Post-Soviet Trauma in the Nordic Imagination: Occupation and Sex Traﬃ Cking in Purge and Lilya 4-Ever*

BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE Article Post-Soviet Trauma in the Nordic Imagination: Occupation and Sex Traﬃ cking in Purge and Lilya 4-Ever*

LIINA-LY ROOS, University of Washington, USA; email: [email protected]

* This article is an edited portion of my MA thesis, Post-Soviet Identity in the Nordic Imagination: Trauma and Sex Trafﬁ cking in Purge and Lilya 4-Ever, at the University of Washington, Seattle.

22 DOI: 10.1515/bsmr-2015-0013 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE ABSTRACT The traumas of the twentieth century aff ected the development of trauma narrative in literature and cinema. Much of the trauma theory in diff erent disciplines developed largely from the Holocaust literature as well as from gender-based violence. The criticism of many examples in contemporary trauma theory has been that they are applicable only to Western countries and do not take into account the diffi cult transitions between the non-Western and Western world. The countries that had gone through a brutal occupation of the Soviet Union also experienced the trauma of transformation, as whole societies turned into post-Soviet nations next to the developed Nordic/ Western states. This article will examine the representations of trauma in Sofi Oksanen’s fi ctional narrative Purge (Puhdistus, 2008) and Lukas Moodysson’s cinematic narrative Lilya 4-Ever (Lilja 4-ever, Sweden/Denmark, 2002) and off er an analysis of the trauma of transitions in the borderland between the post-Soviet and Nordic countries. Both Oksanen and Moodysson, as observers from the Nordic countries (Finland and Sweden respectively), have chosen to depict the post-Soviet trauma through a female body which is trapped in forced prostitution in Western Europe or Scandinavia and her emotions and reactions to her trauma. This article will argue that both authors contribute to the post-Cold War discourse that discusses the cultural borders between “East” and “West”, presenting a trauma of globalisation, drawing attention to unspoken subjects, but also contributing to the existing views of post- Soviet spaces as ruined and traumatising.

The twentieth century brought traumatic tive, but it also generates the manic produc- experiences to many countries in the world. tion of retrospective narratives that seek to Trauma theory that started developing in explicate the trauma” (2008: 79). According various disciplines at the end of the nine- to Luckhurst, in addition to the massive teenth century became crucial in analysing amount of autobiographical literature on the survival narratives of the century. Roger Holocaust and Gulag experiences, the ﬁ c- Luckhurst writes in The Trauma Question, tional narrative attempts to represent trau- “[i]n its shock impact trauma is anti-narra- matic violence in ways that autobiography

23 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE and history cannot (ibid.: 97). He also claims a traumatic image of the life there is neces- that cinematic narratives “help organize sary2. Both Oksanen and Moodysson have popular conceptions of what trauma does stated clearly their intentions in drawing to subjectivity” (ibid.: 208). The aim of this attention to the trauma of sex traffi cking article is to examine representations of and gender violence in post-Soviet coun- trauma in Sofi Oksanen’s fi ctional narrative tries, as well as in their own Nordic coun- Purge (Puhdistus, 2008) and Lukas Mood- tries. Andrew Nestingen calls Lilya 4-Ever a ysson’s cinematic narrative Lilya 4-Ever “melodrama of demand”, which he defi nes (Lilja 4-ever, Sweden/Denmark, 2002). as challenging “the understanding of nation Oksanen’s Purge was also made into a fi lm by engaging struggles over ethnicity and in 2012, however, in this article I will not transnationalism” (2008: 113). Päivi Lappal- analyse the fi lm version of Purge, since it is ainen has expanded Nestingen’s analysis to an adaptation of the narrative. Instead, I will prose literature, arguing that the narrative focus on analysing the original narratives of in Purge is another version of the “melo- the novel Purge and the fi lm Lilya 4-Ever. drama of demand” (2011: 276). While being aware of the complexity of com- According to Nestingen’s analysis of paring two different modes of media – a crime fi ction and fantasy in the Nordic fi lm and a novel – I argue that the narrative countries, melodrama of demand became of both works allows their audiences to one of the characteristics of Nordic fi ction analyse them as representing the collective in the twentieth century. A major argument trauma of the post-Soviet nations through in his book is that the “Nordic region is the sufferings of individuals. Both authors undergoing a transformative struggle over contribute to the post-Cold War discourse moral order” and that in the midst of that discusses the cultural borders between changes, between national borders “popu- “East” and “West”, presenting a trauma lar culture has become a forum for strug- of globalisation, drawing attention to un- gling over these changes by creating, dis- spoken subjects, but also contributing to cussing, and contesting the self-represen- the existing views of post-Soviet spaces as tation of nation” (Nestingen 2008: 6). Both ruined and traumatising. Purge and Lilya 4-Ever are participating in While Oksanen has a personal connec- this new forum where the trauma of the tion to Estonia and has devoted three of her Other from the poverty of the post-Soviet novels1 to the traumatic history of Estonia, spaces enters the Nordic cultural space. both she and the Swedish fi lmmaker Mood- The narratives by Oksanen and Moodysson ysson are outsiders, distant witnesses to add a different perspective to the discus- the traumas of the Soviet occupation and sion, focusing on the representation of the post-Soviet struggles of the countries for- post-Soviet nation among the Nordic or merly behind the Iron Curtain. Both Western nations and on how certain images Oksanen and Moodysson have chosen to of post-Soviet nations have been created. depict the post-Soviet trauma through a They have also tried to understand the self- female body that is trapped in forced pros- representation of these post-Soviet nations, titution in Western Europe or Scandinavia but they have done so with their Nordic and her emotions and reactions to her trauma. These rather melodramatic narra- 2 Jaan Kaplinski comments on Purge in his blog, tives have raised questions in the post-So- “Our life in the Soviet Union was not a horror story! Of course, there were many horrifi c episodes, years of viet countries (particularly in Estonia, where terror and counter-terror, but as a whole, we lived a life both stories take place) of whether such that was often quite interesting and funny.” (Kaplinski 2010) Piret Tali writes in a review that an author, grown up in the welfare state has used the savory pain of a suffering small nation to gain international success by molding the history of her distant and unknown motherland into a modern literature in Finnish or in 1 Stalin’s Cows (Stalinin lehmät, 2003), Purge, and French (Tali 2010). Ruta Nõmmela sees Lilya 4-Ever as When the Doves Disappeared (Kun kyyhkyset katosivat, a portrayal of terrifying life in the Eastern Europe 2012). (Nõmmela 2002).

