The construction of continuous self in the life stories of former Soviet officials in Lithuania

ABSTRACT

This article explores the discursive strategies of representation of potentially stigmatized Soviet era experience and its integration into a coherent construct of positive self as shaped in contemporary discursive contexts of Lithuanian memory culture. The critical moral reflection of potentially stigmatized Soviet era experience in the life stories of Lithuanian former Soviet officials is explored as a different strategy to the ‘pragmatic’ normalizations strategy of representation of this experience and integration of it into positive image of present self.

KEYWORDS:

• Life story
• identity
• normalization
• Lithuania

Acknowledgments

I am very grateful to Ene Kõresaar for her thoughtful critiques and suggestions. I would also like to thank Martins Kaprans, Raili Nugin, and the three anonymous reviewers for their valuable remarks and comments. Translated by Diana Andrejevienė.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. According to Foucault, some discourses are hegemonic and so rooted that they are invisible, taken for granted, and not scrutinized (Foucault 1998, 12–15).

2. Transitional justice is ‘the full range of processes and mechanisms associated with a society’s attempt to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses, in order to ensure accountability, serve justice and achieve reconciliation.’ (UNSG 2010):

3. Hegemonic anti-Soviet discourse is created and supported not only by the right wing political elite; the post-Soviet public includes many former dissidents and political prisoners, many intellectuals and the younger generation, as well as the new elite, among others (Klumbytė 2009, 95).

4. This collection of autobiographies can be found at the Department of Sociology, Vilnius University.

5. The limits of the cohort generations used in the analysis have been defined by the sociologist Sigita Kraniauskienė on the basis of empirical biographical research of generations’ identity and the classical theory of ‘political generations’ by Karl Mannheim (Kraniauskienė 2004). Similar generational limits have also been identified by the Estonian sociologist Aili Aarelaid-Tart, comparing the Estonian political and historical timeframe (which is comparable to Lithuania) and the calendar lifetime of a generation. The only difference is that in case of Estonia the Republican and Stalinist Generations include only people born before the Soviet time (1920–1939) (Aarelaid-Tart 2006, 29; Johnston and Aarelaid-Tart 2006).

6. The sample did not include the life stories of people whose activities during the Soviet period could be attributed to ‘activist conformism’ activities, which the scholars described as a lower level of political conformism; it covers all the items listed above in the definition of conformist activities, except working at the institutional power positions (Klumbys 2009, 55–56). The activist conformism in the form of the Communist Party membership is mentioned most often in the life stories. During the late Soviet period the overall level of public conformism was increasing and the distinction between the activist conformists and the rest of the society remained but still was gradually weakening. With respect to the party membership the ‘most important distinction, us – them was drawn between communists who were close to the power centres and those who were at a distance from them’ (Klumbys 2009, 56), ‘belonging to the Communist Party even if condemned, was not considered as betrayal, but as careerism’ (Klumbys 2004, 24) and in the post-Soviet discourses was generally not stigmatized. Therefore, the life stories of the ‘ordinary communists’ or the ones who otherwise participated in the ‘activist conformism’ undertakings, but did not have higher institutional positions have not been incorporated into the sample.

7. Characterizations of other persons in the life story usually tally with the narrator’s self-characterizations – either as direct opposites or as positive identifications (Andrle 2000, 219).

8. Sąjūdis is the political organization which led the struggle for Lithuanian independence in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

9. In the study conducted in 2001–2002, the memory of Stalinist period among representatives of older generation in local communties of Lithuanian periphery was investigated. The aim of the study was to identify the interpretative patterns of reminiscing of this period and attitudes toward the moral issues of ‘memory work’ among three groups of representatives of the older generation with different biographical experiences: The formerly repressed people, the people related to the execution of repressions (members of repressive structures or family members of the same generation), and ‘ordinary’ people not connected directly to both groups. Some former members of the repressive structures totally refused to tell their life stories, some used to omit this period or denied their belonging to the structures. Those who recognized their participation refused to speak about it in detail.

10. In Lithuania the ‘istrebitel’ battalions were organized in 1944 and in 1945 and renamed as ‘liaudies gynėjai’ – ‘defenders of people’; they primarily participated in NKVD operations against partisans and in carrying out deportations.

Additional information

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Irena Šutinienė

Irena Šutinienė works as a researcher in the Institute of Sociology at the Lithuanian Social Research Centre. Her areas of interest include social memory, national and ethnic identity, and biographical research.