The Testimony of Lives: Narrative and memory in post-Soviet Latvia

by Skultans,Vieda

• ISBN13: 9780415162890
• ISBN10: 0415162890
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 1997-12-22
• Publisher: Routledge

Summary

Vieda Skultans left Latvia as a refugee at the age of six months. In 1990, she returned for the first time. This remarkable book is both a personal account of a homecoming and an anthropology of a people trying to come to terms with its past and to face an uncertain future. Based on more than 100 interviews carried out in the wake of Latvian independence, it gives voice to the stories that could not be told under Soviet rule--stories of dispossession and exile and of ambiguous returns. At the same time it unpicks the process of memory itself, showing how personal memory is shaped by the traditional narratives of national history and culture.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations	viii	(1)
Acknowledgements	ix	(1)
Introduction	x
1 A FAMILY HISTORY	1	(9)
2 A CHRONICLE OF RESEARCH	10	(7)
3 ORDER IN NARRATIVE EXPERIENCE	17	(18)
4 READING LETTERS	35	(12)
5 DESTINY AND THE SHAPING OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY	47	(20)
6 THE EXPROPRIATION OF BIOGRAPHY	67	(16)
7 THE LIVED AND THE REMEMBERED FOREST	83	(19)
8 DAMAGED LIVES, DAMAGED HEALTH	102	(22)
9 MEANINGS LOST AND GAINED	124	(18)
10 HABITABLE IDENTITIES	142	(16)
APPENDIX I: HISTORICAL BEARINGS	158	(22)
APPENDIX II: PRINCIPAL NARRATORS	180	(2)
Notes	182	(17)
Latvian references	199	(2)
Bibliography	201	(11)
Index	212