Guardians of Living History

Book excerpt: Guardians of Living History: An Ethnography of Post-Soviet Memory Making in Estonia interrogates how people engage with their violent past, both within their families and as members of a national community, when living in an extremely complicated society with a short history of independence and a desire to belong to Europe. In line with other scholarship on memory, this book shows that many Estonians desire an established collective story, as they live in a society where their national identity is quite regularly under threat. At the same time however, that same closure is perceived to pose a threat to the survival of Estonian culture and independence. Guardians of Living History provides an intimate insight into the lives of Estonians from the countryside, former deportees, young intellectuals, and memory activists, who all in their own ways act as guardians of a national history: a history which they wish to keep alive, apolitical, and as close to their family stories as possible.