Културата на спомена за Втората световна война в житейските истории на естонците от постсъветския период: за логиката на сравнението между съветска...
The Culture of Remembrance of the Second World War in Estonian Post-Soviet Life Stories: Concerning the Logic of the Comparison Between Soviet and ...

Summary/Abstract: The Culture of Remembrance of the Second World War in Estonian Post-Soviet Life Stories: Concerning the Logic of the Comparison Between Soviet and Nazi Occupation // My analysis is centered on the cultural logic of remembering in the life histories written by Estonians of the older generation in the years 1989-1999. The main thesis of the article is that the culture of remembering the Soviet occupation is a kind of a “filter”, through which a meaning is given to all other periods in the 20th century Estonia. More specifically, in the role of the memory filter I see the period of the Stalinist regime, the narrative strategies of remembering of which substantially differ from the remembering of the later Soviet period. By filter I mean that around certain events definite cultural categories and repertoire are developed, which express the key experience related with the event. These categories have a key role in shaping the narrative time and thereby also the understanding of the past and present reality in the life stories and more generally in the society. In my interpretation in the 1990s the culture of remembering the recent past by Estonians concentrated around the main category of purity, and it was expressed in problematising the true and the false, the own and the alien. From this emerged the conflict between the Soviet and the national(ist) approach to history that actualised at the end of the 1980s. The experience of the Second World War, especially the Soviet occupation(s) is in the core of the national narratives of Estonians of the 20th century. However, the ethnic repertoire and the interpretation categories that were formed in the course of interpreting this experience have a wider cultural and social bearing: they transcend the borders of a specific event and the related experience and shape the way the whole 20th century is interpreted during the first post-Soviet decade.

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