Cultural Traume and Collectice Memory in a Contemporary Lithuanian Novel: Action, Interaction, Reaction

• Autores: Nerijus Brazauskas
• Localización: Ruptured Voices: Trauma and Recovery / coord. por Karen O´Donnell, 2019, ISBN 978-1-84888-372-7, págs. 25-38
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The main aim of this chapter is to research cultural trauma and collective memory in contemporary Lithuanian novel, reflecting collective representations and memories as discourses of social suffering and living / historical experiences. The hypothesis of the research: a construction of cultural trauma is grounded on the different representations of historical and present suffering of others which depend on changeable treatments of history, memory and identity. The aim defines the main problem of this research: where is the boundary between the real processes by which collectivity becomes traumatized and the creative processes by which the traumatized collectivity becomes a narrativised trauma? The methodological background – both theory of the cultural trauma of Jeffrey C. Alexander and Arthur G. Neal’s conception of collective memory – are the instruments which enable us to treat the mentioned topic and to formulate three strategies of representations. The action strategy: the confessional construction of the cultural trauma with a living framework, a rejected collective memory and an individual identity is the first strategy. The novels by M. Areima, A. Fomina etc. show the work as a fundamental action which represents a lost identity as a cultural trauma. The interaction strategy: the polemical construction of the cultural trauma with an intercultural framework, an alien collective memory and double identity is the second strategy. The novels by B. Jonuškaitė, V. Papievis etc. show a complex interaction between the different cultures and identities which revealed cultural identity as a cultural trauma. The reaction strategy: the reflexive construction of the cultural trauma with a historical framework, collective memory and collective identity is the third strategy. The novels by R. Gavelis, S. Parulskis etc. show a creative and critical reflection which allows to consider the Soviet society as a cultural trauma. Cultural trauma and collective memory are temporal and reflexive phenomena.