Dabarties istorijos paraščių žmonės: atsiminimai apie sovietmetį ir kasdienybės patirtys kaimo bendruomenėse
People at the Margins of History: Remembering Soviet Times and Experiencing Present in Village Communities in Lithuania

Summary/Abstract: Much academic writing about socialism and post-socialism in Eastern Europe is grounded on assumptions that socialism was “immoral”, “imposed”, “oppressive” etc., and was experienced as such by people subjected to socialist governments (c.f. Yurchak 2003). For example, descriptions of the Soviet regime employedbinary contrasts such as “the Party and the people”, “repression and freedom”, “oppression and resistance”, “truth and dissimulation”, “official culture and counter-culture”, “totalitarian language and people’s language”, “public self and private-self” (Yurchak 2003). The memories of Soviet times recorded in three village communities in present day Lithuania constitute a paradox to such conceptualizations of socialism. Furthermore, memories comprise a contradiction to the rhetoric of the revolutions of 1989-1991 founded in the strong criticism of socialism.

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