The Moment the World Began to Collapse: A Reading of Five Self-Published Lithuanian American Life-Writing Memoirs

Abstract

Lithuanians displaced by the second Soviet Russian occupation of Lithuania in 1944, and the second and third generations born to them abroad in North America, feared Lithuanian language and culture would be extinguished under Russian domination (1944–1991). Therefore, maintaining Lithuanian language and culture was prioritized in the diaspora. Also, diaspora social activities and community provided a sense of belonging to something greater than mainstream American culture and held in check the natural process of cultural assimilation. Through collective cultural memory, Lithuanian values were passed down three and four generations in the United States and Canada. Over the past 20 years, more and more Lithuanian American women have published family memoirs of surviving war and displacement and building a new life in North America. The majority of these memoirs are self-published. Through the theoretical perspective of life-writing, autobiography, and heritage studies, this paper analyzes self-published historical memoirs by five Lithuanian diaspora women writers: Escaping Stalin’s Grasp by Nida Dauknys, 2022; Flight: A Memoir of Loss and Discovery by an Aviator’s Daughter by Rasa Gustaitis, 2021; Springtime in Lithuania: Youthful Memories: 1920–1940 by Hypatia Yčas, 2000; On the Way to America by Aleksandra Kašuba, 2012, and a scrapbook assembled by Janė Motivans to honor her grandmother’s life on her 95th birthday are spiral bound photocopied memoirs produced in a limited edition for family and friends. This paper argues that each memoirist seeks to rebuild a fragmented family narrative through structuring around the archetypical hero’s myth identified by Joseph Campbell. These memoirs also reflect on aspects of culture and tradition lost through emigration.
Through identifying family and cultural trauma narratives, this paper opens a dialog on how unrecognized collective trauma impacts society, families, individuals, and how memoir writing and the sharing of these memoirs can serve as a tool of healing and post-traumatic growth.