From Individual to Collective and From Collective to Individual: Exploring Various

Approaches to the Study of Memory Entrepreneurs and the Production of Memory

This is an exploratory paper. Please do not quote.

By Dovile Budryte

Georgia Gwinnett College (USA)

dbudryte@ggc.edu

Prepared for the International Studies Association’s Annual Convention (2012), San Diego

The goal of this ongoing project is to contribute to the literature exploring traumatic

memory in International Relations. The study of memory politics focuses on the construction,

reconstruction and contestation of national identities after collective experiences of trauma.

The proposed project includes the following activities: (1) exploring various theoretical

perspectives on traumatic memory and its construction in general, and “agents of memory” or

memory entrepreneurs (political actors who invoke memories for political gain) in particular, in

various fields—International Relations, Psychology, Anthropology and Sociology; (2) analyzing

the role of memory entrepreneurs in the construction of memory regimes (common ways in

which traumatic memory is used in national and international politics); and (3) exploring the

strategies and rhetoric of “agents of memory” in less known cultural contexts. It is hypothesized

that by focusing on agents of memory it is possible to explore how individual and collective

memories converge, and how different types of memory “translate” into action, thus bringing

about political and social change.

Introduction

Recent works on memory in International Relations highlight the relationship between

traumatic memory and power, thus revealing the crucial importance of agents with power in

memory politics. For example, Jan-Werner Müller (2002) argues that memory “shapes power

constellations” and is capable of both constraining and enabling government policies. Maja

Zehfuss (2007) demonstrates how the invocation of traumatic memory about World War II in

Germany plays a role in policy discussions, being used to argue both for and against the

country’s involvement in peacekeeping missions. Jenny Edkins (2003) suggests that

remembering is “intensely political” and shows how hegemonic power can control and subdue

memory. These seminal works raise questions about the production of memory, understood

(following Edkins 2003) as a social performative practice with political and social implications.

How does the process of memory production take place? Who takes part in this process, where,

when and how?

This line of thinking has developed certain ways of analyzing issues in International

Relations. By focusing on trauma and memory, it is possible to investigate significant changes in

power structures following traumatic events such as the two World Wars, the Holocaust, wars of

resistance, and systemic political changes (for example, the disintegration of the former Soviet

Union). Invocations of traumatic memories can stir up collective sentiments, serve as a powerful

political instrument to achieve power and legitimatize a certain political agenda. Therefore, it is

crucially important to understand memory politics by documenting specific instances of memory

invocation (that is, who is invoking memories about traumatic events in the past? why? how?),

analyzing relevant political rhetoric and exploring the biographies of memory agents (political

activists who invoke memories to achieve political gain).

The gender dimension of memory production and as a variable which affects political

activism is seriously understudied. Do women entrepreneurs of memory engage in different

activities in memory politics? Do they use a different discourse and different strategies to

achieve their goals? Are their messages related to memory politics perceived differently than

those delivered by men?

There is little research done on the international dimensions of the processes related to

the construction of historical memory, such as the international actions of memory entrepreneurs

(except perhaps for the studies exploring the emergence of “universal” or global memory based

on the Holocaust). How and why are certain political actors able to “sell” their version(s) of

historical memory at the international level (thus strengthening their narratives at the national

level)? What are the most successful strategies employed by memory entrepreneurs at the

international level? Do they influence the construction of new international norms?

Studies of the intersections between historical memories and democratization suggest that

memories about the crimes pursued by authoritarian regimes are definitely “anchored” in the

“nation”/state; however, increasingly various transnational and international actors influence

“domestic” memory politics. (Jelin 2010) At the same time, it is important to remember that

domestic processes can influence international memory structures, processes in other nation

states and various processes taking place at different levels (including the local level). To better

understand these complex intersections, it is necessary to examine the actions, rhetoric and

strategies of those influential individuals and groups who create “shared (historical) references”

and those who “monitor respect for them” (Pollak 1993, quoted in Abou Assi, p. 399). This

paper attempts to shed some light on these questions by: (1) exploring various approaches to the

study of memory entrepreneurs and their roles in International Relations, and (2) conducting a

case study of women memory entrepreneurs in post-Soviet Lithuania.

