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A collection of 26 posts

Emotions and political regimes

author: Monika Verbalytė, Jogilė Ulinskaitė

Emotions and political regimes

Considering the recent challenges to democracies in Europe and beyond, the issues of regime stability and change have become more important than ever. In this chapter, we argue that these issues cannot be addressed without considering the emotions prevalent in that regime. We define political regime as a formal and

Emotions in a Time of Radical Change: Untangling Narratives of Pride and Achievements in Post-1989/1991 Lithuania and East Germany

author: Jogilė Ulinskaitė, Till Hilmar, Monika Verbalytė

Emotions in a Time of Radical Change: Untangling Narratives of Pride and Achievements in Post-1989/1991 Lithuania and East Germany

In times of major change, people reassess what is a valuable and, therefore, prideful achievement in the context of a new societal structure and culture. Our article challenges the traditional view of achievements and pride as purely individual experiences, arguing that pride has social and cultural sources and modes of

Behind the Saying “Landsbergis Destroyed the Collective Farms”: Transformation of Agriculture from the Perspective of Cultural Trauma Narrative

author: Valda Budreckaitė

Behind the Saying “Landsbergis Destroyed the Collective Farms”: Transformation of Agriculture from the Perspective of Cultural Trauma Narrative

This article explores what is told about the supposed “collapse” of the collective farms in Lithuania, how is the negative connotation explained, and how is it attuned to the negative understanding of collectivization and collective farms in general. Relying on the theoretical literature dedicated to narrative and trauma, a scheme

The life and death of courtyards in Soviet-era mass construction districts

author: Skirmantė Sakalauskaitė, Rokas Linkevičius, Agnė Greimaitė, Nikita Ščiupakov

The life and death of courtyards in Soviet-era mass construction districts

To this day, the majority of people in Lithuania's cities still live in Soviet-era apartment buildings. Built around the same time 40-60 years ago, all of them, scattered across Lithuania, have similar problems: they require more and more maintenance over time due to the use of poor-quality materials,

A trip to Soviet-era Vilnius with the 7th trolleybus

author: Mantas Vilčinskas, Ada Balčiūnaitė, Jovita Suchodimcovaitė, Vėtra Dubinskaitė

A trip to Soviet-era Vilnius with the 7th trolleybus

A lot has been written about Vilnius in a so-called "top down” matter, meanwhile there are few interviews with citizens of Vilnius who have been living here since the Soviet era whose thoughts about the city have either remained unexpressed, unheard and therefore – lost to history – even though the

The Collapse of Communism as the End of the Modernity Project? Post-Soviet Transformation Narratives of the Lithuanian Population

author: Ainė Ramonaitė, Paulius Vijeikis

The Collapse of Communism as the End of the Modernity Project? Post-Soviet Transformation Narratives of the Lithuanian Population

The article analyses how Lithuanian inhabitants remember and assess the post-communist transformation and searches for the narratives that can be interpreted through the lens of modernization theories. The paper draws on a dataset of 43 biographical interviews collected in 2021 in Panevėžys city and Panevėžys district. Employing the method of

"Dainos teatras": (mis)understood resistance

author: Ieva Sinkevičiūtė, Rytis Stankevičius, Elžbieta Žutautaitė

"Dainos teatras": (mis)understood resistance

When it comes to the activities of Lithuanian musical bands during the last years of the Soviet occupation, we mostly remember groups like “Antis”, “BIX”, or “Foje”. However, the band “Dainos teatras”, founded by Vytautas Kernagis in 1985, is undeservedly sidelined, as it was a significant part of the anti-Soviet

Seller's experiences in the Soviet era

author: Aleksandra Joana Kotenkova, Karolina Jočytė, Ričardas Rugienius

Seller's experiences in the Soviet era

In this work, getting acquainted with the work of salespeople during the period of Soviet occupation, we seek to look at the life of the individual in a regime based on collectivism and to capture hitherto poorly discussed aspects of the deficit economy – control over the work of sellers and

Something So Very Real

author: Ainė Ramonaitė, Jūratė Kavaliauskaitė, Valdemaras Klumbys

Something So Very Real

In "Something So Very Real. Stories of Disobedient Society in Soviet Lithuania" readers will find twenty-five gripping narratives - the life stories of people who lived a different life than the majority of society during the Soviet era. These are the stories of contemporaries who were not caught

Being a teenager in the gariūnmetis era: jeans, cassettes and the chaotic freedom

category:students work

Being a teenager in the gariūnmetis era: jeans, cassettes and the chaotic freedom

In this project, the experiences of teenagers of gariūnmetis era (it is the first decade of an independent Lithuania, named after a famous market place near Vilnius called Gariūnai) are being analyzed by overviewing three different sections: appearance, culture and innovations, and relationship with others. Teenagers of gariūnmetis era were

Reality of sexuality in the late Soviet era

author: Gabrielė Galinytė, Geta Bylaitė, Rugilė Zmitrevičiūtė

Reality of sexuality in the late Soviet era

While sexuality topics are nowadays increasing popular in the public sphere, Lithuanian society still face taboo. Our project invites you to take a deeper look at this problem by revealing how sexuality questions were communicated in the late Soviet era in both public and private spheres and how socialization affected

