Guardians of Living History: An Ethnography of Post-Soviet Memory Making in Estonia interrogates how people living in a society with an extremely complicated, violent past, only a short history of independence, and a desire to belong to Europe engage with the past, both within their families and as members of a national community. In line with other scholarship on memory, this book shows that many Estonians desire an established collective story, as they live in a society where their national identity is quite regularly under threat. At the same time however, that same closure is perceived to pose a threat to the survival of Estonian culture and independence. Guardians of Living History provides an intimate insight into the lives of Estonians from the countryside, former deportees, young intellectuals, and memory activists, who all in their own ways act as guardians of a national history: a history which they wish to keep alive, apolitical, and as close to their family stories as possible.
- Cover
- Table of Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Preface
- Introduction: Persisting Pasts in the Margins of Europe
- The ghosts of the past
- Context of my fieldwork: insecurity in the margins of Europe
- Anthropology of post-communist remembering
- Estonia within the post-socialist world
- The research setting
- Getting acquainted with my informants
- Gathering the data: research methods and decisions
- Anthropological reflection
- Surveys
- Structure of the book
- Part 1. The Making of Estonian History
- 1. Making an Emotional ‘History of the People’
- Making national history
- Historians making history
- Political elites making history
- Cultural elites making history
- The agents of Estonian history
- 1860s–1930s: The National Awakening – intellectuals writing an Estonian story
- 1918–1939: The foundation of the Republic of Estonia – spreading the story through state formation
- 1939–1991: Official and unofficial memory work under Soviet repression
- Post-1991: The restoration of independence
- Late 1990s–2004: The comeback of counter-stories
- Since 2004: Post-accession ‘democratic backsliding’
- Concluding remarks
- Part 2. The Meaning of Closure
- 2. On the Margins of History: Good Old Soviet Times
- A political taboo on ‘normal’ life in Soviet Estonia
- The reception of the rupture narrative and Soviet nostalgia
- Positive Soviet evaluations in contemporary Estonia
- Narrating positively about the Soviet past
- ‘At that time it was just normal’
- Disloyal towards the Estonian state
- Concluding remarks
- 3. Personal Memories Becoming National History
- Personal stories of Soviet repression
- The deportations: losing one’s home
- Life in Soviet Estonia: lost homes and ‘double consciousness’
- Life since the Singing Revolution: returning home
- Collective memory: being represented by one’s compatriots
- ‘Privilege’ of the experienced?
- Defining ‘the experienced’
- Concluding remarks
- 4. Postmemory
- Postmemory, solidarity, and moral obligation
- Estonia’s Singing Revolution and ‘belated postmemory’
- Generation 1935-1955
- Generation 1955-1970
- Generation 1970s
- Generation 1980s
- Moral obligations in Estonian society at large
- ‘The continuation of Estonia depends on every one of us’
- Joining civic organizations
- Commemorating
- Participation in folk culture
- Taking care of the land, the family house, and local stories
- In moments of insecurity: ‘fed with fear through their mother’s milk’
- Moral obligations and individual freedom
- Concluding remarks
- 5. Committed to the Past
- Memory activism as a social movement
- The everyday lives of Tartu’s memory activists
- Meeting Kalev
- Meeting the group of Tartu’s memory activists
- In search of dignity and justice
- Memory activism to provide dignity to their friends
- Memory activism to safeguard Estonian democracy
- Support for the memory activists in the wider society
- Positioning the ‘radicals’
- The moderates as bridge to the wider society
- Concluding remarks
- Part 3. Closure and a Significant Other
- 6. WWII on the Periphery of Europe
- Estonia’s (contested) WWII historiography
- Critical questions from the European family
- The perceived superiority of Western European memories of WWII
- The perceived ambiguity and inferiority of Estonian WWII memories
- Estonian families on both sides of the war
- Ambiguous storylines
- Lack of a clear political stance
- Emotions of insecurity: torn between the past and the future
- Are we fully Europeans?
- European citizens with Estonian duties
- Concluding remarks
- Conclusion
- The vulnerability of storytelling
- A living national history: the ghosts of the past
- Guardians of the past
- Individual and collective acts of preservation
- The paradox of closure
- List of Informants
- Full Reference List
- Figures and Tables
- Figures
- Figure 1 Actors performing at the ‘kolkhoz party’: Communist Party members, kolkhoz leaders, pioneers, folk dancers, 14 May 2011
- Figure 2 ‘I am sad or more sad than happy with the changes of the last ten-twenty years.’
- Figure 3 Positive evaluation of certain aspects in the ESSR3
- Figure 4 View from Tõnis’ and Luule’s kitchen window: Estonian nature and the Estonian flag
- Figure 5 One of Tõnis’ and Luule’s bookshelves, filled with books of important national authors
- Figure 6 Picture I took at the Song Festival in 2009
- Figure 7 Kalev showing his work of that morning, putting temporary plaques on the independence monument
- Figure 8 Kalev’s contribution to the community: preserving interesting TV programmes
- Figure 9 Tartu Peace Treaty meeting near Kuperjanov’s grave, 2 February 2011
- Figure 10 The ‘free microphone’ raising awareness about the violation of the Tartu Peace Treaty, 2 February 2011
- Figure 11 Picketing signs in the city centre at the Tartu Peace Treaty meeting, 2 February 2011
- Tables
- Table 1 Seats of Parliament (Riigikogu)
- Table 2 Evaluation of the changes of Estonia in the last two decades
- Table 3 Positive Soviet evaluation, 2011
- Table 4 ‘There was nothing good about Soviet Estonia that we should miss today’, 2011
- Table 5 Regression analyses of the variable ‘Evaluation of the changes of Estonia in the last two decades’, N=1076
- Table 6 Regression analyses of the variable ‘Positive Soviet evaluation’, N=1076
- Table 7 Regression analysis of the variable ‘There was nothing good about Soviet Estonia, that we should miss today’, N=1076
- Table 8 Property restitution claims in percentage
- Table 9 Was it just to return land to the pre-WWII owners?
- Table 10 People who have been repressed get state support. With which statement do you agree the most?
- Table 11 Q1, importance of concentrating on the Soviet occupation, in percentages. N = 1076
- Table 12 Q2, importance of contemporary commemoration of the Soviet repressions, in percentages. N = 1076
- Table 13 Q3, participation in the celebration of historical days and commemorations in the last year, in percentages. N = 1076
- Table 14 Correlations between question 1, 2, and 3 and several individual characteristics
- Table 15 Participation of close relatives in WWII, N Estonians = 1076, N non-Estonians = 507
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