24 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE backgrounds. Magdalena J. Zabrowska, thing “Eastern”, whereas “the existence of Sibelan Forrester, and Elena Gapova theo- the Baltic countries was almost completely rise about the crises of post-Cold War rep- forgotten by the Finnish public during the resentations in the continuing differentia- Cold War years” (2003: 15). tion between the “East” and the “West”, and In analysing these texts, I will treat point to the symbol of the Iron Curtain as a them as narratives of trauma. While looking theatre curtain that has now been lifted and at the individual stories of the female pro- separates the stage from the Western audi- tagonists who suffer from sexual violence, ence (2004: 13). In their works, both Oksanen and their narratives composed by the Nor- and Moodysson place their characters on dic authors, it would make sense to rely on this post-Soviet stage, along with the ruined Western trauma theories, which developed and decayed surroundings and conditions largely from Holocaust literature as well as of that stage. from women being more vocal about sexual The post-Soviet stage of Lilya 4-Ever violence. Dori Laub and Shoshana Felman and Purge is mostly located in Estonia, but (1991) as well as Judith Herman (1997) the inspiration of these narratives is tran- among others have emphasised the impor- snational. Moodysson bases part of his nar- tance of listening to the traumas, and pro- rative on the true story of a Lithuanian girl viding a space for the testimony to escape Danguolė Rasalaitė. Oksanen uses the the silence. In her often cited Unclaimed memoirs and oral history of wartime sexual Experience: Trauma, Narrative, and History, violence in different countries. However, Cathy Caruth analyses how traumatic Moodysson decided at the last minute not events are represented in literature as to name the location of the fi lm at all, call- repeating and haunting if not dealt with, ing it vaguely “somewhere where the Soviet and how, for a human being, survival Union used to be” (Moodysson 2002). There- becomes “an endless testimony to the fore, the trauma of post-Soviet spaces does impossibility of living” (1996: 62). Recently, not explicitly represent the trauma of the this trauma theory has been criticised for Estonians, Russians, or Lithuanians. It is being applicable only to Western countries, intended to have a broader reach, creating a and for ignoring the non-Western, in this space between the former Eastern Bloc and case also the former Soviet, countries. Stef the Western welfare states. The wartime Craps writes that trauma theory should be violence, global trauma of sex traffi cking, as more globalised and should not be limited well as the cultural traumas of the late to the empires (the Holocaust in Europe and twentieth and early twenty-fi rst centuries 9/11 in the USA), “if trauma theory is to are probably present everywhere in the redeem its promise of cross-cultural ethical world, but in this article, I will use the exam- engagement, the sufferings of those ple of Estonia, as a borderline space, belonging to non-Western or minority cul- located next to the Nordic countries and tures must be given due recognition” (2014: with a history of desiring to be part of the 46). According to Craps, one of the differ- Nordic countries. Mart Kuldkepp writes that ences is that trauma can often be prolonged at the beginning of the twentieth century, and not be connected to a single event, and with their pre-national memory and geopo- in some instances, the possibly traumatis- litical convictions, “Estonians were building ing events might not affect the whole col- up their own national identity as a people lective body. Therefore, when looking at the with a Nordic past and a Nordic future” collective trauma of the post-Soviet (2013: 326). The Soviet occupation dis- nations, I do not wish to limit the analysis to rupted the development of this identity for the Western trauma theory, but will also rely almost fi fty years. Marko Lehti writes that on Piotr Sztompka’s suggestion that any after the collapse of Soviet Union, Estonia kind of change in society, if considered felt the urgent need to reconnect to every- “traumatogenic”, produces trauma. Accord- thing “Western” and move away from any- ing to Sztompka, in addition to the forceful