Politics through sports in the USSR: experiences of athletes

author: Lina Surgėlaitė, Vilius Mickūnas, Gintė Sprogytė

Politics through sports in the USSR: experiences of athletes

This project seeks to find out, through the memories of the informants, how did the USSR carry out politics through sports - athletics. The study set out to examine athletes: what it meant for them to be an athlete in the USSR, what conditions and opportunities were given to athletes,

Emphasized, Unspoken, Justified

author:Liucija Vervečkienė

Emphasized, Unspoken, Justified

In order to understand why the Soviet past is remembered differently, 25 narratives of nine Lithuanian families (parents, grandparents, and grandchildren) were analyzed. The applied theoretical assumption about the “generational effect” on memory: an “interpretative framework” gained during adolescence or early adulthood has an impact on the way we think

Legendary hub of underground activities - the house of Julija Kuodytė

author:Julita Slipkauskaitė, Ainė Ramonaitė

Legendary hub of underground activities - the house of Julija Kuodytė

Krishna Consciousness in Soviet Lithuania

author:Gabrielė Blikertaitė, Viktorija Paškauskaitė, Viltė Pukinaitė

Krishna Consciousness in Soviet Lithuania

Although there are a lot of talks about the catholic Church and its Chronicles’ secret activities, the experiences of unconventional religious communities during Soviet regime times are not so popular among scholars and journalists. International society of Krishna Consciousness in Lithuania was officially founded in 1989, despite that the first

Experiences in pioneer camps

author:Enrika Savickaitė, Karina Merkelytė, Girstautė Viliūnaitė

Experiences in pioneer camps

This project is about the experiences of Lithuanians in pioneer camps in Lithuania and in an all-union camp Artek. Camps may have been an innocent experience in a child’s developing worldview, but everything was built on a strong ideological foundation. This project explores the individual experiences and memories of

Being Outside the System

Being Outside the System

Algirdas Patackas. Apie buvimą už sistemos ribų [https://vimeo.com/355953818] from (Post)Soviet Memory Studies [https://vimeo.com/postsovstudies] on Vimeo [https://vimeo.com].

Mental Health in the Soviet Era – Psychiatric Hospitals, Dispensers, Moscow's influence and Human Rights Violations

author:Gabija Strumylaitė

Mental Health in the Soviet Era – Psychiatric Hospitals, Dispensers, Moscow's influence and Human Rights Violations

Though more and more often we talk about emotional health and its importance in a full-fledged life, till nowadays we still flinch while hearing about mental illnesses or psychiatrists. This attitude is partly formed by the Soviet Era when the government was trying to convince people that all psychosocial problems

Little capitalists and voucher privatization

author:Kristina Eidikytė, Ieva Padolskytė, Paulius Vijeikis

Little capitalists and voucher privatization

In the newly restored post-soviet Lithuania, a very important part of economic reforms was privatization of state-owned property. In the first part of this process, free investment vouchers had been given to all citizens born before 1990. From 1991 to 1995 these one-time payments allowed people to privatize flats and

Oral History as a Method for Studying Soviet Era

author:Inga Vinogradnaitė et al.

Oral History as a Method for Studying Soviet Era

This book raises questions of how to create a good source of Soviet oral history, how to prepare it for the archive, and how to analyse it. The publication discusses the essence, assumptions and validity of the oral history method, reviews the discussions of what is a good oral history

Culture of urban Lithuanian youth in the early years of states’ independence

author:Laurynas Gerdauskis, Fausta Mikutaitė

Culture of urban Lithuanian youth in the early years of states’ independence

In the wake of great political changes and turmoil during the late 80‘s, the youth in the newly independent post-soviet states have been exposed to previously unimagined amounts of western media. This led to an increase in subcultures, (punks, goths, metalheads, etc.) which had one defining characteristic that united

Vilnius Old Believers' Community - Experiences in the Soviet Period and Today

author:Beatričė Narbutaitė

Vilnius Old Believers' Community - Experiences in the Soviet Period and Today

Vilnius district of Naujininkai is a relatively small, little explored and a truly contrastive neighbourhood, containing the whole range of unchanged architecture since the last century, its social layers with their issues, its railway and most interestingly its communities. Its contrasts and frequent associations with impoverishment were the main reasons

The fate of collective gardening

author:Gabrielius Lapinskas, Viktoras Urbis

The fate of collective gardening

This anthropology project focuses on the phenomenon of the collective gardening in the soviet and post-soviet eras. To grasp the essence of what those gardener communities were like and what they have become nowadays, authors conducted three in-depth interviews with owners or ex-owners of the collective gardening allotments, showing how

Exiles: integration during the Soviet era and political attitudes

author:Justina Žutautaitė, Karolina Jocytė

Exiles: integration during the Soviet era and political attitudes

This project examines the integration of former exiles and their children in Soviet Lithuania. Three in-depth interviews with respondents who experienced deportation as children allow to compare their personal statements with the widespread narrative regarding the unfavourable status of deportees. It is particularly interesting that the interviewees graduated from university

Searching for the Origins of Sąjūdis

author:Jūratė Kavaliauskaitė, Ainė Ramonaitė

Searching for the Origins of Sąjūdis

The book takes a new look at the history of the birth of the Sąjūdis and seeks to address the dilemma of how a well-organized and effective social movement of several hundred thousand members could have been formed in a supposedly passive and conformist Soviet society. The book discloses the