Shaping collective memory: "Vilnius’ everyday life a photoalbum"

• UCL Discovery: knygos tekstas

ENThe Soviet occupation of Lithuania that lasted for half a century forms the dominant narrative of the nation (or state) as a victim of Sovietization, having suffered from this long-term brutal external influence. A sense of injustice at this oppression acted as a powerful catalyst for change in Lithuanian society in the late 1980s. Nevertheless three decades of independence have revealed that processes of political liberation are not equivalent to processes of cultural decolonization, especially in the minds of the country’s citizens and attitudes in society more generally. In fact the sudden flurry of neoliberalism that hit Lithuania in the 1990s led to further ruins and grievances, but did not shift the cultural dogmas that were rooted during the Occupation. And in some cases liberation has itself been embroiled in our own old myths. Thus the decolonization of Soviet cultural heritage is still a painful and slow process in understanding the degree to which various cultural forms were infused with colonial powers. The recent history of Lithuanian photography is no exception. During Soviet times, Lithuanian documentary photography grew into a powerful movement, forming the so called School of Photography, and was highly acknowledged in the Soviet Union and internationally, also acquiring administrative influence. My aim here, though, is not to consider the School's artistic legacy, but to question the role that photography played at the time in a broader and longer- term historical and political context. In doing so, I would like to show the necessity for rethinking cultural phenomena as complex agents of social and political contexts, and argue that a liberal approach to artifacts of the past should not overshadow their complexity 99 and problematic nature. [Extract, p. 98]