Memory Entrepreneurs: Various Perspectives

There are several studies in International Relations that touch upon the roles and

importance of memory entrepreneurs and their crucial role in invoking memory. One of the

leading studies is Elizabeth Jelin’s State Repression and the Labors of Memory (2003) in which

she focuses on specific historical contexts—periods after repression, when there is a widespread

feeling that it is necessary to confront the past and construct democratic regimes. Drawing on

Jelin, Douglas Becker (2011) conceptualizes memory entrepreneurs as actors who interpret,

instrumentalize and sometimes distort the past. According to Becker, it is difficult to

underestimate the importance of these actors on the construction of “contemporary political

narratives.” Embracing an instrumentalist perspective (following Jelin), Becker argues that the

entrepreneurs of memory “try to seize upon an established narrative” or try to revive a “lost”

narrative—primarily to influence the current political discourse and to promote their political

interests.

Pollak (1993, in Abou Assi) presents a different perspective on memory entrepreneurs

and their motives (that is, other than rational, perhaps even selfish actors who are trying to

pursue their own political interests). To Pollak, memory entrepreneurs are self-appointed

missionaries of historical truth who draw on “an uncompromising ethics in establishing an

equivalence between the memory that they [uphold] and the truth.” Devoted to the construction

of narratives of martyrdom, the revelation of “true,” moral history, memory entrepreneurs cannot

be understood as rational political actors; emotion, even irrational beliefs become an integral part

of their modus operandi.

Drawing on Rochon, Langenbacher (2010) conceptualizes memory entrepreneurs as a

“critical community” of agents—a “morally motivated and engaged vanguard” (p. 31) whose

actions are critical for the construction of “textual resources,” an important element of memory

work, and who share these textual resources with others. A closer look at Rochon’s (1998)

discussion of “critical communities” (and especially his comparison of critical communities with

epistemic communities) reveals that Rochon defines critical communities as “critical”—

interested in challenging the current political order and established policies. Members of critical

communities are also likely to lack connections with the establishment (p. 25). Such anti-

establishment individuals (and groups) are most likely to be active during times of political and

social change. However, in post-transitional contexts, some memory entrepreneurs (who may

have been the opponents of the previous regime) can associate themselves with the

establishment, and try to pursue their agenda (keeping and defending one particular type of

memory) using the state apparatus. Emotion and traumatic memory embedded in their discourse

may lend themselves to support the established state commemorative practices. A process of

transition from serving as counter-memory agents to integration into official memory is likely to

occur.

To get insight into the activities and influences of memory entrepreneurs, a crucial

distinction between collective/national memory and “individual mass memory” (Jan-Werner

Müller’s term) should be established. Collective/national memory creates “frames of

remembrance” and can be the object of the instrumentalization of memory enterpreneurs, who,

according to Müller (2002), can be “more or less intentioned” to become engaged in memory

politics. Memory entrepreneurs and their activities are inseparable from public claims about

memory, which are especially important during democratic transitions, and they are distinct from

“private, unarticulated or even involuntary memories” (p. 29). These public claims (made by

memory entrepreneurs), should be scrutinized and criticized, to avoid the creation of white-

washed, self-congratulatory, uncritical national histories and exclusionary memory regimes

based on the rhetoric of victimization. This is especially true during political transitions, when

societies are trying to create new political orders.

Who is most likely to become a memory entrepreneur, why, and with what

consequences? It has been argued that one of the major assumptions in trauma theory in various

fields has been the passivity of victims who have experienced trauma. In various cultural

contexts, many memory entrepreneurs are former victims; thus, the study of memory

entrepreneurs implies a closer look at those who refused to give up their individual and/or

collective agency in response to trauma (and societal expectations). The activism of former

victims or close relatives of victims can be extremely powerful, given its moral appeal,

potentially shaking the foundations on which the current political order is built. For example, in

his study of H.I.J.O.S. (Daughters and Sons for Identity and Justice against Forgetting and

Silence, an organization created in 1995 by the children of the victims of state terrorism in

Argentina), Diego Benegas (2011) argues that by conducting “identitarian interventions” (that

include the identification of perpetrators and the identification of genocide) H.I.J.O.S. is capable

of “breaking the barrier between everyday life and the extraordinary.” Thus, such political

activism works similarly to traumatic events that shake up the fundamental structures on which

societies are built and lead to social and political change.