25 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE domination of one culture, a more peaceful to remember, “Those who poke around in spreading of an alien culture (cultural glo- the past will get a stick in their eye” balisation, McDonaldisation, etc.) can also (Oksanen [2008] 2010: 93), but she does acquire a traumatic meaning (2004: 162). remember. She looks at Zara, covered with bruises, and she remembers the same TRAUMA OF THE PAST bruises on her skin, the shame of being Oksanen’s Purge was fi rst published in 2008 invaded, and acting against all her convic- in Finnish and in 2010 in English. It has tions, she lets Zara into her house and into since been translated into more than 30 her life. languages, receiving several prizes and Violence against women in the 1940s extensive media attention. Most of the nar- in wartime Estonia has been touched upon rative is dedicated to the life of Aliide, who in only a few works (for instance, Imbi Paju’s was raped by Soviet offi cers during the Memories Denied/Tõrjutud mälestused, Soviet occupation and, in order to protect 2005), but the rape scenes that are depicted herself from further attack, betrays her in Purge illustrate how the minds and bod- family and people by marrying a communist ies of the Estonian people were imprisoned. named Martin and signing a document Since many Estonian men were hiding in the to have her sister Ingel and niece Linda forest, the women who were suspected of deported to Siberia, because she is secretly co-operating with them, or of undermining in love with Ingel’s husband Hans. Hans is the image of the Soviet Union in any way, part of the resistance movement and is hid- had to be silenced. One of the most effi cient ing from the Soviets in a bunker inside Ingel methods for keeping these perceived and Aliide’s childhood home. The more con- threats from surfacing was rape3. Rape is a temporary portions of the novel are set in direct and psychological invasion of some- 1992; a year after the collapse of the Soviet one’s body, and is often hushed up by the Union and, through fl ashbacks and Hans’s victims themselves, due to shame. Anne- diary entries, the reader uncovers Aliide’s miek Richters writes, “rape can be consid- story as well as the traumatic experiences ered the fi nal symbolic expression of the of Zara, Ingel’s granddaughter who has humiliation of the male opponents who are grown up in Siberia. The latter has gotten not able to protect ‘their’ women (rape as a trapped in a sex traffi cking ring in Germany messenger of defeat)” (1998: 117). Thus, and found a way to escape to Aliide’s house rape brings shame and humiliation to both in Läänemaa, Estonia. This article will focus the victims and the people (usually men) on Zara’s story, but since the trauma of the who were not able to defend the women. past is so connected to Zara’s trauma of Shame, in most cases, causes silence and present, I will also consider the depiction of helps the dominant powers in their goal to Aliide’s trauma. terrorise, traumatise, silence, and erase The readers meet Aliide and Zara at memory. the end of their traumatic journeys – Aliide The act of the offi cers invading Aliide’s is hiding in her house looking out the win- body is a turning point for her. On one level, dow, and Zara is lying in her yard in the mid- it is an intensely traumatic experience for dle of the “overgrown [grass] and mute” Aliide, the rape victim, in a totalitarian (Oksanen [2008] 2010: 7). The existence of regime; on another level, since Aliide repre- trauma in both their lives is obvious. During sents Estonia in this narrative, it can also the next three hundred pages, the readers relive the traumatic events with Aliide and 3 See further discussion on rape and sexual violence Zara. Aliide’s memories play an important during wartime in War’s Dirty Secret (2000) by Anne role in her reliving her trauma. She has tried Llewellyn Barstow. Some of the examples from around the world include: the rape of Nanking in 1937 resulting to forget the shame of her body being bru- in about 300,000 deaths out of which many women tally invaded and all the wrong choices she were fi rst raped; extensive sexual abuse and rape in the Bosnia-Herzegovina war; the Rwandan genocide and has made. She expresses her unwillingness Guatemalan war.

