The scientific work on collecting and studying life stories started in Latvia in late 1980s, and mainly was devoted to creation of a multi-voiced counteraction to Soviet-era history. In this article, a life story and ...The scientific work on collecting and studying life stories started in Latvia in late 1980s, and mainly was devoted to creation of a multi-voiced counteraction to Soviet-era history. In this article, a life story and associated discourse units illustrate not only a point about the speaker, but also about the facts and notions that are common to the post-war Latvia. Post-Soviet society still use to give different accounts of the same facts and of the reasons why they happened. Studying multiform social memories that are forming Latvian collective memory is a way to perceive the processes by which these common-sense notions are constructed. The article demonstrates how to use the life story as a source for local history research and at the same time for people self-awareness research. This article is devoted to the analysis of eye-witnesses＇ （materials gathered from 12 neighboring farmer families） narratives about the post-war reality, comparing the main presumptions of Soviet ideology, existing in Latvia and all other Baltic states, to real life. Provided those presumptions being myths--the term being understood in political science as deceit as a falsifying construct, the author analyses true life stories to show the real danger of intention to exist in some irrational, mythical sphere.展开更多
文摘The scientific work on collecting and studying life stories started in Latvia in late 1980s, and mainly was devoted to creation of a multi-voiced counteraction to Soviet-era history. In this article, a life story and associated discourse units illustrate not only a point about the speaker, but also about the facts and notions that are common to the post-war Latvia. Post-Soviet society still use to give different accounts of the same facts and of the reasons why they happened. Studying multiform social memories that are forming Latvian collective memory is a way to perceive the processes by which these common-sense notions are constructed. The article demonstrates how to use the life story as a source for local history research and at the same time for people self-awareness research. This article is devoted to the analysis of eye-witnesses＇ （materials gathered from 12 neighboring farmer families） narratives about the post-war reality, comparing the main presumptions of Soviet ideology, existing in Latvia and all other Baltic states, to real life. Provided those presumptions being myths--the term being understood in political science as deceit as a falsifying construct, the author analyses true life stories to show the real danger of intention to exist in some irrational, mythical sphere.
