![\"Sulg\"](\"\/\/imbipaju.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tcb_lp_templates\/templates\/css\/images\/Bookwise_feather01.png\" "\\"Sulg\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\nImbi Paju <\/strong>Sisters across the Gulf of Finland. Looking at Each Other<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s Pain<\/em> <\/strong> Feedback:<\/h3>\nHeikki Majava<\/b><\/h4>\n
– Psychiatrist, psychologist and psychosemiotician, Finland –<\/p>\n
\u201c<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n“I find myself myself now believing that, in the spirit of Dante\u2019s divine author genius, Imbi Paju\u2019s book can coach us \u2013 as individual citizens, as independent nations and members of ever growing national organizations \u2013 to grow ourselves, and to grow a moral cosmos to combat and\u2028treat evil \u2013 repression, submission, decimation and devastation.”<\/h6>\n
![\"\"](\"\/\/imbipaju.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/tcb_content_templates\/images\/Bookwise_feather01.png\" "\\"Bookwise_feather01\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cSisters Across the Gulf of Finland. Looking at Each Other<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s Pain<\/em>, which reveals the basting stitches of Paju\u2019s memory work and thought processes, represents a step toward the kind of relatedness found in constant movement, an often contradictory and stress-laden complex process, and as such, the only possible course for the author. As one possible solution, Paju offers empathy, translated word-for-word from Estonian as \u201cfeeling-with,\u201d which may provide the key to understanding the past and shaping a different future.\u201d<\/h4>\nLeena K\u00e4osaar <\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n(formerly Kurvet-K\u00e4osaar)<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n– Associate Professor of Cultural Theory, Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu –<\/p>\n
Literary Clinic: What It Means to Be Human <\/em>Feedback<\/strong>.<\/h3>\n\u201cIt is enjoyable and inspirational to read how everything in this book so calmly and clearly flows toward a feeling of solidarity.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Thomas Salumets<\/b><\/p>\n
Assoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
\u201cLiterary Clinic<\/em> has a therapeutic effect, while validating, reminding us of and predicting our belonging to the Western humanitarian space. Still now, and in the future.\u201d<\/h6>\nEERIK-NIILES KROSS<\/b><\/p>\n
historian, author, diplomat and politician<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople of my generation, and particularly younger people, have a great lack of understanding about what \u201creally\u201d happened: the society of violence and perpetual fear in which people were forced to live. Even today, we collectively prefer to remain silent about certain things rather than to talk them through, because we presume the emergence of a great deal of pain. And hey, don\u2019t we have enough pain in present times without rummaging around for it in the past? But Paju says, \u201cTrauma is a time traveler. Unless we intervene, it moves invisibly into new generations.\u201d (p. 61). Therefore, the author has decided to write a book that will stimulate people to deal with this underplayed personal and historical pain that has been pushed aside into darkness, because only by doing so can we hope for a more normal future in this world that is rushing ever more wildly toward dystopia.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Sveta Grigorjeva<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
Poet<\/p>\n
“The Literary Clinic<\/em> compendium of essays deals with our era through works by various writers, analyzing human life and humankind while also taking a look inward, into oneself. Through these examples from literature, Paju creates spaces and bridges that deal with humankind on multiple levels: our personal scars, memory and history, current and future times, the environment, nature, war and peace. The work also reflects on how a person can find the courage to live and love in an environment of emotional wisdom.”<\/h6>\nOuti Hyt\u00f6nen<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\nFinnish author, translator and literary critic <\/p>\n
Comments by others on Imbi Paju\u2019s Memories Denied<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
![\"pildita\"](\"https:\/\/imbipaju.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/05\/noimage.jpg\" "\\"pildita\\"")
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“By describing the fate of her mother \u2013 arrested, imprisoned, deported to the Gulag as a young woman \u2013 Imbi Paju has, in effect, told the story of an entire nation. Widely admired in her native Estonia and elsewhere, Memories Denied<\/em> could bring that country\u2019s history alive for many others too.”<\/p>\nAnne Applebaum<\/strong><\/h6>\nauthor <\/strong>of Gulag: A History<\/strong> (2003) on the Soviet prison camp system, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“Imbi Paju\u2019s book opens doors onto dark rooms. Let them flood with sunlight. And let others follow the same example.”<\/p>\n