26 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE be read as a metaphor for the invasion of similar trauma. Decades later, she fi nds Estonian territory by foreign powers. The a familiar representation of trauma in her detailed description of the rape hints that yard. Zara – whose trauma has been Aliide, who was taken from the forest, a affected by the Soviet past and deporta- sacred place for Estonians, and dragged to tions, a past that has made her a victim of the town hall to be interrogated and raped, sex traffi cking – has experienced the same kept her spirit alive by thinking of the roots trauma and shame of having her body and moles under the fl oor. Her behaviour violated. after the incident refl ects shame, and by trying to distract her thoughts by counting TRAUMA OF SEX TRAFFICKING: different styles of stockings, Aliide repre- ZARA AND LILYA sents a typical victim of sexual violence. She While Aliide experiences the brutal violence cannot forget what has happened, and of the occupying offi cers invading her body when she is taken back to the interrogation to show their power over her and over her room with Linda and Ingel, and has to abuse country, as well as to send a message to the Linda, the presence of Ingel and Linda as men of her country that they are unable to witnesses to her powerlessness, and the defend their women, in the present-day guilt of having to hurt Linda, increases her trauma, it is again almost exclusively the shame. women’s bodies that are invaded daily in sex Two of the emotions experienced most traffi cking. The role and position of women often in trauma are shame and guilt. Judith in both the Western and post-Soviet socie- Herman writes, “[s]hame is a response to ties has changed greatly during the last helplessness, the violation of bodily integ- century, but it is still the female bodies that rity, and the indignity suffered in the eyes of suffer sexual violence. This trauma has another person” (1997: 53). Guilt is very sim- become more global, reaching across bor- ilar for both the victims of rape and the ders and affecting different societies. traumatised soldiers, and in most cases, it Zara has grown up in Siberia, where is the victims rather than the perpetrators her mother and grandmother were deported who experience guilt, since the feeling of from Estonia in 1949. After the collapse of not having done as well as one could seems Soviet Union, Zara is invited to work in Ger- more tolerable than the feeling of complete many, but gets trapped in a sex traffi cking helplessness (ibid.: 53). A victimised person ring. After working as a sex slave for feels shame before the perpetrator and months, she is able to travel to Estonia with anyone who might potentially witness the her traffi ckers, kill one of her customers attack, due to the complete loss of power and escape to her great aunt Aliide’s house. and dignity over herself. As a result of this Zara’s experience fi ts well with the theoreti- trauma, Aliide’s shame makes her turn away cal understanding of trauma that, according from anything and anyone that remind her to Cathy Caruth, is not a simple and heal- of this shame. Sara Ahmed writes in her dis- able event, but instead a repetitive action cussion about the cultural politics of emo- that haunts the survivor and only then tions, “[t]he very physicality of shame – how reveals how traumatic it has been (1996: 4). it works on and through bodies – means In addition to the memories, and believing that shame also involves de-forming and that her traffi ckers were right when they re-forming bodily and social spaces, as said she is good for nothing but being a bodies ‘turn away’ from the others who wit- prostitute, Zara realises how the traumatic ness the shame” (2004: 103). Aliide get rids experience has changed her. “She tried to of Ingel and Linda, the witnesses closest to reproduce the voice she sometimes used a her shame, who she has the power to elimi- long time ago when she ran into an old nate after marrying the communist Martin, acquaintance on the street or in a shop. and she avoids women on the street who A voice that felt far away and strange, com- she recognises as having gone through a pletely unfi tted to the body that it came

27 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE from. It reminded her of a world she didn’t A similar domination and disconnec- belong to, a home she could never return to.” tion from the community caused by trauma (Oksanen [2008] 2010: 22) Zara’s trauma are portrayed in Moodysson’s 2002 fi lm has resulted in “othering” her in all the Lilya 4-Ever. Lilya (Oksana Akinshina) lives spaces where she used to feel, or could in a ruined town “somewhere that was once have felt, she belonged. The way that prosti- part of the Soviet Union”, and the fi lm is shot tutes are looked down on, whether or not in Paldiski, a town in Estonia where a Soviet they have been forced into prostitution, cre- military based was located during the ates double shame in her body. Zara seems Soviet occupation. Lilya’s mother leaves her to know that her home community will to go to America, and her decision to give up never accept her, and in the new country, her parenthood as well as Lilya’s aunt’s she will always be looked down on as a comments allow to assume that she contin- prostitute. She experiences the shame of ues her work as a prostitute there. Lilya the exposure and violence acted upon her tries to survive alone (with some help from body, the traumatic experience that she her aunt), and at fi rst, tries to avoid her cannot put into words. mother’s occupation, but ultimately still Trauma affects bodies through the tries being a prostitute in a Tallinn night feelings of shame and fear that silence the club. She gets lured into sex traffi cking in victims. According to Annemiek Richters, in Sweden, and realises it too late. She, too, all situations rape involves silencing and manages to escape, but trusting no one in domination (1998: 112). Victims that remain the new country, she commits suicide. silence contribute to their own domination, In Lilya’s narrative, the audience also since in silence their shame and trauma are relives the traumatic experiences with the never resolved. Pierre Bourdieu writes that protagonist. In the fi rst scene, Lilya is run- the structures of domination are always ning in Sweden, looking panicked with her reproducing, since not only the singular face beaten up. It is only after that scene agents and institutions, but also the domi- that the viewers witness Lilya’s traumatic nated themselves contribute to them, which story, almost as a fl ashback that Lilya could makes the domination seem natural, and be having while running towards the bridge can result in a “systematic self-deprecation, in Sweden. One of the strongest emotions even self-denigration” ([1998] 2001: 35). Lilya experiences in her trauma is power- Later, when Zara has already escaped the lessness. Throughout her time in Paldiski, physical violence of her traffi ckers, she she has tried to regain some power, and starts to question if one of them, Pasha, money plays an important role in this power might have been right and thinks, “[m]aybe play. Her trips to a local store are shown there really was something wrong with her three times. Each time she is strongly – an inherent fl aw. Maybe she really was impacted by her ability or inability to make good for nothing.” (Oksanen [2008] 2010: 65) a purchase. When she does not have enough Thus, the domination of the sex traffi ckers money, her expression refl ects embarrass- is affecting her even when she is no longer ment and anger; and when she has enough directly under their power. She fears they money, she smiles victoriously, enjoying the will fi nd her and has yet to resolve her surprised reaction of the shopkeeper. How- shame. Sara Ahmed has pointed out in her ever, once Lilya gets trapped in sex traffi ck- discussion of shame that it always involves ing, she no longer has any power. Her body the others, the witnesses of shame (2004: becomes one of the objects in, as Bourdieu 105) and Zara sees herself through the eyes puts it, “the market of symbolic goods” of Aliide, her family, her potential boyfriend ([1998] 2001: 42). She is no longer able to back home, and that makes her feel more trade, buy, or sell; instead she is being embarrassed and disconnected. By “other- traded, bought, and sold. ing” herself, she too contributes to her own As a contrast to the small local store in domination. Paldiski, her traffi cker takes her to a bright