During performative actions (such as demonstrations, shaming campaigns, etc) conducted

by the groups led by entrepreneurs of memory, questions about the potential abuse of the status

of victim can be raised: “To have been a victim gives you the right to complain, to protest, and to

make demands” (Todorov, quoted in Ricoeur 2004, p. 86). Todorov’s observations beg questions

about the ways in which autobiographical memories (personal experiences) articulated by the

agents of memory can be transformed into social memory and, in turn, into political memory.

That is, when and how are the individual narratives of the victims of political repression scripted

into the collective/national narrative? When and how do these narratives become associated with

political action?

It is probably possible to get more insight into questions about transformations from the

individual to the collective (that is, the personal experiences of memory entrepreneurs entering

the collective narrative) and from the collective to the individual (undeniably, memory regimes

influence the ways in which memory entrepreneurs construct and reconstruct their narratives)

from specific case studies of memory entrepreneurs. Below is a case study based on interview

material from 2008. While conducting this case study, I attempted to gain insight about the

transitions from the individual to the collective and from the collective to the individual by

focusing on prominent memory entrepreneurs who tell a well-known (nationally) traumatic story.

Do memory entrepreneurs try to change the national narrative? How do the frameworks present

in national narrative influence their stories? To shed light on the role of gender—an understudied

variable in memory studies—I focused on the stories told by women entrepreneurs of memory.

Case Study: Women Memory Entrepreneurs in Post-Soviet Lithuania1

This study focused on the narratives of women who experienced the trauma of

deportation and who decided not to surrender their voice, but to incorporate their traumatic

experiences into political discourse. In the summer of 2008, I conducted a series of interviews

with three former deportees2 who had served as members of parliament in the 2004-08

Lithuanian Seimas (Parliament) and who had been re-elected for another term in 2008: Vincė

Vaidevutė Margevičienė and Vida Marija Čigrejienė of the ruling Homeland Union-Christian

Democrat coalition, and Dalia Teišerskytė of the Liberals.3 In 2009-2011, I continued to conduct

interviews with other memory entrepreneurs in the same cultural context.

The three women can be described as agents of memory—political activists who

themselves are likely to have experienced significant trauma in the past and who are interested in

empowering other victims of political repression and perpetuating collective memory. They are

the only women members of the Lithuanian Seimas who have personally experienced

deportation.

1 This case study was published as “The Experience of Trauma and Political Activism: A Case

Study of Women ‘Agents of Memory’ in Lithuania,” Journal of Baltic Studies, September 2010.

Reprinted in Memory and Democratic Pluralism in the Baltic States—Rethinking the Relationship, edited

by Eva-Clarita Onken, Routledge, 2011.

2 “Deportation” in this case study refers to Stalinist deportations conducted in Lithuania in 1941

and after World War II, 1945-1953.

3 All of these interviews were conducted in the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament) in Vilnius. The

interview with Dalia Teišerskytė took place on May 20, 2008; the interview with Vincė Vaidevutė

Margevičienė on June 17, 2008; and the interview with Vida Marija Čigrejienė on June 19, 2008.

These interviews should be read taking the findings of a more extensive study of people

who have experienced political repression into account. This study, which was conducted in

Lithuania in 2000-2003 and had 1,598 participants, analyzed the psychology of victims of

political violence (e.g., people who had experienced deportation or political repression) by

documenting the various long-term effects of this violence and the coping strategies which the

victims used to deal with them (Gailienė and Kazlauskas 2005; Kazlauskas 2006). It identified

“political participation” and “political beliefs” as two key “protective factors” which helped the

victims of political violence to deal with their traumatic past (Gailienė and Kazlauskas 2005, p.

99).

Margevičienė, Čigrejienė and Teišerskytė are among the most influential agents of

memory in post-Soviet Lithuania. They are also high profile politicians who have gained

considerable influence in the current political climate, which is dominated by the conservatives.

Vincė Vaidevutė Margevičienė is a leading conservative politician and “heir” to Povilas

Jakučionis, a former Chairman of the Political Prisoners, a political party made up of former

deportees and political prisoners. (This party, which became part of the ruling Homeland Union-

Christian Democrat coalition in 2008, claims to have approximately 40,000 supporters in

Lithuania.) Born in 1949 in Irkutsk, Siberia, she resettled to Lithuania in 1960. She started her

political career in the local government in Kaunas in 1995 and was elected to parliament in 2004.

