Paper Short Abstract:

Drawing from the analysis of oral histories on the intergenerational mediation of memories of Stalinist repression in Finland, this paper aims to unwrite the dominant trauma narrative within memory studies and asks how violent pasts could be studied beyond it.

Paper Abstract:

Recent critiques within the field of cultural memory studies have challenged the dominant focus on the study of difficult and traumatic pasts, by pointing to the urgency of studying also joyful and positive memories (Sindbæk Andersen & Ortner 2019). Taking this discussion as the starting point yet arguing for the need to continue studying difficult pasts, this paper aims to unwrite the dominant trauma narrative and asks how violent pasts could be studied beyond it. Drawing on the analysis of oral history interviews, recorded and archived in the Memories of the Stalinist repression -project (2021−2022) by Finnish Literature Society, my case study focuses on the intergenerational mediation of memories relating to Stalinist repression in Finland. Memory, here, is understood as the interactive and selective process of reconstructing the past, wherein individual and cultural memory are always mutually constitutive. Memories of Soviet terror have been transmitted within families as stories and silences, in many ways speaking of the painful legacies of violent pasts. However, as my tentative analysis suggests, meanings that these events gain are more diverse. Memories of Stalinist repression can also function as a site for constructing and negotiating one’s identity and belonging in relation to and in contrast with (trans)national memory cultures. I argue that a close reading of how the interlocutors position themselves vis-à-vis the dominant discourses on ethnic or national identities and categories of victimhood or perpetratorship, is key to understanding the diverse repercussions of these events for individuals as well as societies at large.