A Time Ignored? About the Role of the Soviet Period in Biographies of Older Estonians

Authors

• Ene Kõresaar, MA, Lecturer University of Tartu
• Kait Realo

Keywords:

life story, memory, oral history, generational identity

Abstract

The current article was prompted by an impression I had from reading the life stories of older Estonians (born in the 1920s) in the Estonian Cultural Historical Archives of the Estonian Literary Museum. 1989 - 1999 the former and the Estonian Biography-Researchers' Society Estonian Life Histories have collected over 1000 written biographies as a result of advertisements in the press. As a member of the Society I was interested in the problem of the role of historical events and periods in the construction of individual biographies and making sense of one's life. On this purpose I studied over 50 written life stories of elderly Estonians sent to the Estonian Literary Museum in 1989 - 1990 and 1997 - 1998.