Paper short abstract:

This paper explores alcohol drinking and its related discourses as arenas on which interpretations of history, memory and national identity are negotiated, regenerated and reinforced. Using the Estonian example, we show how these narratives can ground a particular drinking culture.

Paper long abstract:

Alcohol drinking is a potent social practice and an arena for informal identity making. Countries differ by drinking cultures, which are anchored in meaningful local traditions and narratives. Drinking together can serve in socializing group members into particular, sometimes hidden aspects of collective (national) identities. Drinking can also become an expression of that identity, and can then remain a potent justification for a particular style of drinking. This paper draws on a qualitative study about alcohol's role in communal life in Tallinn, capital of Estonia. In eight group discussions with men and women in their workplaces, participants pointed at how much of the culture of drinking is construed and explanatory frameworks formulated around the histories of political and social oppression both in the 20th century and well before. Such reasons were described, especially among men, as playing a major part in restrained national temperament that can fully express and experience both symbolic and personal/psychological freedom only with the help of alcohol. Self-perceived portrait of sober Estonians as reserved was juxtaposed with the hedonistic solution that alcohol offered to such stereotypical national character; yet also construed the drinking practices as more rational than that of the stereotypical other, the Russians. These findings may offer some insight into the cultural mechanisms of persisting public health burden posed by harmful pattern of alcohol use in Estonia and in other post-Soviet settings, especially among men.