Edward Lucas<\/strong><\/h6>\nBritish writer, journalist, security specialist and politician<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cImbi Paju\u2019s book (Memories Denied<\/em>) is equally impressive and necessary. It focuses on the denial of atrocities suffered in Estonia during the Soviet occupation: both the unspeakable and the unspoken. On the one hand it is about the denial of the victim. And on the other, it is a history of perpetrators and the dark powers that followed. Imbi Paju\u2019s book is an important contribution to a critical update of cultural memory in Europe. Such stories are critical, because only they can remind us how secretly memories can be denied. As the author says, it is personal memories that give history a human face. The book does, however, also reflected on the larger story: the history of a country that aspires to retain its independence \u2013 and has put its hopes into the EU for freedom and security.\u201d<\/p>\nProf. Dr. Peter Hanenberg<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\nProfessor of Cultural Studies, Universidade Cat\u00f3lica Portuguesa, Lisbon<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cWritten by author and film director Imbi Paju, Memories Denied<\/em> is an impressionist work of art, which creates its images by abandoning the traditional rules and techniques of historical writing, instead using psychology, psychoanalysis, belles-lettres, philosophy, historical facts, personal memories of her countrymen, and the recollections of those close to her. It succeeds in creating an image of what a violent regime can do to people, showing the evil that man inflicts on man when the darkness lurking within his soul seizes power and when the political atmosphere fosters this kind of violence, and showing how a dictatorial regime manipulates remembering in order to hide its criminal actions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe narrative emerges from Estonia\u2019s experience, from the author\u2019s own family story and personal childhood memories. In her work, Paju is not saying \u201cnever again!\u201d On the contrary, the book tells us that events such as these might well happen again. If we make no attempt to keep remembering, we shall never escape the consequences. This book explains how violent regimes founded on totalitarian philosophies persuade people to follow them, thereby stripping them of all their humanity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The early 1940s saw the immediate imposition of the Russian SSR Criminal Code, which defined the \u201cobjective enemy\u201d\u2013 a bandit, an enemy of the people, a kulak, an undesirable element, a hostile nation. According to the renowned Gulag researcher Anne Applebaum, every memoir, every document on the history of the Gulag is but a fragment of the puzzle, a fraction of the explanation. Without these pieces, we might wake up one day not knowing who we are. And without these pieces, words such as \u201chuman rights\u201d, \u201ccompassion\u201d and \u201ctrust\u201d will become mere clich\u00e9s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toomas Hendrik Ilves<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nPresident of Estonia (2006-2016)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“An important change in the Estonian culture of remembrance was signaled in the mid-2000s by Imbi Paju\u2019s documentary Memories Denied<\/em> (2005) and her popular history book by the same name. When the film, which had been released in Finland, was first shown in Estonia it provoked a strong emotional response both from renowned cultural critics as well as from a wider audience, as if the Soviet deportations and the Gulag had been addressed for the first time. After two decades of working through the painful memories of Soviet oppression, the film seemed to have captured its impact on people\u2019s lives.”<\/p>\nEneken Laanes<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nProfessor of Comparative Literature, Tallinn University <\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“During the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the 40s and 50s, tens of thousands of people were sent to the Siberian gulags, with Imbi Paju\u2019s mother among them. The author\u2019s memoir Memories Denied <\/em>constitutes an attempt to come to terms with this dreadful past through reading and writing her mother\u2019s memories. The present article argues that there are complex connections between the imagined and lived experiences of trauma in the memoir, as the author\u2019s (re)constructions of the past are inextricably tied to that of her mother\u2019s, in that Paju does not deny her mother\u2019s memories in order to survive, but dwells in them. Through such a process, which can be called archaeology of subjectivity in the sense that she constructs a self and a persona in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation, the article focuses on the transgenerational transmission of trauma through the gendered conduit of remembrance, which is the mother. Memories Denied <\/em>is, more than anything, an intriguing example of how individual consciousness infuses collective imaginaries. As the repeated tragedy of a single family through the retelling of stories becomes a national tragedy deeply rooted into a fragmented, European narrative, the reading and writing of Imbi Paju\u2019s maternal memories challenges the Soviet politics of destroying memory, intimacy and family ties in the name of a superior, supposedly stable sense of identity.”<\/p>\nAndreas Athanasiades<\/strong><\/h6>\nUniversity of Cyprus, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Memories Denied <\/em>resonates powerfully with the works of renowned intellectuals and writers, such as Still Alive<\/em>, the memoirs of Holocaust survivor Ruth Kluger, or Crabwalk<\/em>, the novel by G\u00fcnther Grass.<\/p>\nThomas Salumets<\/strong>,<\/b><\/h6>\nAssoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
