HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY

Dalia Leinartė. Unplanned Life: Family in Soviet Lithuania (Neplanuotas gyvenimas: šeima sovietmečio Lietuvoje), Vilnius: Aukso žuvys, 2022, 294 pp.

The author was prompted to explore the institution of the family by interviews conducted for previous research, when it emerged that the women interviewed had only vague recollections of their married life. Why are the family-related memories of women who experienced the Soviet era so faint, fragmented and hardly individualised? What was the everyday life of an ordinary family like and how was it affected by Soviet family policy and ideology? Leinartė uses documentary sources and authentic testimonies to find answers to these questions. The image of the Soviet family is portrayed through its components: marriage, love, home, interpersonal relations between women and men, parents and children, and divorce. The past daily lives of so many families, inseparable from the lack of privacy as well as from poverty, alcohol and the violence caused by it, and from devastating historical circumstances, come to the fore in this book. Leinartė’s research also shows how Soviet family policy still functions in the present where there is no shortage of difficult-to-transform norms and those Soviet family stereotypes, which today, fortunately, only affect the private lives of just a minority.

Dalia Leinartė is a historian, journalist, and member (and former Chair) of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW). In 2018, Apolitical named her one of the 100 most influential people in gender politics worldwide. She is the author of “Prijaukintos kasdienybės. Autobiografiniai moterų interviu, 1945–1970 m.” (Adopting and Remembering Soviet Reality: Life Stories of Lithuanian Women, 1945–1970) and “Vedusiųjų visuomenė. Santuoka ir skyrybos Lietuvoje XIX amžiuje – XX amžiaus pradžioje” (The Lithuanian Family in its European Context, 1800–1914: Marriage, Divorce and Flexible Communities).

Contact for rights: sigita@auksozuvys.lt