Living together with difficult memories and diverse identities WPS 1294292

The multi-disciplinary project focuses on difficult memories and diverse identities related with conflicts in Russia, Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Germany and Turkey. It addresses the questions: How can people live together after violent conflicts and with traumatic memories? How is it possible to allow difficult memories instead of silencing them? The project interrelates public acts of memory work to more private ways of remembering by applying multidisciplinary methodological frame. University of Helsinki research team co-ordinates the project and focuses on two case studies, which relate to the post WWII period the issues of silence, stigma and trauma in Finland and in Estonia. The first case study focuses on the memories related to internment of German and Hungarian citizens in Finland, and the reception of the law of compensation. The second case study is related to queer sexualities in Soviet Estonia through the analysis of Estonian court cases, personal narratives and interviews.