In 2020, Memories Denied<\/em> was designated a contemporary literary classic in Finland by Like Publishers. The international journey of Memories Denied<\/em>, which was initially published in 2006, is testament to the timelessness of the book. It contains meanings to be discovered at different points in time and among different generations. Let us be glad that it has returned to us. The book gives us a deeply meaningful reading experience that continues to provide lessons of discovery about humanity and the fate of a single small person amid the storms of history.<\/p>\nMari Hyrkk\u00e4nen<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\neditor and department head of Like Publishers in Finlandl<\/p>\n
Feedback<\/p>\n
No Man Is an Island: Three Essays on the Gulag Archipelago<\/em>.<\/h2>\n<\/em>\u201c<\/h2>\n“The collaboration between Paju, Laar and Kross is welcome in every way, endeavoring to achieve maximum objectivity and with the somewhat different styles of each author still a consistent discussion of the life of one of the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s most influential writers.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nAivar Kull<\/strong><\/h4>\n– cultural historian –<\/p>\n
“I find myself myself now believing that, in the spirit of Dante\u2019s divine author genius, Imbi Paju\u2019s book can coach us \u2013 as individual citizens, as independent nations and members of ever growing national organizations \u2013 to grow ourselves, and to grow a moral cosmos to combat and\u2028treat evil \u2013 repression, submission, decimation and devastation.”<\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201cSisters Across the Gulf of Finland. Looking at Each Other<\/em>\u2019<\/em>s Pain<\/em>, which reveals the basting stitches of Paju\u2019s memory work and thought processes, represents a step toward the kind of relatedness found in constant movement, an often contradictory and stress-laden complex process, and as such, the only possible course for the author. As one possible solution, Paju offers empathy, translated word-for-word from Estonian as \u201cfeeling-with,\u201d which may provide the key to understanding the past and shaping a different future.\u201d<\/h4>\nLeena K\u00e4osaar <\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n(formerly Kurvet-K\u00e4osaar)<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n– Associate Professor of Cultural Theory, Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu –<\/p>\n
Literary Clinic: What It Means to Be Human <\/em>Feedback<\/strong>.<\/h3>\n\u201cIt is enjoyable and inspirational to read how everything in this book so calmly and clearly flows toward a feeling of solidarity.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Thomas Salumets<\/b><\/p>\n
Assoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
\u201cLiterary Clinic<\/em> has a therapeutic effect, while validating, reminding us of and predicting our belonging to the Western humanitarian space. Still now, and in the future.\u201d<\/h6>\nEERIK-NIILES KROSS<\/b><\/p>\n
historian, author, diplomat and politician<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople of my generation, and particularly younger people, have a great lack of understanding about what \u201creally\u201d happened: the society of violence and perpetual fear in which people were forced to live. Even today, we collectively prefer to remain silent about certain things rather than to talk them through, because we presume the emergence of a great deal of pain. And hey, don\u2019t we have enough pain in present times without rummaging around for it in the past? But Paju says, \u201cTrauma is a time traveler. Unless we intervene, it moves invisibly into new generations.\u201d (p. 61). Therefore, the author has decided to write a book that will stimulate people to deal with this underplayed personal and historical pain that has been pushed aside into darkness, because only by doing so can we hope for a more normal future in this world that is rushing ever more wildly toward dystopia.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Sveta Grigorjeva<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
Poet<\/p>\n
“The Literary Clinic<\/em> compendium of essays deals with our era through works by various writers, analyzing human life and humankind while also taking a look inward, into oneself. Through these examples from literature, Paju creates spaces and bridges that deal with humankind on multiple levels: our personal scars, memory and history, current and future times, the environment, nature, war and peace. The work also reflects on how a person can find the courage to live and love in an environment of emotional wisdom.”<\/h6>\nOuti Hyt\u00f6nen<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\nFinnish author, translator and literary critic <\/p>\n
