Collective memory in the Lithuanian and Latvian literary press of national awakening of the late 20th period

This doctoral dissertation is a comparative study of collective memory (re)constructed in the Lithuanian and Latvian literary press during the national revival of late 20 th Period. The Revival is defined as a multifaceted process of change, an intense, mass national movement during the years of 1988–1992. Reflections of the past during the time formed the basis of individual and sociocultural identity, intensively (re)constructed in literary, cultural press. The study aims to determine and compare the most symptomatic figures of memory, images of the Lithuanian and Latvian past that are predominant in textual reflections and to define the outlines of the conceptual discourse they are developing as well as the reflections of the historical and sociocultural context. The research includes various elements of collective (communicative and cultural) memory and the culture of commemoration: material and non-material forms of memory, creators of the culture of memory, commemorative communicative practices and the conceptual discourse based on them. The primary source of the research is the Lithuanian and Latvian literary press: Literatūra ir menas, Pergalė (Metai since 1991) and Nemunas, Latvian Literatūra un Māksla, Karogs (Flag) and Avots (Source or Spring). They are occasionally complemented by cultural or daily periodicals: Lithuanian Šiaurės Atėnai, Kultūros barai, Metmenys, Sietynas, Kauno tiesa, Latvian Zvaigzne (Star), Rīgas Balss (The Voice of Riga), Lauku Avīze (Newspaper of the Village), Diena (Day)