, oral history, and narrative research. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7995-416X Gulsina Selyaninova is a docent at Perm National Research Polytechnic University, Russia. She has studied the history of the intelligentsia in the Urals during the period of Revolution and Civil War. Her research interests also include the history of the Muslim community and Sufism in the Urals, regional studies, oral history, and the history of everyday life. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9928-7333

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Riikka Taavetti is a university lecturer in political history at the University of Helsinki. Her current work in SEXDEM research project addresses the political debates on homosexuality in Estonia and Sweden (the late 1980s2010s). Taavetti’s research interests include history of sexuality, politics of memory and oral history. [email protected] https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9601-2206 Jens Zimmermann was a research associate at Goethe University Frankfurt from 2016 to 2018 before joining his current position at the Trade Union of Construction, Agriculture and Environment (IG BAU). [email protected]

Index Names Açıkalın Erkorkmaz, Serpil 19 Adler, Nancy 132, 137-138, 181-182 Ahonen, Heiki 32, 38 Algar, Hamid 127 Ardava, Laura 18 Aru, Krista 82 Aslan, Özgecan 206 Assmann, Аleida 170 Baberowski, Jörg 177 Bell, Catherine 236 Berelis, Guntis 249 Bernhard, Michael 9, 21 Bērziņš, Didzis 20 Bērziņš, Māris 248 Bourdieu, Pierre 194 Brass, Paul R. 196 Briggs, Charles L. 149 Çelik, Ayşe Betül 197 Çınar, Alev 191, 201 Daphi, Priska 7, 17 De Cesari, Chiara 10 Delaney, Carol 205 Doan, Laura 88 Eglitis, Daina 103 Fomina, Julija 84 Foucault, Michel 62, 237-238, 246 Gambetti, Zeynep 196 Gamper, Anton 180-181 Gillis, John 101 Gökalp, Deniz 197 Göker, Zeynep Gülru 7, 188, 200 Gudkov, Lev 215 Halbwachs, Maurice 15 Hamilton, Paula 149 Hanovs, Deniss 102 Helme, Mart 35, 39-40 Hirsch, Marianne 128, 195 Ilves, Toomas Hendrik 28 Immler, Nicole 147 Järvi, Markus 92 Jensen-Eriksen, Niklas 152 Jõesalu, Kirsti 17, 34, 80, 82, 92 Jongerden, Joost 196 Jürisson, Sander 33-34 Kadıoğlu, Ayşe 191 Kangro, Maarja 85 Karal, Dilek 19 Kattago, Siobhan 100, 240 Kelam, Mari-Ann 35 Kennedy, Rosanne 157 Kistler-Ritso, Olga 28, 32-33, 35 Kivimaa, Katrin 88-89, 91

Kivimägi, Johanna 85 Koldushko, Anna 19, 167 Kolga, Marcus 35 Kõresaar, Ene 7, 17, 34, 80, 82-83, 92 Kubik, Jan 9 Kucheva, Anastasia 19 Kuusi, Hanna 86 Lappo, Georgy 218 Lipša Ineta 248 Määttälä, Mikko 152, 155 Meri, Lennart 28 Mitroiu, Simona 9 Neyzi, Leyla 193-194, 199 Ņikišins, Jurijs 18 Novick, Peter 101 Õispuu, Leo 36-38 Ojaste, Juhan (pseudonym) 80, 83-84, 88, 94 Ortaylı, İlber 192 Õun, Mats 93 Parek, Lagle 37 Paris, Krister 90 Plakans, Andrejs 101, 239 Pärnaste, Eve 43, 89-90 Piipuu, Merilin 28-29, 33, 35, 39-42, 44, 46, 93, 95 Põldsam, Rebeka 81, 92 Radzobe, Zane 20 Rasulev, Zainulla 123, 127, 129, 139 Rigney, Ann 10 Ro’i, Yaacov 124 Rozenvalds, Juris 104 Rünk, Martin 81 Saar, Indrek 35 Samma, Jaanus 17, 79-81, 84-88, 91-95 Savolainen, Ulla 18-19, 147, 152-153, 155-159 Schechner, Richard 236-237 Selyaninova, Gulsina 7, 18, 122 Sergeychik, Elena 227 Shaw, Rosalind 13, 146 Shopes, Linda 149 Sibul, Priit 90 Şimga, Hülya 7, 188, 200 Skultans, Vieda 241 Smith, Valerie 195 Soidro, Mart 79, 81 Stalin, Josef 90, 92, 122, 127, 132, 138, 140, 179-180 Sztompka, Piotr 100, 130, 136, 171, 213 Taavetti, Riikka 17, 79, 81 Tamkivi, Sten 28, 42 Tarto, Enn 35, 43 Thompson, Sylvia 35, 41-42