Comments by others on Imbi Paju\u2019s Memories Denied<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“By describing the fate of her mother \u2013 arrested, imprisoned, deported to the Gulag as a young woman \u2013 Imbi Paju has, in effect, told the story of an entire nation. Widely admired in her native Estonia and elsewhere, Memories Denied<\/em> could bring that country\u2019s history alive for many others too.”<\/p>\nAnne Applebaum<\/strong><\/h6>\nauthor <\/strong>of Gulag: A History<\/strong> (2003) on the Soviet prison camp system, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“Imbi Paju\u2019s book opens doors onto dark rooms. Let them flood with sunlight. And let others follow the same example.”<\/p>\n
Edward Lucas<\/strong><\/h6>\nBritish writer, journalist, security specialist and politician<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cImbi Paju\u2019s book (Memories Denied<\/em>) is equally impressive and necessary. It focuses on the denial of atrocities suffered in Estonia during the Soviet occupation: both the unspeakable and the unspoken. On the one hand it is about the denial of the victim. And on the other, it is a history of perpetrators and the dark powers that followed. Imbi Paju\u2019s book is an important contribution to a critical update of cultural memory in Europe. Such stories are critical, because only they can remind us how secretly memories can be denied. As the author says, it is personal memories that give history a human face. The book does, however, also reflected on the larger story: the history of a country that aspires to retain its independence \u2013 and has put its hopes into the EU for freedom and security.\u201d<\/p>\nProf. Dr. Peter Hanenberg<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\nProfessor of Cultural Studies, Universidade Cat\u00f3lica Portuguesa, Lisbon<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cWritten by author and film director Imbi Paju, Memories Denied<\/em> is an impressionist work of art, which creates its images by abandoning the traditional rules and techniques of historical writing, instead using psychology, psychoanalysis, belles-lettres, philosophy, historical facts, personal memories of her countrymen, and the recollections of those close to her. It succeeds in creating an image of what a violent regime can do to people, showing the evil that man inflicts on man when the darkness lurking within his soul seizes power and when the political atmosphere fosters this kind of violence, and showing how a dictatorial regime manipulates remembering in order to hide its criminal actions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe narrative emerges from Estonia\u2019s experience, from the author\u2019s own family story and personal childhood memories. In her work, Paju is not saying \u201cnever again!\u201d On the contrary, the book tells us that events such as these might well happen again. If we make no attempt to keep remembering, we shall never escape the consequences. This book explains how violent regimes founded on totalitarian philosophies persuade people to follow them, thereby stripping them of all their humanity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The early 1940s saw the immediate imposition of the Russian SSR Criminal Code, which defined the \u201cobjective enemy\u201d\u2013 a bandit, an enemy of the people, a kulak, an undesirable element, a hostile nation. According to the renowned Gulag researcher Anne Applebaum, every memoir, every document on the history of the Gulag is but a fragment of the puzzle, a fraction of the explanation. Without these pieces, we might wake up one day not knowing who we are. And without these pieces, words such as \u201chuman rights\u201d, \u201ccompassion\u201d and \u201ctrust\u201d will become mere clich\u00e9s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toomas Hendrik Ilves<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nPresident of Estonia (2006-2016)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“An important change in the Estonian culture of remembrance was signaled in the mid-2000s by Imbi Paju\u2019s documentary Memories Denied<\/em> (2005) and her popular history book by the same name. When the film, which had been released in Finland, was first shown in Estonia it provoked a strong emotional response both from renowned cultural critics as well as from a wider audience, as if the Soviet deportations and the Gulag had been addressed for the first time. After two decades of working through the painful memories of Soviet oppression, the film seemed to have captured its impact on people\u2019s lives.”