Friday, March 14, 2014
Forum (Omni Shoreham)
Using archival and ethnographic materials, this paper explores citizens’ grievances and letters of complaint to the KGB, the Soviet State Security, in late Soviet Lithuania (1964-1985). Citizens exercised their right to appeal to the state and complained about various transgressions that affected public order and their personal lives. They reported on various issues whether unjust distribution of oranges, an anti-Brezhnev joke, noisy neighbors, or unruly KGB informants. In their complaints they were concerned with personal wellbeing and safety, public order, and dangers of anti-Soviet elements, including nationalists. I argue that complaining was a mode of ethical and affective governance and self-governance. Citizens participated in rearticulation of Soviet justice and order in normative idioms of anger, cynicism, threat, despair, and hope. Complaining created a specific negative emotional and moral relationship to social and political life--the one of criticism, dissatisfaction, and disapproval, which often challenged state’s legitimacy at the same time as it reinforced state sponsored practices. By responding to citizen’s complaints, the KGB reasserted state’s power and upheld Soviet morality. Soviet authorities, however, often ignored complaints: very often reports on cases on nationalism were disregarded by the KGB; reports on the transgressions of the KGB officers were subject to revision and concealment; and even various cases of nationalism were omitted. People shared sentiments that the state cannot be reached, at the same time continued to complain and seek justice.
