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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Between improvisation and inevitability: former Latvian officials’ memoirs of the Soviet era

Mārtiņš Kaprāns

subject

Cultural StudiesImprovisation05 social sciencesMedia studiesLatvianIdentity (social science)050109 social psychologylanguage.human_language0506 political scienceRepresentation (politics)Arts and Humanities (miscellaneous)MemoirSocial representationLaw050602 political science & public administrationlanguage0501 psychology and cognitive sciencesNarrativeSociologySocial identity theory

description

ABSTRACTThis article deals with the autobiographies of former Soviet officials that have been published in Latvia since the 1990s. In particular, it focuses on three interrelated layers of biographical narrative: construction of social identity, strategies for avoiding the stigmatization of collaboration, and comparisons between the Soviet and post-Soviet experience. The article contends that former officials in their memoirs use a pragmatic representation of the Soviet past as the major locus of their positive identity. Through this genuine representation of the past, autobiographers emphasize virtues that might be accepted by a post-Soviet neoliberal society.

yearjournalcountryeditionlanguage
2016-10-01Journal of Baltic Studies
https://doi.org/10.1080/01629778.2016.1248687