<\/p>\nEneken Laanes<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nProfessor of Comparative Literature, Tallinn University <\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“During the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the 40s and 50s, tens of thousands of people were sent to the Siberian gulags, with Imbi Paju\u2019s mother among them. The author\u2019s memoir Memories Denied <\/em>constitutes an attempt to come to terms with this dreadful past through reading and writing her mother\u2019s memories. The present article argues that there are complex connections between the imagined and lived experiences of trauma in the memoir, as the author\u2019s (re)constructions of the past are inextricably tied to that of her mother\u2019s, in that Paju does not deny her mother\u2019s memories in order to survive, but dwells in them. Through such a process, which can be called archaeology of subjectivity in the sense that she constructs a self and a persona in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation, the article focuses on the transgenerational transmission of trauma through the gendered conduit of remembrance, which is the mother. Memories Denied <\/em>is, more than anything, an intriguing example of how individual consciousness infuses collective imaginaries. As the repeated tragedy of a single family through the retelling of stories becomes a national tragedy deeply rooted into a fragmented, European narrative, the reading and writing of Imbi Paju\u2019s maternal memories challenges the Soviet politics of destroying memory, intimacy and family ties in the name of a superior, supposedly stable sense of identity.”<\/p>\nAndreas Athanasiades<\/strong><\/h6>\nUniversity of Cyprus, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Memories Denied <\/em>resonates powerfully with the works of renowned intellectuals and writers, such as Still Alive<\/em>, the memoirs of Holocaust survivor Ruth Kluger, or Crabwalk<\/em>, the novel by G\u00fcnther Grass.<\/p>\nThomas Salumets<\/strong>,<\/b><\/h6>\nAssoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
In 2020, Memories Denied<\/em> was designated a contemporary literary classic in Finland by Like Publishers. The international journey of Memories Denied<\/em>, which was initially published in 2006, is testament to the timelessness of the book. It contains meanings to be discovered at different points in time and among different generations. Let us be glad that it has returned to us. The book gives us a deeply meaningful reading experience that continues to provide lessons of discovery about humanity and the fate of a single small person amid the storms of history.<\/p>\nMari Hyrkk\u00e4nen<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\neditor and department head of Like Publishers in Finlandl<\/p>\n
Feedback<\/p>\n
No Man Is an Island: Three Essays on the Gulag Archipelago<\/em>.<\/h2>\n<\/em>\u201c<\/h2>\n“The collaboration between Paju, Laar and Kross is welcome in every way, endeavoring to achieve maximum objectivity and with the somewhat different styles of each author still a consistent discussion of the life of one of the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s most influential writers.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nAivar Kull<\/strong><\/h4>\n– cultural historian –<\/p>\n
(formerly Kurvet-K\u00e4osaar)<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n– Associate Professor of Cultural Theory, Institute of Cultural Research, University of Tartu –<\/p>\n
Literary Clinic: What It Means to Be Human <\/em>Feedback<\/strong>.<\/h3>\n\u201cIt is enjoyable and inspirational to read how everything in this book so calmly and clearly flows toward a feeling of solidarity.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Thomas Salumets<\/b><\/p>\n
Assoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
\u201cLiterary Clinic<\/em> has a therapeutic effect, while validating, reminding us of and predicting our belonging to the Western humanitarian space. Still now, and in the future.\u201d<\/h6>\nEERIK-NIILES KROSS<\/b><\/p>\n
historian, author, diplomat and politician<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople of my generation, and particularly younger people, have a great lack of understanding about what \u201creally\u201d happened: the society of violence and perpetual fear in which people were forced to live. Even today, we collectively prefer to remain silent about certain things rather than to talk them through, because we presume the emergence of a great deal of pain. And hey, don\u2019t we have enough pain in present times without rummaging around for it in the past? But Paju says, \u201cTrauma is a time traveler. Unless we intervene, it moves invisibly into new generations.\u201d (p. 61). Therefore, the author has decided to write a book that will stimulate people to deal with this underplayed personal and historical pain that has been pushed aside into darkness, because only by doing so can we hope for a more normal future in this world that is rushing ever more wildly toward dystopia.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Sveta Grigorjeva<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
Poet<\/p>\n
“The Literary Clinic<\/em> compendium of essays deals with our era through works by various writers, analyzing human life and humankind while also taking a look inward, into oneself. Through these examples from literature, Paju creates spaces and bridges that deal with humankind on multiple levels: our personal scars, memory and history, current and future times, the environment, nature, war and peace. The work also reflects on how a person can find the courage to live and love in an environment of emotional wisdom.”<\/h6>\nOuti Hyt\u00f6nen<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\nFinnish author, translator and literary critic <\/p>\n
