ISSN 16915038 DAUGAVPILS UNIVERSITY FACULTY OF HUMANITIES INSTITUTE OF COMPARATIVE STUDIES THE MEMOIRS OF THE 20TH CENTURY: NORDIC AND BALTIC EXPERIENCE COMPARATIVE STUDIES Vol. III (2) DAUGAVPILS UNIVERSITY ACADEMIC PRESS ìSAULEî ~ 2010 ~ Comparative Studies. The Memoirs of the 20th Century: Nordic and Baltic Experience. Vol. III (2). Daugavpils: Daugavpils University Academic Press ìSauleî, 2010. 184 p. Scientific Committee of the Issue Comparative Studies Dr. philos. Bente Aamotsbakken, Norway Dr. habil. philol. Vsevolod Bagno, Russia Dr. phil. Irina Belobrovtseva, Estonia Dr. J. Douglas Clayton, Canada Dr. habil. philol. Fjodors Fjodorovs, Latvia Dr. Rita Giuliani, Italy Dr. Véronique Jobert, France Dr. philol. Pekka Kujam‰ki, Finland Dr. hum. Mindaugas Kvietkauskas, Lithuania Dr. habil. philol. Vera V‚vere, Latvia Dr. Willem Weststeijn, the Netherlands Editorial Board of the Issue Comparative Studies. The Memoirs of the 20th Century: Nordic and Baltic Experience. Vol. III (2) Dr. Jørgen Bruhn, Sweden Dr. philol. Maija Burima, Latvia Dr. habil. philol. Fjodors Fjodorovs, Latvia Dr. philol. Silvestras Gaizi˚nas, Lithuania Dr. phil. Marja J‰nis, Finland† Dr. philol. Ilze KaË‚ne, Latvia Dr. habil. philol. Benedikts KalnaËs, Latvia Dr. philol. Kirill Korkonosenko, Russia Dr. phil. Luise Liefl‰nderLeskinen, Finland Cand. philol. Eva Maagerø, Norway Dr. phil. Anneli Mihkelev, Estonia Dr. art. Lisbeth Pettersen Wærp, Norway Editorial Staff of the Issue Comparative Studies. The Memoirs of the 20th Century: Nordic and Baltic Experience. Vol. III (2) Editorinchief: Maija Burima Assistant editor: Fjodors Fjodorovs The English language editor: Sandra Mekova Proofreader: Oksana Komarova Layout: Marina StoËka ISSN 16915038 © Daugavpils University, 2010 ISBN 9789984144931 CONTENTS FOREWORD..................................................................................................... 5 MEMORIES AS THE PHENOMENON OF THEORETICAL AND CULTURAL DISCOURSE Fjodors Fjodorovs (Latvia) Memoirs in the System of EgoLiterary Genres ................................................... 9 Natalia Baschmakoff (Finland) Reminiscence ñ Knowledge Through Traces ....................................................... 17 Bente Aamotsbakken (Norway) Play with Genres in the TwentiethCentury Norwegian Literature: Examples from Norwegian Literature ................................................................ 30 Jørgen Bruhn (Sweden) The Postderridean Writing of Imre Kertész........................................................ 38 DIVERSITY OF GENRE AND CONTENT OF MEMORIES IN THE SPACE OF 20TH CENTURY BALTIC CULTURE Maija Burima (Latvia) Memory Narrative Waves in the 20th Century Latvian Literature ....................... 49 Ilze KaË‚ne (Latvia) Remembered Childhoods in Latvian Literature of the 1920s and 1930s ............. 61 AlÓna Romanovska (Latvia) Egovariations in Antons AustriÚí Texts............................................................ 68 Aurika Meimre (Estonia) Peter Pilísky ñ Memoir Writer (A Brief Overview) .............................................. 78 Inga StepukonienÎ (Lithuania) Baltic Prose in the 1990s: the Emergence of ëAuthentic Historicismí ................... 89 MEMORY AS THE RESONANCE MEDIATOR OF EMIGRATION, DEPORTATION, AND SOVIETIZATION Aare Pilv (Estonia) Memory as Exile: Tınu ’nnepaluís Travels in Space and Time .......................... 101 Anneli Mihkelev (Estonia) Between Homeland and Exile ñ the Estonian and Swedish Memory ................... 110 4 Asta GustaitienÎ (Lithuania) Lithuanian Stories about Siberia: between Memoir and Autobiography.............. 119 Ilona œaha (Latvia) Childhood Memory Sketches in the Latvian Literature of 1991 .......................... 131 Irina Belobrovtseva (Estonia) The Estonian Muscovite David Samoylov .......................................................... 137 MEMORY AS THE COMPONENT OF LITERARY CONTACTS AND PROCESSES Nadezhda Fjodorova (Latvia) Notes on Reception of a Text of a Different Nation (Georg Brandes about Anton Chekhov) ................................................................................................ 151 Marja J‰nis (Finland) Memoirs of the Latvianborn Finnish Film Director Teuvo Tulio (Teodor Tugai) ................................................................................................... 157 Anna StankeviËa (Latvia) ëThe Allied ñ the Aliení in Carl Gustav Mannerheimís Memoirs ......................... 168 Taina Vanharanta (Finland) Elvi Sinervoís Cultural Influence as a Translator of Literature ............................ 175 CONTRIBUTORS ............................................................................................ 