1st Edition

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

By Vieda Skultans Copyright 1998
    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    240 Pages
    by Routledge

    Vieda Skultans left Latvia as a refugee at the age of six months. In 1990, she returned for the first time. This text 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 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.

    Introduction 1 A FAMILY HISTORY 2 A CHRONICLE OF RESEARCH 3 ORDER IN NARRATIVE EXPERIENCE 4 READING LETTERS 5 DESTINY AND THE SHAPING OF AUTOBIOGRAPHY 6 THE EXPROPRIATION OF BIOGRAPHY 7 THE LIVED AND THE REMEMBERED FOREST 8 DAMAGED LIVES, DAMAGED HEALTH 9 MEANINGS LOST AND GAINED 10 HABITABLE IDENTITIES

    Biography

    Vieda Skultans is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Bristol.

    'A beautifully written living history' - The Irish Independent