Comments by others on Imbi Paju\u2019s Memories Denied<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“By describing the fate of her mother \u2013 arrested, imprisoned, deported to the Gulag as a young woman \u2013 Imbi Paju has, in effect, told the story of an entire nation. Widely admired in her native Estonia and elsewhere, Memories Denied<\/em> could bring that country\u2019s history alive for many others too.”<\/p>\nAnne Applebaum<\/strong><\/h6>\nauthor <\/strong>of Gulag: A History<\/strong> (2003) on the Soviet prison camp system, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“Imbi Paju\u2019s book opens doors onto dark rooms. Let them flood with sunlight. And let others follow the same example.”<\/p>\n
Edward Lucas<\/strong><\/h6>\nBritish writer, journalist, security specialist and politician<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cImbi Paju\u2019s book (Memories Denied<\/em>) is equally impressive and necessary. It focuses on the denial of atrocities suffered in Estonia during the Soviet occupation: both the unspeakable and the unspoken. On the one hand it is about the denial of the victim. And on the other, it is a history of perpetrators and the dark powers that followed. Imbi Paju\u2019s book is an important contribution to a critical update of cultural memory in Europe. Such stories are critical, because only they can remind us how secretly memories can be denied. As the author says, it is personal memories that give history a human face. The book does, however, also reflected on the larger story: the history of a country that aspires to retain its independence \u2013 and has put its hopes into the EU for freedom and security.\u201d<\/p>\nProf. Dr. Peter Hanenberg<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\nProfessor of Cultural Studies, Universidade Cat\u00f3lica Portuguesa, Lisbon<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cWritten by author and film director Imbi Paju, Memories Denied<\/em> is an impressionist work of art, which creates its images by abandoning the traditional rules and techniques of historical writing, instead using psychology, psychoanalysis, belles-lettres, philosophy, historical facts, personal memories of her countrymen, and the recollections of those close to her. It succeeds in creating an image of what a violent regime can do to people, showing the evil that man inflicts on man when the darkness lurking within his soul seizes power and when the political atmosphere fosters this kind of violence, and showing how a dictatorial regime manipulates remembering in order to hide its criminal actions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe narrative emerges from Estonia\u2019s experience, from the author\u2019s own family story and personal childhood memories. In her work, Paju is not saying \u201cnever again!\u201d On the contrary, the book tells us that events such as these might well happen again. If we make no attempt to keep remembering, we shall never escape the consequences. This book explains how violent regimes founded on totalitarian philosophies persuade people to follow them, thereby stripping them of all their humanity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The early 1940s saw the immediate imposition of the Russian SSR Criminal Code, which defined the \u201cobjective enemy\u201d\u2013 a bandit, an enemy of the people, a kulak, an undesirable element, a hostile nation. According to the renowned Gulag researcher Anne Applebaum, every memoir, every document on the history of the Gulag is but a fragment of the puzzle, a fraction of the explanation. Without these pieces, we might wake up one day not knowing who we are. And without these pieces, words such as \u201chuman rights\u201d, \u201ccompassion\u201d and \u201ctrust\u201d will become mere clich\u00e9s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toomas Hendrik Ilves<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nPresident of Estonia (2006-2016)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“An important change in the Estonian culture of remembrance was signaled in the mid-2000s by Imbi Paju\u2019s documentary Memories Denied<\/em> (2005) and her popular history book by the same name. When the film, which had been released in Finland, was first shown in Estonia it provoked a strong emotional response both from renowned cultural critics as well as from a wider audience, as if the Soviet deportations and the Gulag had been addressed for the first time. After two decades of working through the painful memories of Soviet oppression, the film seemed to have captured its impact on people\u2019s lives.”<\/p>\nEneken Laanes<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nProfessor of Comparative Literature, Tallinn University <\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“During the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the 40s and 50s, tens of thousands of people were sent to the Siberian gulags, with Imbi Paju\u2019s mother among them. The author\u2019s memoir Memories Denied <\/em>constitutes an attempt to come to terms with this dreadful past through reading and writing her mother\u2019s memories. The present article argues that there are complex connections between the imagined and lived experiences of trauma in the memoir, as the author\u2019s (re)constructions of the past are inextricably tied to that of her mother\u2019s, in that Paju does not deny her mother\u2019s memories in order to survive, but dwells in them. Through such a process, which can be called archaeology of subjectivity in the sense that she constructs a self and a persona in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation, the article focuses on the transgenerational transmission of trauma through the gendered conduit of remembrance, which is the mother. Memories Denied <\/em>is, more than anything, an intriguing example of how individual consciousness infuses collective imaginaries. As the repeated tragedy of a single family through the retelling of stories becomes a national tragedy deeply rooted into a fragmented, European narrative, the reading and writing of Imbi Paju\u2019s maternal memories challenges the Soviet politics of destroying memory, intimacy and family ties in the name of a superior, supposedly stable sense of identity.”