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Tlyashev, Sharifulla 126, 133 Treumund, Anna-Stina 84, 86 Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt 13, 146 Turner, Victor 236 Ulmanis, Kārlis 105 Vaino, Maarja 43 Viola, Eugenio 84 Wertsch, James 101 Wulf, Meike 94

Yavuz, Hakan 192 Yeğen, Mesut 192 Zelče, Vita 7, 102-103 Zelizer, Barbie 104 Zellis, Kaspars 249 Zepa, Brigita 102 Zerubavel, Yael 102 Zima, Veniamin 223 Zimmermann, Jens 17

Subjects Abkhazian 198 adaptation strategies 213, 230 Alevi 205 anti-austerity movement 55-56, 64 anti-Soviet 18, 35, 121-122, 124-126, 139, 238-239 arrests 18, 121-122, 126, 128-131, 135, 139-140, 167, 171-172, 174, 179, 183, 203 authority 13, 88, 130, 204-205, 220 Baltic states 12, 16, 30-31, 38-39, 100, 115 ‘Baltic Way’ 103 Belarus 115 CEDAW (Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women) 200 civil society 28, 33, 42, 60, 187-188, 190, 192-194, 197, 207, 241 commemoration 35-37, 40, 46, 59, 100-104, 237, 240, 242-243, 245-246 communism, communist 27-28, 30-32, 34-35, 37-38, 44, 58, 61, 67-68, 83, 89, 91, 99-101, 125-126, 132, 138, 173-175, 181-182, 221, 241-242 compensation 18-19, 145-149, 152-161, 181 ‒ law 18-19, 145, 148-149, 152-153, 155-156, 158-161 conflict 37-38, 43, 99-103, 126, 161, 192-194, 199, 202-207, 236 cultural memory studies 16, 147-149, 161 deportations 30, 40, 83, 89, 92-93, 108-109, 115, 150, 241-244, 247 discourse(s) 14, 17, 20, 30, 33, 38, 45, 55-56, 59-61, 64-65, 69-71, 100-104, 145, 149, 154, 157, 159, 161, 167, 190, 192, 195, 197-198, 200-201, 204, 206, 208, 216, 235-240, 243, 246-249 competing ‒ 20, 197, 208, 235 Eastern Europe 9, 32, 101, 238 Estonia 7, 9, 16-17, 27-46, 79-83, 85-95, 100, 243 Tallinn 17, 28, 31, 37-38, 79, 81-82, 92-93, 100 ethnicity 12, 192, 199, 211, 239 Europe 9, 12, 31-32, 44-45, 64, 70, 91, 101, 117, 170, 241 European Union 31, 91, 241

