Reproducing Identity through Remembering: Cultural Texts on the Late Soviet Period

Abstract

This article explores some of the ways in which memories of the Soviet past shape the identities and creative work of six Estonian intellectuals born in the 1970s. Based on analysis of the four cultural texts they have produced (an exhibition, a feature film, a novel and a documentary) and biographical interviews with them, it is argued that the authors' birth frame has had an impact on how they interpret the late Soviet period. They share discursive practices about this period: mutual interpretative principles, which validate their common experience in discourses. Their experience of living in the Soviet system is limited to their childhood years only. Sharing a kind of reflexive nostalgia about the era, they depict the late Soviet period somewhat ironically, with a touch of cynicism (in their cultural texts as well as in the interviews). Even though they do not oppose the official public discourse of the rupture of Soviet Estonia, they tend to accentuate and value everyday experience, thus contributing to 'normalisation' discourse of the Soviet period in Estonian memory landscapes. Childhood experiences of the late Soviet period constitute an integral part of these intellectuals' identities. By reproducing their identity in their cultural texts, they have a potential to deepen the memory templates already existing in public memory discourse, and also to contribute to the addition of new discourses and influencing the identity of others in society. This article aims to discuss in what ways memories of the Soviet past can shape the identities of intellectuals and their cultural texts. Our special interest is dedicated to six intellectuals born in Estonia in the 1970s and their cultural texts that deal with the Soviet past in one way or the other. We argue that the fact that people were born in a certain time frame (the 1970s) has influenced the way the Soviet past is understood and represented. People born during the same period can share similar discursive practices (Corsten 1999). Relying on biographical interviews of the authors of four different cultural texts, we offer one possible interpretation of Soviet memories. We aim to point out the tem- plates and constructions that this generation uses in describing their childhood