<\/p>\nAndreas Athanasiades<\/strong><\/h6>\nUniversity of Cyprus, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Memories Denied <\/em>resonates powerfully with the works of renowned intellectuals and writers, such as Still Alive<\/em>, the memoirs of Holocaust survivor Ruth Kluger, or Crabwalk<\/em>, the novel by G\u00fcnther Grass.<\/p>\nThomas Salumets<\/strong>,<\/b><\/h6>\nAssoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
In 2020, Memories Denied<\/em> was designated a contemporary literary classic in Finland by Like Publishers. The international journey of Memories Denied<\/em>, which was initially published in 2006, is testament to the timelessness of the book. It contains meanings to be discovered at different points in time and among different generations. Let us be glad that it has returned to us. The book gives us a deeply meaningful reading experience that continues to provide lessons of discovery about humanity and the fate of a single small person amid the storms of history.<\/p>\nMari Hyrkk\u00e4nen<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\neditor and department head of Like Publishers in Finlandl<\/p>\n
Feedback<\/p>\n
No Man Is an Island: Three Essays on the Gulag Archipelago<\/em>.<\/h2>\n<\/em>\u201c<\/h2>\n“The collaboration between Paju, Laar and Kross is welcome in every way, endeavoring to achieve maximum objectivity and with the somewhat different styles of each author still a consistent discussion of the life of one of the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s most influential writers.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nAivar Kull<\/strong><\/h4>\n– cultural historian –<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is enjoyable and inspirational to read how everything in this book so calmly and clearly flows toward a feeling of solidarity.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Thomas Salumets<\/b><\/p>\n
Assoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
\u201cLiterary Clinic<\/em> has a therapeutic effect, while validating, reminding us of and predicting our belonging to the Western humanitarian space. Still now, and in the future.\u201d<\/h6>\nEERIK-NIILES KROSS<\/b><\/p>\n
historian, author, diplomat and politician<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople of my generation, and particularly younger people, have a great lack of understanding about what \u201creally\u201d happened: the society of violence and perpetual fear in which people were forced to live. Even today, we collectively prefer to remain silent about certain things rather than to talk them through, because we presume the emergence of a great deal of pain. And hey, don\u2019t we have enough pain in present times without rummaging around for it in the past? But Paju says, \u201cTrauma is a time traveler. Unless we intervene, it moves invisibly into new generations.\u201d (p. 61). Therefore, the author has decided to write a book that will stimulate people to deal with this underplayed personal and historical pain that has been pushed aside into darkness, because only by doing so can we hope for a more normal future in this world that is rushing ever more wildly toward dystopia.\u201d<\/h6>\n
Sveta Grigorjeva<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
Poet<\/p>\n
“The Literary Clinic<\/em> compendium of essays deals with our era through works by various writers, analyzing human life and humankind while also taking a look inward, into oneself. Through these examples from literature, Paju creates spaces and bridges that deal with humankind on multiple levels: our personal scars, memory and history, current and future times, the environment, nature, war and peace. The work also reflects on how a person can find the courage to live and love in an environment of emotional wisdom.”<\/h6>\nOuti Hyt\u00f6nen<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\nFinnish author, translator and literary critic <\/p>\n
Comments by others on Imbi Paju\u2019s Memories Denied<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“By describing the fate of her mother \u2013 arrested, imprisoned, deported to the Gulag as a young woman \u2013 Imbi Paju has, in effect, told the story of an entire nation. Widely admired in her native Estonia and elsewhere, Memories Denied<\/em> could bring that country\u2019s history alive for many others too.”<\/p>\nAnne Applebaum<\/strong><\/h6>\nauthor <\/strong>of Gulag: A History<\/strong> (2003) on the Soviet prison camp system, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.<\/p>\n<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“Imbi Paju\u2019s book opens doors onto dark rooms. Let them flood with sunlight. And let others follow the same example.”<\/p>\n