28 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE mall in Malmö that has a large selection, she decides to try selling her body, because but Lilya cannot buy anything there. In an her mother is one (and Lilya’s aunt even interview, Moodysson commented on this suggests she do so). sequence by saying “[s]he is being sold in The structures of domination are the same market, but just in a darker cor- reproduced, and the assumptions and ster- ner” (O’Hagan 2003). She has become one of eotypes contribute quite directly to other the goods in the diverse Western market traumatic events in Lilya’s life. Trauma cre- and her customers, representing the upper, ates helplessness and shame, and as a middle, and lower classes (businessmen response, Lilya turns away from anything with families and houses, and lonely men in that she has had faith in, including religion, small apartments) all contribute to her as she throws away the picture of an angel domination. Melissa Farley writes that that she always cared for. According to according to one survivor, prostitution is Judith Herman, people who have encoun- “paid rape” (2006: 102). To simplify, the dif- tered trauma, seek their “fi rst source of ference between sex traffi cking and prosti- comfort and protection. Wounded soldiers tution in this case is simply who is getting and raped women cry out for their mothers, paid. According to Jennifer Suchland’s anal- or for God and when this cry is unanswered, ysis of Lilya 4-Ever, Moodysson does sim- their sense of basic trust is shattered” plify, since Lilya’s experience with sex traf- (1997: 52). Lilya’s trauma begins when her fi cking seems to be very clearly connected mother leaves her. Everyone she trusts, to prostitution, therefore giving the fi lm an except for Volodya, betrays her. Thus, later, anti-prostitution perspective (2013: 367). when she is repeatedly experiencing However, this simplifi cation results in all trauma, being invaded by different custom- prostitution being shown as traumatising ers every day, she has no one to turn to. Her and Moodysson thereby contributes to the trauma remains in isolation and silence, stereotypes that he might want to break – except for Volodya, who, as “a ghost” wear- i.e. in post-Soviet spaces poverty always ing angel wings appears to Lilya in her leads to prostitution and prostitution dreams to help her face her trauma. always leads to sex slavery. Lilya does not live very long after she THERAPIST FROM THE PAST has escaped the traumatising conditions, The narratives of Lilya and Zara are similar. but the viewers are still given a glimpse of it. Each of them carries a transgenerational Before she jumps from the bridge, in addi- (to use Luckhurst’s description of haunting tion to feeling helpless and powerless, she secrets of trauma that reach across genera- also feels shame. The shame of being naive tions) traumatic past. The collapse of the enough to believe Andrei (Pavel Ponomar- Soviet Union has a traumatising effect for yov), her sex-traffi cker, of leaving her only them too. They have both lived in poor friend Volodya (Artyom Bogucharski) in circumstances in their homes in the post- Paldiski (possibly causing his suicide), and Soviet spaces, and they have both gone to the shame of being exposed to different Western/Nordic countries, not thinking that customers every day and of becoming the they could end up trapped in sex traffi cking. absolute Other in a foreign country with no Zara’s story, however, has a different ending, identifi cation and no belief that anyone can since she has always believed she would help. Similarly to Zara’s traffi ckers, Lilya’s fi nd Aliide, and that faith has helped her dominators know how shame works. They stay strong while being traffi cked. However, know that she would not want to face her Zara’s appearance in Aliide’s yard is rather community with the reputation she now unreal. It is almost so unbelievable that she has. This is another example of the stere- could be seen as a “ghost” from Aliide’s past. otypes in the societies that also contribute Zara assumes the role of witness/therapist to the domination. It is assumed that Lilya is for Aliide, since, to Aliide’s surprise, she is destined to become a prostitute even before sincerely interested in Aliide’s story and