everyday life 19, 29, 32, 34, 44, 85, 87, 140, 213, 217, 220-221, 224, 231 family 46, 109, 132-133, 135-136, 139, 147, 168, 171-174, 176, 179-181, 183, 197, 199, 201, 205, 207, 218, 221-223, 225-227, 230, 240, 248 feminism 81, 189, 191, 194-196, 200-202, 204, 206 Finland 7, 9, 18, 145, 147-148, 150-152, 154, 156-158, 160 finlandization 39 First World War see World War I forced displacement 196-197, 200, 203, 207 fragmentation 11, 15, 68, 172, 242 friction 11, 13-14, 18-19, 145-148, 155, 158, 160-161, 236 gender 12, 19, 42, 61, 187-190, 193, 194-196, 199-201, 204, 207-208, 213, 225-227 ‒ equality 61, 188, 193, 200 ‒ roles 19, 187-189, 194, 199, 201, 204, 226 generations 18, 33, 36, 39, 41-45, 65, 67-68, 70, 99, 108-110, 115-116, 129, 133, 168-170, 179, 183, 216-217, 228, 231 genocide 105, 146, 183, 241-242 Georgia 31, 38, 198 German-Soviet Non-Aggression Pact 242 Germany (for Nazi Germany, see Nazi Germany) 7, 9, 17, 55-65, 68-69, 148, 150, 170, 179 Berlin 34, 57-58, 64-65, 67, 170 Frankfurt 7, 64-65 headscarf (issue) 199-202, 207 historical context 154, 235, 238 historical polarizations 200, 207 Holocaust 12, 38, 40-41, 44-45, 89, 91, 105-106, 109-112, 116, 146, 235-236, 240-242, 248 ‒ Memorial Day 40, 242 ‒ memory see memory, Holocaust memory human rights 17, 31, 39, 79-80, 86, 88, 91, 94-95, 122, 145, 154, 156, 179, 207 ‒ violations 17, 79-80, 86, 88, 94, 197, 207 Hungary 18, 145, 147, 150-151, 156, 160

Index

identity 11, 19-20, 28-31, 40-41, 44-45, 63, 89, 91, 93, 99-103, 110, 117, 126-127, 129, 133, 135-136, 140-141, 168, 170, 187-197, 199-200, 202-204, 206-207, 214, 216-217, 225-226, 228, 235, 238-239, 241-242, 245-248 collective ‒ 103, 126, 214, 216 ‒ categories 204 ‒ formation 189, 200, 207 ‒ perception 194 schizophrenic ‒ 191 supra-identity 199, 206 women’s identities 19, 187, 190 ideology 13-14, 59, 68, 95, 99, 102, 115, 140, 181-182, 191, 193, 195, 197, 201-202, 204-205, 208, 227, 237, 241, 246 immigration 105, 192 independence 16, 30, 34, 39-40, 86-87, 93, 99, 103, 105-106, 107-109, 111-115, 235, 238-241, 245, 247 independent state 32, 116, 238-239, 243-244, 247 interviews 15-16, 18-19, 55-56, 64-66, 69, 71, 80, 87, 121, 123, 127-130, 145, 147-149, 152-153, 156, 158, 161, 169, 187-188, 193-194, 196-197, 200, 203, 213, 216-217 Islam 122-124, 189-190, 192-193, 200-201, 207 ishan 18, 121, 123-127, 133-134, 136-140 Ishanism 18, 121-130, 133, 138-139, 141 murid 18, 121, 123-127, 129, 133, 135-137, 139-140 Muslim 18, 121-131, 133, 135, 139-141, 190-192, 199-200, 202 Sufism 122-124, 127-128, 137, 139-141 Israel 40 Jewish 34, 40-41, 91, 176, 241-242 justice 9, 14, 19, 38, 145-147, 155-156, 160-162, 181, 203, 205, 208 Kurdish 19, 187-194, 196-208 ‒ identity 192, 199, 206 ‒ issue 19, 187-189, 193-194, 196, 199, 204, 206-208 ‒ language 192, 198-199 ‒ women 203, 205-206, 208 Kurds 189, 192, 196, 199, 203, 206 Latvia 7, 9, 17-18, 20, 34, 87, 99-117, 235-236, 238-249 Riga 31, 243 Rumbula 242 Latvia, historical events 1905 Revolution 105 Coup d’etat by Kārlis Ulmanis in 1934 105 Independence War 247 July 4 242 Latvian Legion 243 Latvian occupation and incorporation in the USSR in 1940 105 Latvijas Ceļš (“Latvian Way”) 239