Before starting her career in politics, Margevičienė worked as a medical doctor. Vida Marija

Čigrejienė’s biography is somewhat similar. Like Margevičienė, she worked as a medical doctor

in Soviet Lithuania, is a conservative politician, and was elected to parliament in 2004. At the

same time, there are some differences. Čigrejienė was born in 1936 in Kaunas, and spent less

time (1941-48) in exile (in Barnaul). Born in 1944, Dalia Teišerskytė was deported relatively

late, to Irkutsk in 1953, during one of the last waves of deportation. She returned to Lithuania in

1962. Her formal education is in journalism. Teišerskytė was politically active during the period

of national rebirth in the late eighties and early nineties. She started her political career earlier

than either Margevičienė or Čigrejienė and was elected to parliament four years before them, in

2000. Unlike Margevičienė and Čigrejienė, she is not a member of Homeland Union. Since

1999, she has chosen to associate herself with the Liberals, which tends to embrace libertarian

(“laissez-faire”) ideas.

The interviews conducted with the women members of parliament were based on two

main themes: (1) their traumatic experiences and the ways in which they remember them, and (2)

their views of the institutionalized portrayal of the traumatic aspects of the Soviet past, especially

the mass deportations that took place under Stalin. I was also interested in the reasons why they

decided to enter politics and their political actions as agents of memory, including the duty of

memory. I tried to exercise minimum control over the responses; my goal was to get the women

“to open up and express themselves in their own terms, and at their own pace” (Bernard 1995, p.

209).

In the interviews all women acknowledged a relationship between their experience of

past trauma and their decisions to become politically active. Admittedly, there were significant

differences in the ways in which the role of the past was described. The sections that follow

highlight the main common themes of the interviews, capture the most common images which

deportees use to describe the experience of exile and homeland, document their views of the

leading national meta-narrative about collective trauma, as well as attempt to delineate the

relationship between individual memories and political activism. I tried to make sure that the

original meanings and thoughts expressed by the interviewees were preserved.

Remembering the Trauma of Exile: Siberia as a Source of Empowerment

In the late eighties and early nineties, the avalanche of memoirs of former deportees and

victims of political repression created a meta-narrative of the “fighting and suffering” nation

(Budryte 2005). According to this meta-narrative, the experience of deportation to Siberia was

equal to the “death” of the nation, an act of genocide—an attempt by the colonial power (the

USSR) to eradicate rebellious “elements” (e.g., the members of the intelligentsia in the Baltic

nations). The creation of this memory regime was based on the memoirs of the former deportees

who remembered gruesome details such as the separation of the women from the men and the

large number of children who died.

Most memories recounted by the former deportees describe Siberia as a cold, dark place

where a lot of suffering took place. Interestingly, the narratives of the agents of memory use a

different image of Siberia. This experience is the foundation of strength, of empowerment; it’s

the reason why the agents of memory are able to be brave and tell the truth in different

circumstances. This perspective on Siberia as a source of empowerment is probably best seen in

Dalia Teišerskytė’s narrative:

We were deported during the last wave of deportations, in 1953, before the death of

Stalin. This time, we were deported not in cattle cars, but together with criminals... So my

trip to Siberia was a journey together with criminals—visits to many prisons—

Chelyabinsk, Novosibirsk, Irkutsk, and so on. We were transported to the prisons, then

we would stay in one place [close to the prisons] for up to ten days, and then we would

go on... The final destination was Mezhdugranka village in Irkutsk region. There were

three of us: three small children and a grandmother. I was only eight. We were not even

going to school yet... I grew up in that village, cutting wood in the forest during the

summer and during the winter. We worked on making a road. We called it ledyanka, “the

ice road.” The road was long, about twenty or thirty kilometres. The tractor would drop

you off, and your job was to make sure that the ledyanka was as smooth as a mirror. This

was my job: to stay in the cold by myself and keep that road smooth.

