| Abstract [eng] |
Soviet residential architecture remains widespread in Lithuania. It is still one of the most prominent material symbols that represents the Soviet era. However, after Lithuania regained its independence, Soviet apartment buildings remained relevant living spaces. In other words, the forms of the past inevitably became part of the period of independence. Thus, within Soviet residential architecture, the generation of independence experienced overlapping temporalities. They lived in the remaining blocks built during the occupation while inhabiting the everyday reality of post-communist transformation. At the same time, they created their own personal meanings. Therefore, it remains unclear how all of this fits into the memory of the Soviet-era apartment buildings. This study seeks to answer the question: how is the memory of the independence generation constructed in relation to Soviet residential architecture? The aim of this paper is to understand the memory in space by evaluating personal relationships that are constructed by young people. To this aim, memory studies and the concepts of relationship with space are used. They allow not only for capturing the constructed narratives of the past, but also to record the personal level of memory. The theoretical block on the relationship with place covers the concepts of embodied place, place attachment, and affective atmospheres. In order to answer the research question, five focus groups were conducted with participants born between 1992 and 2001 who had lived a significant part of their early lives in Soviet apartment buildings. Four groups were based in specific cities, with participants from Vilnius, Panevėžys, Naujoji Akmenė, and Jonava, while the final group included participants from different cities. The conclusions of the study show that Soviet apartment blocks are multi-layered spaces that contain memories of different levels: on the one hand, critical collective narratives of the Soviet era or post-communist transformation, and on the other hand, complex memories of personal life. These different levels highlight different ways of storytelling, but they do not contradict - instead, they complement each other. The personal level can be useful in analyzing other experiences of the Soviet era and post-communist transformation that may be significant in shaping identity and even the relationship with the state, as they do not fall into the category of political narratives. Therefore, when analyzing less common places of memory, incorporation of the personal experience may help to understand more clearly why dominant collective narratives are not that effective how they are reshaped when confronted with personal memories. |