257 Loss of independence to the Soviet Union in 99 105 March 25 (35-36, 40) 242-243 Mass deportations of May-June 1941 115 Proclamation of the independent Republic of Latvia in 1918 105 Restoration of the independent Republic of Latvia in 1991 100, 105, 116 Laz 198 LGBTIQ rights 91, 94-95 liberal 56, 60, 65, 67, 69, 121, 127, 194, 242, 246 male dominance 189, 195, 205 Memento Union 35-38, 42 memorials 31-32, 37-38, 40, 102, 242 memories 7, 9-12, 14-20, 41, 45, 55-57, 59-64, 66, 69, 71-72, 90, 92-93, 99-102, 104, 108-109, 112, 114, 117, 129, 131-133, 137, 139-140, 147, 149, 153-154, 156-157, 159-161, 169-170, 177-179, 183, 187-190, 194-200, 202-208, 216-218, 224, 227-228, 230-231, 235-237, 244-246, 248-249 challenging ‒ 204 collective ‒ 187, 194, 216 diversity of ‒ 11-12, 18, 20, 102, 235, 238 fragmented cultural ‒ 19, 207-208 group ‒ 102, 246, 249, 235 identity-based ‒ 207 painful ‒ 92, 189, 206-207, 218 queer ‒ 17 severe ‒ 203 traumatic ‒ see trauma women’s segmented cultural ‒ 19, 187 memory 7, 9-18, 20, 27-31, 33-36, 38-46, 55-56, 59-64, 66, 68-69, 71, 79, 91, 94, 99-105, 117, 121, 123, 128-130, 133, 140-141, 145-150, 152, 154-161, 168-170, 177, 183, 187-190, 193-195, 198-199, 202-204, 206-207, 213-215, 218, 220, 222, 228, 230-231, 235-246, 248-249 agents of ‒ 41-42, 238 Baltic model of ‒ 9, 30 collective ‒ 30-31, 61, 63, 102-104, 133, 147, 170, 193, 202, 213-215, 222, 230-231 contested social ‒ 9-10, 61-62, 100-101, 237 counter-memory 17, 20, 55-56, 61-64, 66, 71, 187-189, 195, 198, 204, 235-239, 246, 249 cultural – 12, 16, 18, 30, 46, 130, 145, 147149, 161, 187-189, 194-195, 198, 203-204, 206-207, 240, 248 dynamics of – 10-12, 16, 18, 99 feelings of threat 195, 203 Holocaust – 45, 235-236, 240-241 memorialization 189-190, 195, 198 – conflict 18, 99-101, 103 – culture 12-13, 16-17, 27-29, 39-41, 44, 150 – discourse 14, 159, 235-236, 240, 243, 246 – group 18, 61, 99, 240, 245-246, 248 – policy 235, 240 – practices 15, 20, 154, 235-238, 242, 246, 249 – regime 29, 45-46

258 

FRIC TION, FR AGMENTATION, AND DIVERSIT Y

mnemopolitics 27-29 multidirectional – 40 political – 30, 241 politics of – 9-10, 12-13, 17, 27, 30, 44, 55-56, 61, 79, 117, 240 postmemory 44, 141 public – 15, 41, 55-56, 60-61, 63-64, 69, 71, 147, 149, 246 ritualization of – 236, 240, 246 scales of – 9-13, 15-18, 160-161 social – 18, 99-103, 241, 248-249 state-produced hegemonic cultural – 206 transnational – 10-12, 40, 45, 241 modernization 19, 60, 69, 71, 187-190 modern clothing 202 Moldavia (also Moldova) 31, 48, 115 monument(s) 37, 100, 102-103, 243, 246 Freedom Monument 103, 243 “Monument to the Liberators of Tallinn” (also the Bronze Soldier of Tallinn) 38, 100 motherhood 189, 199, 203-204, 207 museum(s) 17, 27-29, 31-46, 79-82, 85-86, 89-95, 243, 248 Anne Frank Museum 34 Estonian Museum of Occupations see Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom Jewish Museum in Berlin 34 Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 34, 243 Museum of Tolerance 34 Museum of Writing and Music 248 Vabamu Museum of Occupations and Freedom 17, 27-29, 32-38, 40-42, 44-46, 79-82, 85, 89-94, 96