According to Teišerskytė, her experiences in Siberia helped her to create what she called

sibirietiškas durnumas, “Siberian craziness,” which helped her to become involved in dangerous

anti-Soviet activities later on. As a journalism student at Vilnius University, she, together with

other “daring women from Kaunas,” listened to her journalism professors talk about the

Chronicle of the Catholic Church of Lithuania, an underground publication, and “true”

Lithuanian history.

Similarly, Vincė Vaidevutė Margevičienė’s narrative depicts the Siberian experience as a

source of empowerment, as something that “made her tough.” Several times during my interview

with her, Margevičienė repeated that she had been born in a train on the way to Siberia in 1949,

her pregnant mother having been deported together with her father who was a famous Lithuanian

doctor. Margevičienė’s narrative highlighted the freedom as well as the many material

challenges in Siberia:

We, children, had a lot of freedom in Siberia. No one could supervise us closely. Our

mother worked all day long. We somehow knew that we would have to bring some coal

to keep the family warm at night... Little potatoes were especially tasty. I can also

remember this huge dill, like trees in Siberia, as well as pickles. Since water was cold in

the barracks, sometimes we had to use a spade to take the pickles out of the frozen

water... This life appeared to be “normal” to us. We did not know a different life...

Ice, or more specifically, an icy street, is a recurring metaphor in Margevičienė’s narrative as

well:

This memory is from the time when I was twelve. I remember eight barracks. There was

a huge pile of dirt in front of these barracks... During the winter, this dirt was frozen.

Close to it there was a water pump, and we all got water from that pump. Thus, during

the winter time, this area was very smooth... This location was known as pereulok

khrustalnyi, “crystal street...” We all knew that we lived in the neighbourhood known as

“crystal street.” To me, two words, khrustalnyi and Khruschev, will always remain

related. [It was during Khruschev’s time in office that Margevičienė and her family were

allowed to return to Lithuania.] My mother used to tell me “always remember where you

have lived, on what street.” And she used to tell me “sometime in the future, your

biography will have the following entry, ‘a crystal street,’ and no one will have to know

that it was a pile of dirt.”

Although Margevičienė’s narrative is not as explicit about her experience in exile serving as a

source of empowerment, the “crystal street” metaphor allows her to transform her experience of

oppression and humiliation into something that could potentially be a source of pride. The

Siberia experience made her want to succeed in her educational pursuits later in her life, when

she returned to Soviet Lithuania: “of course, it was very difficult [in Soviet Lithuania]. However,

I was fully convinced that I had no other choice but to study and try to enter the university.

Simply put, there was no other option.” Having lived on “a crystal street” helped her to develop

this sense of duty and determination.

Vida Marija Čigrejienė’s narrative is concise and much less emotional that those

presented by Vincė Vaidevutė Margevičienė and Dalia Teišerskytė:

Yes, we [my family and I] were deported as well, and the trip to Siberia was unbearably

long... We were dropped off in the barracks. From what I understand, our mother had a

very hard time bringing us up at that time... We were not allowed to take anything with

us. … My mother was able to take her golden watch with her, and later she was able to

sell her golden watch for a bucket of potatoes. We were able to survive because of these

potatoes, you know. The land was very fertile. We were able to survive by sharing the

potatoes... There were approximately forty people in our village, most died. Maybe

between eight and twelve survived. I do not remember exactly at this point... My mother

worked on different projects. All the time, we were afraid to be deported to the Laptev

Sea, you know. But fate was good to us. We were never deported to the Laptev Sea. It is

probably because my father was literate, and he continued to write letters to different

important government authorities...

As a child, I was very aggressive... The local residents thought that we were

bandits. I wanted to strangle those little Russians... Yes, they thought that these evil

Lithuanians were killing their animals. For example, if a cow died, then the local

residents would look for a needle in its stomach, thinking that the Lithuanians must have

put one there. This is how it was, you know. Perhaps this Russian experience made my

character stronger. I have experienced many difficulties in my life. This made me

persevere in my life...

[The next segment of the interviews focused on the experiences of the three women after

returning to Soviet Lithuania.]

The Duty of Memory?

During the interview, the three women talked about their feelings of alienation in Soviet

and post-Soviet Lithuania, neither of which fully embraced or welcomed former deportees and

political prisoners. Aigi Rahi-Tamm described a similar phenomenon in post-Soviet Estonia: the

victims of political repression and their family members think that their history does not receive

enough public attention (2008, p. 71).

