ETHNOGRAPHY OF VOTING: NOSTALGIA, SUBJECTIVITY, AND POPULAR POLITICS IN POST-SOCIALIST LITHUANIA by Neringa Klumbytė BA, Vytautas Magnus University, 1996 MA, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1997 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the School of Arts and Sciences in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2006 UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGH THE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES This dissertation was presented By Neringa Klumbytė It was defended on March 31, 2006 and approved by Nicole Constable, Professor, Department of Anthropology Ilya Prizel, Professor, UCIS Alberta Sbragia, Professor, Department of Political Science Andrew Strathern, Professor, Department of Anthropology ii ETHNOGRAPHY OF VOTING: NOSTALGIA, SUBJECTIVITY, AND POPULAR POLITICS IN POST-SOCIALIST LITHUANIA Neringa Klumbytė, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2006 Politics in Eastern Europe has become increasingly defined by apparent paradoxes, such as majority voting for the ex-communist parties in the early 1990s and strong support for populists and the radical right later in the 1990s and 2000s. The tendency in political science studies is to speak about the losers of transition, and to explain success of the ex-communist, radical and populist parties and politicians in terms of the politics of resentment or protest voting. However, what subjectivities have been produced during post-socialism and why/how they are articulated in particular dialogues among politicians and people, are questions that have not been discussed in most studies. In this dissertation I explore political subjectivities to explain voting behavior in the period of 2003-2004 in Lithuania. I analyze nostalgia for socialism and individuals’ relations to social and political history, community, nation, and the state. I argue that voting is an enactment of a social text or a performance of social history, in which a subject embodies his/her experience and knowledge. Voting is a meaningful action not just a protest. Electoral politics is a semantic and symbolic competition. My analysis is informed by phenomenology, semiotics, interpretative anthropology, post-structuralist theory as well as post-socialist and post-colonial studies. The research was conducted in 2003-2004 in three village communities and the cities of Vilnius and Kaunas, Lithuania. iii TABLE OF CONTENTS PREFACE .............................................................................................................................. IX 1.0 INTRODUCTION ...........................................................................................1 1.1 THE RESEARCH SITES.................................................................................4 1.1.1 Villages....................................................................................................4 1.1.2 The city of Kaunas................................................................................ 11 1.2 METHODOLOGY, DATA, AND BIASES................................................. 12 1.3 ON BEING NATIVE .................................................................................. 19 1.4 OUTLINE OF CHAPTERS........................................................................ 19 2.0 HISTORICAL CONTEXTS ..........................................................................23 3.0 CHAPTER 1: SOCIAL HISTORY, MEMORY, AND EXPERIENCE .......34 3.1 THE BETTER TIMES ...............................................................................36 3.2 THE REGRESSIVE PRESENT .................................................................38 3.3 PAST WELL-BEING AND PROSPERITY................................................45 3.4 MORAL CLAIMS AND MEANINGS OF JUSTICE .................................46 3.5 SYMBOLIC SPACES OF ORDER..............................................................50 3.6 WHOSE “BETTER TIMES”? ....................................................................52 3.7 POST-SOCIALIST SUBALTERNITY........................................................53 3.8 TRAJECTORIES OF POST-SOCIALIST DECLINE ............................... 61 4.0 CHAPTER 2: WORK, MONEY, AND MILK ...............................................64 4.1 WORK...........................................................................................................64 4.1.1 The value of work .................................................................................64 4.1.2 Relations and accommodations...........................................................67 4.2 MONEY .......................................................................................................77 4.2.1 Money shortages and food ...................................................................77 4.2.2 Surviving economies of abundance .....................................................83 iv 4.2.3 Money in the past.................................................................................88 4.3 MILK ............................................................................................................ 91 5.0 CHAPTER 3: OPPRESSION AND FOREIGN SOCIAL HISTORY..........95 5.1 JUOZAPOTA ...............................................................................................97 5.2 EGLĖ.......................................................................................................... 106 5.3 SELF AND HISTORY................................................................................114 5.3.1 Defining stories ...................................................................................114 5.3.2 Political self .........................................................................................117 5.3.3 Duplicious self ................................................................................... 120 5.3.4 National self ....................................................................................... 123 5.3.5 Post-socialist present ......................................................................... 125 6.0 CHAPTER 4: SYMBOLIC IDENTITIES, SOCIAL OTHERNESS, AND TEXTS OF OPPOSITION........................................................................................... 128 6.1 ASCRIBING DIFFERENCE IN THE SOVIET STATE........................ 130 6.2 DEPORTEE STORIES OF RETURN AND THEIR EXPERIENCE OF DIFFERENCE ..................................................................................................... 134 6.3 OTHER SPACES OF DIFFERENCE...................................................... 138 6.4 CLASSISM AND BIOGRAPHIC CLEANSING ...................................... 143 6.5 THE FIRST-CLASS CITIZENS OF THE SOVIET STATE .................. 147 6.6 BELONGING TO THE COMMUNIST PARTY .................................... 150 6.7 LATE SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET INVERSIONS............................. 153 6.8 POST-SOVIET SPACES OF DIFFERENCE .......................................... 157 6.9 MEMORIES AND EXPERIENCES OF OTHERNESS IN THE LATE SOVIET AND POST-SOVIET PERIOD .............................................................161 6.10 OUTLIVING “COMMUNIST” OTHERNESS....................................... 164 6.11 TRANSLATIONS: EXPERIENCE AND TEXTS................................... 172 6.12 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................ 173 7.0 CHAPTER 5: NATION AND LIBERATION............................................ 176 7.1 SOCIAL TEXTS OF THE LIBERATION MOVEMENT...................... 179 7.2 (DIS)CONNECTIONS: LIBERATION, NATION, AND SELF ........... 184 7.3 REMEMBERING THE LIBERATION PERIOD: FROM SUPPORT TO DISAPPOINTMENT........................................................................................... 187 v 7.4 MEMORY AND EXPERIENCE OF SOCIALISM ................................. 193 7.5 REARTICULATIONS: LIBERATION, NATION, AND SELF............. 197 7.5.1 Particular freedom ............................................................................. 197 7.5.2 Nation-ness (tautiškumas)................................................................. 206 7.5.3 Village spaces......................................................................................211 8.0 CHAPTER 6: AUTHORITY, POWER AND THE POST-SOCIALIST STATE 215 8.1 POWER, AUTHORITY, AND MORAL DISCIPLINING...................... 217 8.1.1 May, 2004. Kaunas. On a bus. ............................................................ 217 8.1.2 August, 2004. Kaunas. At Elena’s. ..................................................... 219 8.1.3 Summer, 2003. Vilnius. The Embassy of Romania........................... 222 8.2 IMAGINING THE POST-SOCIALIST “STATE” .................................. 226 8.2.1 Wealth, collective, and equality ......................................................... 226 8.2.2 Reclaiming dependence .................................................................... 232 8.2.3 The relationship of difference and distrust ....................................... 236 8.3 THE GRAMMAR OF DIFFERENCE AND METAPHORICAL PORTRAITS OF STATE AUTHORITIES......................................................... 240 8.3.1 The “lords” ........................................................................................ 241 8.3.2 The “mafia” and the “clan”............................................................... 244 8.3.3 The “communists” ............................................................................ 248 8.4 CONCLUSIONS........................................................................................ 250 9.0 CHAPTER 7: VOTING AS MEANINGFUL