Paper short abstract:

This paper engages with the intergenerational legacy of the Russian emigration to Sweden in the 1920s. The focus of the article lies in postmemories, that is, in how fragmentary memories of emigration still affect the lives and identities of their descendants three generations later.

Paper long abstract:

This paper focuses on the afterlife of the Russian’s emigration to Sweden three generations later. The Russian refugees who fled to Sweden in the 1920s after the Russian revolutions tried to blend into the background. They did not organize themselves to the same extent as the Russian cultural elite who emigrated to Paris or Berlin and their experiences seem forgotten forever. But what is left of their experiences within their family circles?

This paper engages with Russian emigrants’ intergenerational legacies through a narrative-analytical approach. By interviewing grandchildren of Russian refugees from the 1920s (now 60-year-old adults!), the paper investigates the meaning attributed to emigration three generations later. Are grandchildren affected by the emigration of their grandparents? What place does their Russian background have in their current life? What remains of the experience of exile three generations later? What anecdotes do they remember? What non-textual practices, such as gestures, traditions do they carry with them?

The focus of the article thus lies in postmemories, that is, in the fragmentary memories of the third generation. Although Russian refugees kept quiet about their past, the Russian intangible heritage was transferred in one way or another to their next of kin. The article aims to analyze how the Russian past still shapes the lives and identities of their descendants.