occupation 17, 27-34, 36-46, 79-83, 85-86, 88-94, 100, 105, 115, 154, 156, 194, 235, 239, 241-243, 245, 247 ‒ paradigm 31 organizations 33, 35-37, 42, 58, 61, 68, 99, 121-122, 125, 127, 176, 183, 187-188, 191, 193-194, 196-203, 205-208, 236, 243-245 NGOs 196, 202-204, 206 solidarity ‒ 202, 207 women’s ‒ 187, 191, 193, 196-197, 200-202, 204, 206, 208 oral history 15-16, 18, 33, 80, 121, 128-129, 145, 147-149, 161, 169, 216, 247 Ottoman Empire 189-192

naming 17, 27-31, 36, 39, 44-45, 92 narrative(s) 15, 19, 27, 30-32, 36, 41-42, 44-46, 56, 62, 64, 66, 68-69, 80, 92, 94-95, 102-103, 105, 121, 129-131, 139, 149, 156, 167-168, 170, 172, 174, 187-190, 193-194, 196-199, 203-204, 207-208, 215-216, 220, 224, 228, 230, 238-240, 244-245, 248-249 competing – 189, 204 hegemonic – 189, 198 post-communist – 30 women’s – 187-188, 190, 194, 196, 203-204, 208 nation 11-12, 31, 40, 43, 83, 89, 94, 100-101, 104, 173-174, 192-193, 214-216, 235, 238, 241 national framework 11 national history 20, 190, 193, 198, 235, 238, 240, 244, 247, 249 national identity 31, 93, 100, 238-240, 245-247 national state 235, 238, 247-248 NATO 39, 241 Nazi(s) 32, 43, 57, 70, 83, 90-91, 94, 99-100, 150, 241, 243-245 – invasion 99 – Germany 90, 100, 150, 241, 245 – occupation 32, 241

patriarchy 206-207 patriarchal character of Turkish modernization 19, 187-188, 190 patriarchal discourse 190, 195 patriarchal rule 191 peace 14, 57, 150-151, 154, 187-189, 194, 196-197, 201-205, 208 perceptions 19, 31, 99, 104, 114-115, 137, 188-190, 194-197, 199-204, 207-208, 214, 217, 227, 231 performance 149, 235-237, 244-245, 247, 249 PKK 192-193, 197-198, 200, 202, 204 Poland 115 polarization 103, 188-190, 192, 194-195, 200-204, 207 politicization 9-10, 66-67, 192 polygamy 191 post-Soviet 18, 35, 88, 91, 93, 101, 103, 230, 236, 238-239, 246 power relations 61, 64, 198, 236, 238 practices 11-13, 15, 19-20, 30, 59, 64, 104, 121, 125, 128, 136-137, 140, 146, 154, 161, 167, 169172, 183, 215, 235-238, 240, 242, 246, 248-249 protest 55, 57-59, 63-65, 71, 176, 190, 196, 200-202, 204, 206 queer 17, 79-81, 87-89, 94-95 reconciliation 13-14, 107, 145-146, 154, 157, 160-162, 187-188, 194 Red Army see Soviet Army regime 13-14, 28, 29-33, 36-37, 44-45, 64, 88, 90, 92, 102, 112, 127, 133, 157, 171, 181, 183, 191, 237-238, 241-242, 244, 246, 249 religion 12, 123, 138-139, 182, 190, 192, 200-201, 204-205 reminiscence writings 16 retrospective justice 145-147, 160-161 ritual 64, 90, 102, 136, 236-237, 240, 245, 247, 249 ritualization 20, 235-237, 240, 242, 246 Russia (for Soviet Union, see Soviet Union) 7, 9, 13, 17-18, 20, 27-28, 31, 38-39, 44-46, 87, 89, 92, 99, 103, 105, 107, 115-117, 122, 126, 129, 168-170, 180, 182-183, 216, 243-244, 246 Kama River area 124, 127, 174