29 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE unlike many others in Aliide’s community, the role of therapist for her. Her own experi- Zara is not after her money or the various ence with trauma has allowed her to relate Finnish products Aliide hides in her chest of to Aliide’s shame. Her story, too, has drawers. She needs a place to hide from her affected Aliide and helped her uncover traffi ckers, but she also wants to know Ali- her shame. Zara does not express hatred ide’s story. towards Aliide, even after fi nding out that At fi rst, Zara also tries to hide her she might have been party to her grand- trauma and shame from Aliide, but because mother being sent to Siberia. Zara just asks her traffi ckers reveal pictures of Zara as a questions and listens, and by witnessing prostitute, Aliide becomes a witness to her Aliide’s shame, which has been hidden and story. According to Shoshana Felman’s the- therefore grown for decades, Zara comes to ory on testimony and witnessing, “[t]estimo- understand how strongly not talking could nies are not monologues; they cannot take have affected her. However, even though place in solitude. The witnesses are talking Zara has acted as a therapist in Aliide’s life, to somebody: to somebody they have been Aliide still kills herself in the end. She does waiting for a long time” (1992: 70; emphasis not fi nd recovery, but manifests the ulti- in the original). Realising what Zara has mate “turning away” from herself (Ahmed gone through, and how personally she is 2004: 104). Zara has helped Aliide out of her connected to her, Aliide reveals more of her silence, but not affected her the way a ther- shame to Zara, than she has ever done apist would hope to. Maybe it is because before. Maybe that disclosure gives her the Zara’s appearance in Aliide’s yard is too strength to stand up to Pasha and Lavrenti, unbelievable. If she is just a “ghost” from Zara’s traffi ckers, and shoot them to save Aliide’s past then she does not actually Zara. In nature, near her forest – “[i]sn’t it exist, and cannot bring Aliide recovery. nice? The Estonian forest. My forest.” In many ways, Lilya’s trauma has been (Oksanen [2008] 2010: 352) – she kills the similar to Zara’s, but the loss of trust and two oppressors who via Zara’s narrative and the powerlessness that she feels in a com- trauma are also remnants from Aliide’s pletely foreign country without any identifi - past. “Lavrenti’s boots still shone. A soldier’s cation, makes it worse for her. The appear- boots.” (ibid.: 353) Not only has Aliide been ance of Volodya, Lilya’s dead childhood able to share and try to recover from her friend, in Lilya’s dreams is also unreal. Volo- traumatic past (after Zara leaves, she writes dya, who in his lifetime also suffered from a letter to Ingel) and save Zara’s life, she has the trauma of abandonment, wants to pre- also been able to break the domination of vent her from jumping from the building to the offi cers that has accompanied her daily commit suicide. He tries to remind her of throughout most of her life after the rape in her past in Paldiski and how she never let the interrogation room. bullies bother her; “[i]t is the same now. Zara has become the witness to and Everyone is spitting at you, but you’re not listener of Aliide’s story. Dori Laub has writ- ready. Jump if you want... But then you lose. ten about the different levels that a witness And the assholes that spit at you win. You has. One level is “being a witness to oneself see?” Volodya shows Lilya that he does not within the experience” (Laub, Felman 1991: condemn her, that he understands her 75). The witness, often in a form of a thera- shame, her loss of faith in everything. Simi- pist, always has her own personal story and larly to Zara’s encounter with Aliide, Lilya’s the way that she understands and is able to actions change after the conversation with witness the trauma is always affected by Volodya. She rebelliously draws herself an her personal experience. Zara, who has ugly face, tries to stand up to a customer, been made to believe that she is nothing, and escape from the traffi cker’s car. All of and that she deserves nothing, is able to these attempts to regain power fail, and understand Aliide’s shame better than most Lilya fi nds herself in the apartment, beaten of the people in her village, and performs up. Volodya appears again, witnessing her

30 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE trauma and telling her that the door is nated political landscape. There’s a strong unlocked. The only sentence that Lilya says relationship to Mother Nature within history in the end, is “where do I go?” a question – Estonia has been invaded so many times encapsulating her entire trauma. She is in – by the Swedes, Russians, Germans.” Sweden, a welfare state, a land of freedom, (Damian 2012) In addition to drawing atten- and she has nowhere to go. She feels tion to this still often silenced form of vio- ashamed, hopeless, and helpless. “I’ve had lence, the rape in this narrative is repre- it with this life. It’s complete shit. I don’t sentative of a pain experienced by a group want this life. I’m not interested.” Talking to of people. The nation experienced the rape Volodya has helped her realise what she of their country, as well as the resulting could have done differently at home, and in shame and powerlessness. Jeffrey Alexan- her mind, she tries to make it right. She also der has written that, “[t]rauma is not the knows that Volodya, who has witnessed her result of a group experiencing pain. It is the shame and listened to her, does not judge result of this acute discomfort entering into her; he will always be her friend. Volodya the core of the collective’s sense of its own also acts like a therapist for Lilya. His ques- identity.” (2004: 10) The occupation affected tions try to lead her away from her thoughts the identity of a country that had only been of suicide. However, he, too, is just a mem- independent for twenty-two years, leaving a ory, a “ghost” from the past, supernatural footprint in the core of the collective body of and nonexistent. Therefore, like Aliide, Lilya the Estonian nation, as well as on their does not fi nd recovery, but commits suicide. image in the eyes of the nations looking on. In Lilya 4-Ever, the post-Soviet urban TRAUMA OF GLOBALISATION spaces are carefully portrayed so that All three female protagonists, Aliide, Zara, almost no nature is visible. We see either and Lilya suffer from sexual violence that ruined buildings or ugly apartments, and causes individual trauma, but their stories the solitary trees look dead. If, at Aliide’s also carry in them a broader cultural house, the forest as a place of refuge was trauma. Brinton Tench Coxe writes that threatened by the offi cers, in Lilya 4-Ever Lilya’s urban world is depicted as “a kind of the forest has disappeared totally and the forgotten space where the Soviet past is an military bases, factories, and identical face- image that lingers in the present” (2010: 37). less apartment blocks have replaced any In both Purge and Lilya 4-Ever, the Soviet trace of nature. The dilapidated submarine past lingers in the nature or the urban base in Paldiski, a massive building mock- spaces. In Purge, the female body is con- ingly called “The Pentagon”, is the place of nected to the land and forest. It is also refuge for Lilya and Volodya. There the local something that is sold, abused, and domi- bullies cannot get to Lilya and Volodya, and nated. Zabrowska, Forrester and Gapova the latter sleeps in the base when he is argue that “the booming East-West mar- thrown out of his home. Lilya and Volodya riage market and the demand for “white” go to “The Pentagon” to sniff glue, dance Eastern e-mail-order brides prove beyond around the building, and dream of living in a doubt that the post-1989 era is gendered America. The Pentagon in the American and sexualized” (2004: 15). Both Purge and context is a symbol of the US military, and Lilya 4-Ever represent the sexualisation of during the Cold War, it was thought to be the post-Soviet era and spaces. a possible target of attack for the Soviet Sofi Oksanen, who is writing her narra- Union. The dilapidated building in Paldiski tive as an outsider from Finland, has said in is a symbol of the Soviet military; Lilya and one of her interviews that, “Finland is a Volodya fi nd Brezhnev’s old speeches and Motherland – the Maiden of Finland is a a picture of Lenin on the wall, with its clear really strong fi gure, and I wanted to explore red colour the only thing that has survived that matriarchal society which is also mani- from the time it was made. Lilya’s urban fested in Estonia, within such a male-domi- space is depicted as a leftover of Soviet

