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ABSTRACT
This article focuses on the generational self-understanding of women born in the 1940s in Estonia. Their self-understanding is analyzed through nostalgia and private–public remembering and is based on 21 life stories. The life stories primarily focus on the everyday experiences from the late socialism era. These women are more likely to give examples not in accordance with dominant national discourse, and their voice has not been heard in the public discourse. The article shows that experiences from the private sphere also have an influence on the formation of generational consciousness.
Acknowledgments
This research was supported, in its various stages, by the Estonian Science Foundation (Grant 8190 and 9130), by the institutional research funding IUT34-32 of the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, and by the European Union through its European Regional Development Fund (Centre of Excellence of Cultural Theory). I want to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions on earlier drafts of this article and Ene Kõresaar and Ene-Reet Soovik for their suggestions at the final stage of writing.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. This is a quote from Romain Rolland’s novel Colas Breugnon that has actually been used by other groups of life storywriters (e.g. by Siberian survivors, see Kirss Citation2005, 34). I would like to thank Aigi Rahi-Tamm, who directed me to this source.
2. On the discourse of the long rupture, see Kõresaar (Citation2005).
3. We have analyzed the dynamic of the meaning of the ‘mature or late socialism: in Estonian post-Soviet memory culture, within which we also looked at generational differences and where the 1940s served as an example (see Jõesalu and Kõresaar Citation2013). Here, I will broaden my argument, giving a detailed overview of women born in the 1940s.
4. On nostalgia in an Estonian context, see Grünberg (Citation2008), Kõresaar (Citation2008), Jõesalu and Kõresaar (Citation2013), Jõesalu and Nugin (Citation2012).
5. I am relying here on the observations made by Daphne Berdahl, who described nostalgia, which began to appear in East Germany in the first half of the 1990s, as a kind of counter-memory to the hegemonic western discourse about the communist past (Berdahl and Bunzl Citation2010, 55–56).
6. He relies here on the broad research in generational studies, especially that conducted in Germany, for example, Bude (Citation1987, Citation1995), Reulecke and Müller-Luckner (Citation2003). Mannheim’s initial work was published in 1923 in the essay ‘The Problem of Generations,’ which gained recognition after World War II, and has been very influential in the research on generations ever since.
7. Silies analyzed the ‘Silent Generation’ through the example of the use of the pill by women born in the 1940s (Silies Citation2007, Citation2009). It should be stressed here that the everyday (bodily) – experiences of women in Western Europe and those from the same cohort in Soviet Estonia were different. In this context, see a very interesting collection of articles on the topic of gender and generation edited by Sokolová and Kolářová (Citation2007).
8. In the example of East Germany for those who were born in 1949 – the founding year of the German Democratic Republic (GDR) – no generational consciousness has formed in the political sense, although the possibility for that through a political event – the building of the Berlin Wall – was present. (Weisbrod Citation2007; Wierling Citation2002).
9. Mary Fulbrook noticed that those who were ‘born into’ and grew up in East Germany had not questioned the East German reality (Fulbrook Citation2011, 358).
10. Aside from the collection of Cultural History Archives at the Literary Museum, another collection, consisting of thematic written narratives, is stored at the Estonian National Museum.
11. One example, however, is Jaago (Citation2008).
12. I have also read other life stories that have been sent to the Cultural History Archives since the beginning of the twenty-first century by women born in the 1940s. The campaigns organized during the first decade of this century were more focused on one topic. Also, responses sent to the Archives concentrate more on remediating memories (sometimes remediating other people’s experiences) about this narrower topic, while life history remains in the background (e.g. life-writing campaigns such as ‘The Impact of War in My Life and in Our Family Life’ (Sõja mõjud minu ja meie pere elus), ‘Life during the German Time’ (Elu Saksa ajal), ‘My Life and the Life of My Next of Kin in a Changed Landscape’ (Minu ja minu lähedaste elu keset muutunud ümbrust) ‘Societies in My Life’ (Seltsid minu elus)). Some narrators have sent their stories repeatedly, in response to various campaigns.
13. While unemployment benefit was 400 Estonian Kroons (approximately €25) per month in 1999, the average pension was approximately 1550 Kroons (99€).
14. Partisans, known in Estonia and in other Baltic States as Forest Brothers, fought against Soviet power in the woods and villages after World War II. In the historiography of the 1990s they have been attributed a special place as freedom fighters.
15. Aarelaid-Tart (b. 1947) starts her article with two recollections from her childhood, where she reminiscences about her fear of the partisans, and her understanding of what ‘kulak’ meant. She has provocatively titled this part of her article ‘of my memory and historical truth’ (Aarelaid-Tart Citation2012a).
16. It is also true that many women worked in the domestic sphere in Estonia during the 1930s; being a working mother is more the experience of the narrators themselves. According to the law from 1932, it was forbidden for women to work for the state or local government, or in schools, if their husband was employed by the state (Pihlamägi Citation2006, 134). I do not have any statistics about the employment rate of women before the Soviet era (which is not my purpose here), but the topic of public–private relationship does comes up in the narratives, especially in the stories of those born in the 1940s.
17. Eesti ajal – During the Estonian Time – refers here to the Estonian Republic before World War II, 1918–1940.
18. On nostalgia as a mode of facilitating continuity see Sedikides, et al. (Citation2008), Wilson (Citation2005).
19. Life-continuity is a notion used in life story and biographical research, ‘One crucial process is autobiographical memory: I remember being me. A central function of autobiographical memory is to help individuals to maintain self-continuity’ (see more in Bluck and Alea Citation2008).
20. In a similar way, a man born in 1947 generalizes his own postwar experience of poor living conditions into an experience common for the whole generation: ‘There is nothing special to remember from my childhood. It was the postwar era, and this definitely left its mark’. I have sometimes joked with my peers that since the war veterans during the Russian time were made into a nice privileged class, with all kinds of special benefits, then why shouldn’t we, the postwar generation, raise our heads now and demand some preferences and benefits for ourselves, because we grew up in such difficult circumstances, which left their mark (Koit, b. in 1947, ERE III, 240).
21. In many stories, it is stressed that the majority of the teachers at primary school level were from the previous system.
22. On the ‘double burden’ of Soviet women, see for example, Lapidus (Citation1978).
23. Aleida Assmann underlined in a lecture that until the 1980s, the time regime was focused on the future in Western societies; since then, the time regime shifted toward the past (Aleida Assmann in public lecture Theories of Cultural Memory and the Concept of ‘Afterlife,’ 2 November 2012, at Tallinn University, see also Huyssen Citation2000).
24. VTK here means compulsory norms in physical education in Soviet society. The abbreviation VTK stands for ‘Ready for Work and Defence!’ (‘Valmis tööks ja kaitseks!’).
25. On the ‘1968’ generation and oral history, see Hajek (Citation2013); on 1968 in the German space, see for example, Bude (Citation1995).
26. In the cultural sphere, texts dealing with the ‘hard’ past are not entirely absent (e.g. novels by Ene Mihkelson, b. in 1944, see on ‘Duty of Remembering’ in Sakova Citation2010).
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Kirsti Jõesalu
Kirsti Jõesalu is a researcher at the University of Tartu. She is currently completing her PhD thesis on remembering ‘mature socialism.’ Her main fields of research are the social memory of socialism, study of socialist everyday life, and oral history. She has published in several journals on remembering socialism.