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Abstract:
This paper examines the remembrance of World War I through the memoirs of Estonian combatants and civilians: those whose memories were selected, solicited or cultivated by the Estonian republic in the period of independence between the two World Wars, and those whose recollections were written down after 1945, either in the West, or, more rarely, in the Estonian homeland. The rapid segue of events from World War I to the Russian Revolution, the declaration of Estonian independence in 1918, and the subsequent War of Independence raises the question: to what extent did these clusters of events blur, overlap, or occlude one another? I will critically investigate the divergence of these memoirs from interpretive templates of World War I memory in terms of the “Great War" (Jay Winter´s studies of World War I memory culture) and the concept of the “Generation of 1914." Finally, I will raise the question of how those Estonian memoirists who lived to remember both World War I and World War II inscribed the relation between these two conflicts and their own patriotism in relation to both.
About the speaker:
Tiina Kirss is Professor of Cultural Theory at Tallinn University. She holds a Ph.D in Comparative Literature from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her main research interests are in memory texts, life-writing, the historical novel, cultural translation, trauma theory, diaspora and feminist studies. She is currently completing a monograph on the problematics of history, memory, and forgetting in the works of Estonian writer Jaan Kross.
Seminar Series:
Inimkond: Current Issues in Anthropology and Beyond
full program at http://www.tlu.ee/en/estonian-institute-of-humanities/Anthropology/inimkond
This seminar series features speakers from anthropology and related fields, and fosters discussion of their research with a transdisciplinary audience. It aims to contribute to the culture of academic scholarship and debate at Tallinn University. Speakers include both local researchers and guests from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds and with various takes on anthropological theory and methods. Presentations in the seminar series will be of interest to staff and students in anthropology, cultural theory, sociology, and history, among others.