31 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE militarisation and occupation. Her dream of guishes between mass trauma and collec- freedom in Sweden turns into sex slavery in tive trauma, saying that collective trauma a rather similar urban space. The industrial appears “only when people start to be part of Malmö where she fi nds herself aware of the common plight, perceive the reminds her of her hometown. similarity of their situation with that of oth- The use of a prostitute as a symbol of ers, and defi ne it as shared” (Sztompka the degeneration of a country was exten- 2004: 160). The change that happened after sively used in Russia during and after the the collapse of the Soviet Union was posi- collapse of the Soviet Union.4 Estonian poet tive for many occupied nations, but having and philosopher Jaan Kaplinski has used a all the characteristics of a traumatogenic similar metaphor in his allegory of the repu- change (sudden, widespread, radical, and tation of Estonian artists and writers in unexpected – as defi ned by Sztompka), it 1992, equating the communist regime with was traumatic for the collective body of the a harem where the KGB and Communist whole post-Soviet region, and each occu- Party guarded the artists from “dangerous pied nation. Western infl uences”. “In a harem you must This traumatic change happened very make love to your lord and you can’t do it close to the Nordic countries where the with anybody else. A harem is a restricted questions of equality, transnationalism, area you can’t leave.” (Kaplinski 2007) In gender, and identity had been part of the the fi rst couple years of independence, he cultural discourse (Nestingen 2008: 9). The draws a parallel with women leaving a trauma of sex traffi cking affects the former harem because there is no money to keep Soviet countries as well as the Western and them, and many of them becoming prosti- Nordic countries. First, the sexual violence tutes who now are allowed to sleep with rich that is experienced by the victims is trau- Western men. “It’s not a long way from the matic, and it also traumatises the wit- harem to the brothel, or at least, the way nesses who are now learning about how from the harem to freedom is much longer extensive the prostitution and sex traffi ck- and harder.” (ibid.) Therefore, Lilya symbol- ing from the Eastern countries is. After Lilya ises a young naive country that would do 4-Ever was released in Sweden, it became anything to escape the depressing condi- part of a project in Swedish schools where tions and is ready to sell itself (resources, the students were shown the fi lm and then enterprises, etc.) to the foreign (often West- asked to discuss what they have seen and ern) investors. how they feel about it. In a report made Lukas Moodysson has stated his clear after a discussion with some secondary intention of writing about the diffi cult rela- school students in Sweden (Svenska Film- tions between nations, or in his words, pri- institutet 2004), the students were sur- marily between the Eastern and Western prised by the violence occurring around Europeans, “[t]he situation in the Eastern them and wanted the government to take Europe is a result of two acts of violence, more steps to prevent such violence, as well fi rst a communist and then a capitalist one. as to fi nd ways for the students themselves First the people lost their freedom and then to help the society around them. The reac- their safety as well.” (Svenska Filminstitutet tion to the brutal violence and Lilya’s awful 2004; my translation) By depicting Lilya’s human conditions is similar to the reactions trauma, Moodysson intends to draw atten- people have after reading stories of war vic- tion to the broader trauma in the midst of tims. Sweden as a country has been very changes between East and West. Piotr supportive towards Estonia, but in this fi lm Sztompka claims that many changes can be the Swedish audiences see how some sur- traumatising to a collective body. He distin- vivors or “leftovers” of the Soviet occupation suffer from even greater violence in their free welfare state, at the hands of their own 4 See Eliot Borenstein’s (2006) analysis of prostitution as a sign of Russian national humiliation. fellow Swedes, maybe in an apartment