Does this realization inspire political activism, including the “duty of memory,” that is, a

desire to try to represent the interests of those who have shared a similar fate? The agents of

memory that I interviewed were not entirely comfortable describing their entry into local and

especially national politics, perhaps because pursuing a political career in post-Soviet societies is

still associated with personal gain. All of them tried to suggest that their entry into politics and

their associations with former deportees and political prisoners was something “natural,”

something that “had to happen.” According to Vincė Vaidevutė Margevičienė, she simply

“happened to live” close to the place where the former deportees had their club. Vincė Vaidevutė

Margevičienė told them that she was also a former deportee and this fact helped her to gain

acceptance. Flying to Irkutsk to help recover the bones of those who had perished in Siberia

provided an opportunity for her to get to know other former deportees. The personal

relationships that she developed as a result of these contacts helped Vincė Vaidevutė

Margevičienė to get elected to the local government in Kaunas (the second largest city in

Lithuania) and later to enter parliament. In her own words, “I have always been part of the union

of deportees and political prisoners. I have never left it.”

Vida Marija Čigrejienė’s narrative is very similar. She asserts that she has also been

associated with the former deportees “since time immemorial,” asking us to take her life story

and life experiences into account. “I am a deportee. I am a patriot from Kaunas. That is all. This

is why I decided to associate myself with the deportees.” According to Čigrejienė, there is little

material gain from her involvement in politics; but “being able to communicate with people who

experienced a similar fate, to share your memories, is crucially important.” She admits that she

cannot really agree with all of their positions—their radical and uncompromising stance toward

Russia being a prime example. However, she did acknowledge her duty to listen to them and, if

possible, to help them using her political power. According to Čigrejienė,

What other political party can a former deportee choose? I have researched this political

party for more than two years… whether this political party fits my ideals... If I chose a

different political party, then I would feel like I am betraying my homeland, my

deportees, you know.

Dalia Teišerskytė’s path to politics was a bit more complex. Furthermore, unlike Čigrejienė and

Margevičienė, she has never fully associated herself with Homeland Union, the party of former

deportees and political prisoners. She argued that her political activism can be traced to her

fascination with the libertarian ideas that were introduced into Lithuania at the time of the

national rebirth. “I never dreamt about going into politics… I wanted to succeed in my own

business, in my own area of expertise.” Yet, at the same time, according to Teišerskytė, her

previous experiences, including forced exile, made it necessary for her to work together with the

forces on the political right: “It’s just part of who I am.”

Vida Marija Čigrejienė, Dalia Teišerskytė and Vincė Vaidevutė Margevičienė have

developed their own strategies to shape social and political memory. Dalia Teišerskytė gives

speeches on public holidays, such as June 14, the Day of Sorrow and Hope, which

commemorates the day when the first mass deportations were carried out by the Soviets in 1941.

Her recent speech, delivered in the Lithuanian Seimas on June 14, 2008, focused on one

message: modern Lithuanian society should not forget the past. “What remains is history as well

as memory.” She related how her sister had seen a classmate getting water from a well, both

before being deported to Siberia and after her sister had escaped. With this image she

emphasized continuity, despite the fact that deportation had radically altered the course of her

life and that of many others. Dalia Teišerskytė made many references to “Siberia’s natural

beauty,” thereby appealing to the Lithuanian preoccupation with landscapes and nature. In

addition, she used a metaphor which is now an integral part of Lithuania’s cultural memory—

“the land of eternal winter.” “Thousands of graves remain in the land of eternal winter. This soil

feeds Siberian birch trees and cedars, mushrooms and vigorous currant shrubs.” Dalia

Teišerskytė suggested that she started a new life when she came back to Lithuania: “I came back

to Lithuania when I was eighteen. I can say confidently now that I am still very young because I

was born when I was eighteen.” At the same time, she made it clear that she cannot escape the

past: “There [in Siberia] is my father’s grave. Unfortunately, I do not know exactly where it is

because common graves were used. Later these areas became places where new houses were

built.” In several places, Dalia Teišerskytė let the audience know that she is “tough” and has

gone through a lot, for example, when she described her long days of work on the road of ice.

