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Nostalgia at Home: Time as A Cultural Resource in Contemporary Estonia

Nostalgia is a way of thinking about the past that emphasizes positive and pleasant memories, but also involves melancholy due to pain from the loss of something significant (Davis 1979, 13). Associated with yearning for continuity and authenticity, it is a cultural resource that can be used in different contexts and with different meanings. State, political, and commercial institutions have used this phenomenon to build and promote consumable identities (Boym 2001; Chase and Shaw 1989; Tannock 1995). Nostalgia regularly appears as a defense mechanism against the uncertainties of life at times of accelerated rhythms and historical upheavals. This has also been the case in post-socialist Estonia (Aarelaid-Tart 2006; Kannike 2009; Kõresaar 2005, 2008). Nostalgia concerns the relationship between individual biography and the biographies of groups and nations, between personal and collective memory. Various forms of nostalgia, from reanimations and reconstructions to creative interpretations, contribute not only to coping with a problematic past, but also to negotiating and forging new identities. Against that background, this article examines the representations of nostalgia in the private sphere: home and neighborhood. I will describe how nostalgia inspires different everyday practices and provokes debates, looking for changes and new tendencies that have emerged over the past decade. Examining the functions, mechanisms and different versions of nostalgia in everyday life enables one to analyze time experiences on the private level in the context of a multitude of contemporary time representations. Through the lens of nostalgia, it is possible to look at the temporal dimension of adaptation to cultural changes and personalizing private space. Journal of Baltic Studies Vol. 44, No. 2, June 2013, pp. 153–176