32 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE house right next door. The shame of being a The trauma of sex traffi cking is affect- bystander, often unknowingly, and thereby ing the post-Soviet nations that are somehow contributing to the domination, is impacted by the Soviet past. The trauma is also traumatic. also infl uencing the Nordic countries, and is In both Purge and Lilya 4-Ever, the nar- being affected by the stereotypes created in rative is circular, it starts at the end and these countries. It exists and is being develops through memories or fl ashbacks. repeated in many countries. The structures Memories are necessary for recovering from of the dominations are reproduced by infl u- trauma, but in these narratives, the recov- encing each other and by many people con- ery does not occur. Jennifer Suchland sees stantly contributing to these dominations. “the eternal return of the same” (2013: 370) Moodysson feels a responsibility to speak in Lilya 4-Ever where “this circularity of the up, to express the affect that this particular narrative is not about liberation, but trag- trauma has had on him. He says in an inter- edy” (ibid.: 371). In Purge, to a certain extent view, “[t]his fi lm was to do with responsibil- as well, the haunting past is never really ity and guilt. I feel responsible for things resolved. Aliide kills herself and Zara is lib- that happen in the world and I think we all erated by money enabling her to travel to should.” (O’Hagan 2003) Finland. The happy or unhappy end of her Sofi Oksanen also feels responsible for story is left to the imagination of the read- challenging her readers to look beyond ster- ers. eotypes. In addition to depicting the trauma As authors with a purpose, Oksanen of the war and occupation in Estonia, she and Moodysson have succeeded in achiev- analyses the trauma of the present that is ing their aims. They have generated more affected by the traumatic past. Oksanen discussion about traumatic memories and says in an interview with Márton Benedek, the present-day trauma of sex traffi cking in “[i]n Finland the stereotype is that Estonian both the Western/Nordic and post-Soviet women are prostitutes and Estonian men societies. They wanted to traumatise their are criminals. So it would perhaps be more readers/viewers by making them relive the appropriate to write about very positive and traumatic experiences of the characters, to honest characters, but I wanted to tear demonstrate the importance of uncovering those stereotypes apart. It is of course not shame and listening to, and witnessing the possible to deny them, but you can show trauma without condemning or creating where they come from.” (Benedek 2011) stereotypes. Their portrayal of the trauma, Oksanen takes the stereotypes and shows when taken to the collective level, leaves the connection between the history, trauma, the impression that the entire body of a emotions, dominations, and their mutual post-Soviet nation is traumatised, and in affect. Lilya 4-Ever, according to Jennifer Such- Moodysson and Oksanen are speaking land, “the voyeurism that is common to to their own Nordic society that can, with its representations of sexualized violence is ignorance and stereotypes, contribute to replaced by post-socialist abjection” (2013: the domination existing in sex traffi cking; 364). In Purge, the voyeurism of both sexual- and they are speaking, as neutral outsiders, ised violence and post-socialist abjection to the post-Soviet nations with a traumatic seems to be present at times. The rainy, past. They are calling upon the victims not grey, and ruined town where Lilya lives or to remain in silence and their societies not the detailed descriptions of Aliide’s use of to contribute to the dominations by impos- spoiled meat, fl ies, and her husband’s dis- ing the same stereotypes. Oksanen and gusting body make the Western audiences Moodysson are both showing the need for a sigh in relief that they do not live in places therapist to help in the recovery from all the like post-Soviet towns, and may thereby be traumas that all four of their characters unwillingly contributing to the same stere- have suffered, and the supernatural nature otypes. of Zara and Volodya suggests that many

33 BALTIC SCREEN MEDIA REVIEW 2014 / VOLUME 2 / ARTICLE people with trauma in the post-Soviet countries will never have anyone in their lives who will listen, ask questions, and not condemn them. The trauma of occupation and sex traffi cking can be found in many countries in the world, but Oksanen and Moodysson have chosen the borderline space where the “West” and “East” meet, where the trauma of change is increased by the history of changes and traumatic disruptions to building up the collective identity. Their stories of individual suffering are powerful, traumatising, demanding, but on another level, they have contributed to the discourse on the traumatic changes in the cultural borders between Nordic/Western and post-Soviet spaces. Estonian historian Vahur Made has said that national identity is “forged in the interplay between the ‘self’ and the ‘other’” (2003: 183). In Purge and Lilya 4-Ever the “other” is the character on the post-Soviet stage where the Iron Curtain has been lifted. Oksanen and Moodysson (a Finnish writer, infl uenced by Estonian and Eastern European history, and a Swedish fi lmmaker, producing the fi lm together with the Danes, using Russian-speaking actors, fi lming in Estonia and Sweden) make use of transna- tional or transcultural spaces, which makes their narratives more relevant to wider audiences, emphasises the global trauma of sex traffi cking and the haunting past. Both works also intend to present the post- Soviet trauma, but do so from a Nordic cultural space and understanding without the particular historical memory, and therefore tend to over-traumatise the images of the post-Soviet spaces.

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