Teišerskytė concluded with a message for the future:

Let’s forgive, revive, love, build new homes, raise children, tend gardens, sing, and say

nice things to each other! But let’s not forget because history will not forgive us. The

souls of those who died, were killed, shot or tortured, will not be able to forgive as well.”

In contrast to Dalia Teišerskytė’s lofty rhetoric, Vida Marija Čigrejienė portrays herself as a

pragmatic agent of memory, keen to support legislation and policies that would improve the

socio-economic status of the victims of political repression. In her laconic style Vida Marija

Čigrejienė described her strategies: “Yes, I try to participate in all of these commemorative

events… the Day of Sorrow and Hope, and so on. Recently I proposed a bill to make sure that

the former deportees and political prisoners have pensions.”

Vincė Vaidevutė Margevičienė’s strategies are more similar to those embraced by Dalia

Teišerskytė. She is known for her unorthodox ideas about how to commemorate past injustices.

For example, she proposed that the Lithuanian Seimas (parliament) meet on May 22, 2008 at

4am—the day and time when thousands of Lithuanians were deported during Operation Vesna in

1948. Her proposal was rejected by the other members of parliament. Vincė Vaidevutė

Margevičienė responded to this rejection by asking rhetorically: “Why not? Why can’t our MPs

get together at this time for a meeting? There won’t be any traffic jams. Why can’t our MPs get

together for a meeting at the same time when our nation experienced deportations? Her proposal

did receive the support, however, of many former deportees and political prisoners who got

together for a public demonstration at 6am. Many candles were lit to remember those who did

not return from Siberia.

Although Vincė Vaidevutė Margevičienė’s proposal was described as “being

unreasonable,” its form resembles the provocative campaigns that women’s rights groups have

used to try to highlight issues that do not get a lot of attention in society, such as violence against

women. Perhaps this proposal could be described as an example of “irrational” politics, but, at

the same time, it could be seen as a rational move to try to maintain the support of the victims of

political repression and to maintain the status of an agent of memory.

Concluding Thoughts

By examining the narratives and rhetoric used by memory entrepreneurs, it is possible to

illustrate how individual experiences of trauma (mass deportations) can be transformed into

collective historical memory. Creating the portraits of memory entrepreneurs allows us to gain

insight into the processes of memory construction in a post-transitional society, still struggling to

create a pluralistic, tolerant society allowing various competing memories to co-exist.

Although the three politically active entrepreneurs of memory presented in the case study

are part of the political establishment, interestingly, their narratives include some of the traits

associated with “critical communities.” They expressed dissatisfaction with the official

commemorative strategies and (especially in the case of Margevičienė) attempted to develop

alternative ways to influence the meta-narrative. In order to understand the processes of

transition from individual memory to collective memory (and the production of traumatic

memory), it is important to document such strategies.

The three narratives exhibit one common theme—the “duty of memory.” This concept

challenges instrumentalist approaches to the study of memory entrepreneurs and encourages us

to conceptualize memory entrepreneurs as emotional, sometimes irrational actors in search of

“true” history and “right” ways of commemoration.

The case studies attempted to gain insight into the gendered nature of memory,

hypothesizing that women are likely to experience traumatic events differently than men and to

possibly create gender-specific commemorative practices that address those events. The case

studies suggest that memory entrepreneurs who are part of the establishment are unlikely to

challenge the prevailing patriarchal order, although some of the commemorative practices

constructed by women can be seen as “too emotional” and “irrational” (e.g., in Margevičienė’s

case).

Several challenges in the study of memory entrepreneurs remain: How can “irrational”

memory politics be studied? How can the international dimension and transnational actions of

memory entrepreneurs be analyzed, thus transcending the national borders? In the case of two

memory entrepreneurs, their political party—Tėvynės Sąjunga-Lietuvos Krikščionys Demokratai

(Homeland Union-Lithuanian Christian Democrats), which is the main nationalist party—has

had some success in pursuing its agenda of denouncing Communist crimes internationally;

however, it is difficult to capture the influence of individual memory entrepreneurs on

international developments. How can the impact of performative commemorative actions on

societies be gauged? Perhaps insights from other disciplines can shed more light on concepts

such as “irrationality” and performative commemorative actions.

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