Abstract
Totalitarian regimes attempt to restrict and control virtually every aspect of human life. Interestingly, conscious reflection on disciplinary practises takes up only a small part of the life-stories of interviewed Lithuanians, as far as the memory of the post-Stalin era is concerned. The interviews that form the foundation for this paper were conducted during the summer of 2017 in three different districts in Lithuania. The article aims to answer the following two research questions:1) Which mechanisms of discipline did people recognize and reflect upon?2) How were disciplinary actions remembered and described?According to interviews, tangible individuals filled the role of disciplinarians in schools and workplaces. In addition, the responsibility for discipline and control lies within the imperceptible disciplinarian, supplemented by the invisible discipline of the collective. This led to overwhelming uncertainty in the society, where people invoked intuition and interpretations of who is trustworthy to adapt to uncertain situations. The greatest impact of the totalitarian discipline was that people effectively internalized it and consequently became their own most significant disciplinarians.
Highlights
Totalitarian regimes attempted to restrict and control virtually every aspect of human life
The memory of the inescapable and hostile Soviet regime in Lithuania (Čepaitienė, 2007), which interrupted the normal development of society (Žilinskienė, 2014, pp. 8), dominated public discourse for a long time
The analysis primarily focuses on the everyday lives of Lithuanians rather than dissidence, resistance, or deliberate acts of protests
Summary
Totalitarian regimes attempted to restrict and control virtually every aspect of human life. The extensive social control of people’s thinking and behaviour eventually replaced the measures of terror after Stalin’s death. During and after the collapse of the Soviet regime, a memory discourse of cultural trauma came to the foreground (Aareaid-Tart 2004). The memory of the inescapable and hostile Soviet regime in Lithuania (Čepaitienė, 2007), which interrupted the normal development of society 8), dominated public discourse for a long time. Memories of Discipline in Soviet Lithuania: Stories in Oral History
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
