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 devel- opment 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.

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