179 5 FOREWORD The collection of research articles titled The Memoirs of the 20th Century: Nordic and Baltic Experience regards the issues of Nordic, Baltic, and Russian culture processes and culture contacts in a comparative perspective. In 2005, Nordic ñ Baltic ñ Russian Network in Comparative Cultural Studies was formed at Daugavpils University. In the course of its existence, two international research conferences were organized within the network: the first one on 9 ñ 10 May 2006 in Daugavpils, another on 10 ñ 11 May 2008 in Oslo. The materials of the former conference Communication as Translatio ñ Nordic ñ Baltic ñ Russian Dialogues were published in the collection Comparative Studies. Volume I (1) in 2008. The present collection entails papers presented at the conference The Memoirs of the 20th Century: Nordic and Baltic Experience that took place in Oslo with participants from Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Norway, Finland, and Sweden. The conference was dedicated to the typological forms of memory appearing in the specific contexts of the Nordic, Baltic, and Russian culture and history. The cooperation network was coordinated by Daugavpils University Comparative Studies Institute professor Maija Burima and research fellow Ilze KaË‚ne who were also the conference organizers. To extend the thematic field marked by the conference, several authors were invited to participate with their articles in the compilation of the collection of articles. Baltic and Nordic regions have longstanding culture contact traditions. There are parallels in the peopleís identity and national character of both regions, e.g. in the perception of landscape, attitude towards nature and people around. Culture parallels between Nordic and Baltic countries have formed a continual process marked by specific crosspoints that are often closely connected with global historical events. The present collection is aimed at analyzing the role of memory as a culture phenomenon in the process of literature by marking the theoretical framework and cultural discourse of memory interpretation, noting its determined genre modifications and describing the resonance of global and local historical events in memory narratives that are especially popular among Baltic researchers due to the fact that this region has been affected by the historical cataclysms of the 20th century. The collection also entails articles that regard the phenomenon of memory as a component part of literary contacts of diverse ages. The articles in the collection on the whole crystallize the idea that memory is a complex psychological mechanism, thus having manifold opportunities of actualization in literature: variating reproduction strategies of past events, different kinds of relating memories manifesting in several modifications of genres, specific character of depicting individual and collective experience, rewriting history, etc. The editors hope that readers will find in this collection new ideas on the phenomenon of memory as well as the investigation of Baltic and Nordic culture contacts. Maija Burima . MEMORIES AS THE PHENOMENON OF THEORETICAL AND CULTURAL DISCOURSE . Fjodors Fjodorovs MEMOIRS IN THE SYSTEM OF EGOLITERARY GENRES Summary Literature is concentrated on modeling a relative world, by means of which the normative reality is affirmed or the presentday life is analyzed; in this sense literature is a distantremoved structure to a greater or lesser extent. Egoliterature is concentrated not on the relative, but on the concretepersonal world, the world limited by the authorís life story, his life experience, directly declaring his views. The subject of literature is ëheí or ëtheyí. The subject of egoliterature is ëIí or ëtheyí through the prism of ëIí. The methodology of literature is description, be it mythology or reality. The methodology of egoliterature is selfdescription. Literature describes the world and life through the system of mediators, figureheads. Egoliterature author gets along without meditation. Literary author objectifies the world; egoliterary author subjectifies the world. The history of literature as entirety including literature proper and egoliterature entails a process declaring the advance of subjectivity. The 18th century in France set forward memoirs as a major genre of egoliterature. Memoirs as important cultural fact have received little theoretical investigation. Two problems are especially significant: 1) artistic ñ inartistic; 2) the criterion of truth. Keywords: description, selfdescription, confession, memory, truthfulness, emigration, motherland, foreign land, messianic * The study of literature in recent four or five years has shown a keen interest in the research of egoliterature. The term ëegoliteratureí is precise enough. Literature is concentrated on modeling a relative world, by means of which the normative reality is affirmed