259

Index

Leningrad 217, 223, 229 Molotovskaya Oblast` 122, 128, 133 Moscow 31, 136, 150-151, 217, 223, 246 Perm 7, 122, 125-126, 170, 172-173, 216 Perm Krai 122, 216 Perm region 18, 121-124, 128-140, 170 Siberia 41, 92, 134, 242 Sverdlovsk 173-174 Tyumen region 216, 218, 222 Ural 19, 122-124, 127, 141, 167, 170 Volga-Ural region 122, 124, 127 scale see memory, scales of memory Second World War see World War II secular 126, 189-194, 197, 200-206 Sierra Leone 13 social groups 19, 45, 102, 188, 197, 207, 217 socialism, socialist 12, 30, 58, 61, 79, 91, 93, 107, 172, 176, 194, 201-202 social movements 55-56, 59, 60-63, 71 Association of Latvian Politically Repressed Persons 243 mourning together 206 national awakening 99, 103, 239 peace mothers 203 socialist movements 202 Third Awakening movement 107, 239 women’s networks 205 Soviet 12, 17-19, 28, 30-37, 39-41, 43, 45-46, 67, 79-83, 85-95, 99-117, 121-127, 129-130, 132-133, 138-139, 150-152, 154, 156, 167, 169, 171-172, 174175, 179-180, 183, 213, 215, 217-218, 222-223, 225, 227, 230-231, 235-236, 238-248 – Army 30, 59, 83, 89, 100, 221, 243-244, 246 – Latvia (Latvian S.S.R.) 18, 107, 115 – occupation 31-32, 37, 39, 43, 45, 83, 90, 100, 154, 156, 235, 239, 241, 245, 247 – regime 28, 30-33, 36, 92, 112, 127, 133, 241, 244, 246 – repressions 105-106, 109-112, 116-117, 239, 241, 243-244 – society 19, 93, 167, 172, 179, 213, 215, 217-218 Soviet Union (USSR) 18, 30, 46, 91-92, 94, 99-100, 102, 105-107, 109-116, 121, 125, 150-152, 156, 168, 170, 172, 176, 179-180, 183, 222, 235, 238-239, 241-242 collapse of the ‒ 30, 105-107, 112-115 victory of the ‒ in World War II 105 Stalinist repressions 19, 40, 167-168, 181, 183 suffering 30, 34, 40-42, 44, 46, 90-91, 94-95, 167-170, 231, 239-241, 244-245 survival strategies in postwar everyday life 19, 217

terrorism 59-60, 197 torture 151, 167, 171, 174-178, 183, 199, 203, 208 trauma 14, 18-19, 32, 44-45, 100, 121-123, 126-130, 132, 135-136, 140, 145, 157-161, 167-174, 179-181, 183, 192, 202, 213-217, 220, 227, 230-231, 242, 244-245 imprisonment ‒ 167-168, 170-171, 183 sociocultural ‒ 18-19, 121, 130, 167-169 Turkey 7, 9, 13, 18-19, 187-196, 198, 200-208 Ankara 193, 201 Diyarbakır (Black Sea region) 193, 201 (206) İstanbul 193, 197, 199, 201, 203, 205-206 İzmir 193, 196, 202-203 Southeast ‒ 206 Trabzon 193, 198, 202, 206-207 Turkey, historical events 1935 general elections 191 1980 coup d’état 202-203 February 28 200, 202 Gezi protests 190, 200-202 Hat Law 191 military coups 193, 200 Turkish 19, 125, 187-190, 194, 196, 198-200, 203-204, 206 – modernization 19, 187-188, 190 – Republic 188-189, 193, 204 – secular nationalist women 203 – State 192-193, 198 – women 194, 198, 204 Turks 192, 196, 203, 206, 189 prospective ‒ 192 Ukraine 31, 39, 115 USSR see Soviet Union Venice Biennale 17, 79-81, 88-89, 94 victimhood 17, 41, 44, 79-80, 88-89, 91, 94-95 Victory Day 102, 245 womanhood 189, 202, 204-207 women’s polarized views 188-189, 200 women’s rights 193, 196, 198-202, 206-207, 211 women’s testimonies 197, 203, 207 World War I 105, 247 World War II 12, 18-19, 30, 34, 83, 99-100, 105-107, 109-116, 121, 146, 150, 213-217, 235, 239, 241, 243, 245-248