So, if you have been part of the "lucky few" (heh heh) that have heard me talk at length, over and over I'm sure, about my project - you've probably figured out by now that I'm obsessed with constructivism. In simple terms, this is studying how people "build" and create their culture through behavior and chosen attitudes. This is based in the anthropological idea that culture doesn't simply exist, but that humans are directly responsible for creating it, whether they know it or not. People create - or construct - their culture in all sorts of ways. I was interested specifically in looking at how Lithuanians today are using music to create their imaginations of "modern Lithuanianness" in post-Soviet place.
And here is where the problem comes about: in my cultural lectures at the university, in looking at the texts, and watching Lithuanian TV, people here are really stuck on the past. At festivals and other cultural events I've been to, there has been a definite attitude that revolves around primordialism ("we are the Lithuanians that always have been and always will be, so we deserve to be the best and to celebrate our immortal culture"). But on the other hand, artists, writers, and other thinkers are stuck on deconstructing Soviet past and Soviet life. A writer at a lecture I attended was frank and noted that under the USSR , "everyone fucked up each other, or were fucked. There was no hero". I've observed that thinkers and scholars here Lietuvoje (in Lithuania) in general seem to have a shameful remembrance of the past, and are really hung up on this fact in their writing and speeches. There is a sense of guilt in the movies I've seen - and people in general seem eager to call their former Soviet life "shit. Will it ever be shaken by society?
So, is the government the group that drives the primordialist attitude?
Is it that the people today, only 20 years after fighting for separation from the USSR, are still dealing with painful memories of the past?
How long will it take to keep deconstructing the past, and dealing with pain, before people will begin to start constructing a present and a future for their country?
I asked a lecturer here about literature - he said that although the trend is growing all over the world, not one writer here has written a "constructionist" novel - or even a novel directly about the present, really. Most novels are set in the late Soviet era, and talking about the present or future "can't be done until the past is dealt with". Again I ask - when will that time ever come?
Here is another example for you to ponder: families still live in the small flats they were forced to move into when the USSR demanded that they give up their houses and homes. I am living in such a flat - the plumbing is despicable, when there was a water problem a few weeks ago, it took 5 days to fix (and have water again!!!) because the Soviet-paid plumbers had no reason to do a great job, and the unmarked piping was completely surrounded by cheap cement instead, simply because it was cheaper, and they could keep the "difference" when they cheated on these material costs. Thank goodness my relatives here let me move in with them while things were being fixed! But still: people live in these small homes that they were forced into during Communist times. How can a post-Soviet country move forward when a few generations have grown up in these flats, calling them home? Even wealthy people live in these homes, and simply have them redecorated in fancy ways. Yet on the outside, these flats are definitely Soviet - literally a reminder looming on their horizon of a dangerous, painful past.
This isn't my picture - but it is a picture of a "neighboring" flat near my home here. To find this, I searched google.com with the tags " ___my street name___" and "butas" (flat). The third tag that was tagged by OTHERS was "ugly". Maybe that offers some insight?
Sidenote: right now, I'm at a cafe and across the street is a street musician. He just broke a string - and all of the patrons of the cafe are clapping. Today I heard a street musician playing Green Day and Nirvana. If there was ever a moment of cultural critique I've experienced here, it was this afternoon, when I couldn't stop my doubts and judgment: a Lithuanian street performer attempted to perform Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit...
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