Edward Lucas<\/strong><\/h6>\nBritish writer, journalist, security specialist and politician<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cImbi Paju\u2019s book (Memories Denied<\/em>) is equally impressive and necessary. It focuses on the denial of atrocities suffered in Estonia during the Soviet occupation: both the unspeakable and the unspoken. On the one hand it is about the denial of the victim. And on the other, it is a history of perpetrators and the dark powers that followed. Imbi Paju\u2019s book is an important contribution to a critical update of cultural memory in Europe. Such stories are critical, because only they can remind us how secretly memories can be denied. As the author says, it is personal memories that give history a human face. The book does, however, also reflected on the larger story: the history of a country that aspires to retain its independence \u2013 and has put its hopes into the EU for freedom and security.\u201d<\/p>\nProf. Dr. Peter Hanenberg<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\nProfessor of Cultural Studies, Universidade Cat\u00f3lica Portuguesa, Lisbon<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
\u201cWritten by author and film director Imbi Paju, Memories Denied<\/em> is an impressionist work of art, which creates its images by abandoning the traditional rules and techniques of historical writing, instead using psychology, psychoanalysis, belles-lettres, philosophy, historical facts, personal memories of her countrymen, and the recollections of those close to her. It succeeds in creating an image of what a violent regime can do to people, showing the evil that man inflicts on man when the darkness lurking within his soul seizes power and when the political atmosphere fosters this kind of violence, and showing how a dictatorial regime manipulates remembering in order to hide its criminal actions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\nThe narrative emerges from Estonia\u2019s experience, from the author\u2019s own family story and personal childhood memories. In her work, Paju is not saying \u201cnever again!\u201d On the contrary, the book tells us that events such as these might well happen again. If we make no attempt to keep remembering, we shall never escape the consequences. This book explains how violent regimes founded on totalitarian philosophies persuade people to follow them, thereby stripping them of all their humanity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The early 1940s saw the immediate imposition of the Russian SSR Criminal Code, which defined the \u201cobjective enemy\u201d\u2013 a bandit, an enemy of the people, a kulak, an undesirable element, a hostile nation. According to the renowned Gulag researcher Anne Applebaum, every memoir, every document on the history of the Gulag is but a fragment of the puzzle, a fraction of the explanation. Without these pieces, we might wake up one day not knowing who we are. And without these pieces, words such as \u201chuman rights\u201d, \u201ccompassion\u201d and \u201ctrust\u201d will become mere clich\u00e9s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Toomas Hendrik Ilves<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nPresident of Estonia (2006-2016)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“An important change in the Estonian culture of remembrance was signaled in the mid-2000s by Imbi Paju\u2019s documentary Memories Denied<\/em> (2005) and her popular history book by the same name. When the film, which had been released in Finland, was first shown in Estonia it provoked a strong emotional response both from renowned cultural critics as well as from a wider audience, as if the Soviet deportations and the Gulag had been addressed for the first time. After two decades of working through the painful memories of Soviet oppression, the film seemed to have captured its impact on people\u2019s lives.”<\/p>\nEneken Laanes<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\nProfessor of Comparative Literature, Tallinn University <\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
“During the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the 40s and 50s, tens of thousands of people were sent to the Siberian gulags, with Imbi Paju\u2019s mother among them. The author\u2019s memoir Memories Denied <\/em>constitutes an attempt to come to terms with this dreadful past through reading and writing her mother\u2019s memories. The present article argues that there are complex connections between the imagined and lived experiences of trauma in the memoir, as the author\u2019s (re)constructions of the past are inextricably tied to that of her mother\u2019s, in that Paju does not deny her mother\u2019s memories in order to survive, but dwells in them. Through such a process, which can be called archaeology of subjectivity in the sense that she constructs a self and a persona in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation, the article focuses on the transgenerational transmission of trauma through the gendered conduit of remembrance, which is the mother. Memories Denied <\/em>is, more than anything, an intriguing example of how individual consciousness infuses collective imaginaries. As the repeated tragedy of a single family through the retelling of stories becomes a national tragedy deeply rooted into a fragmented, European narrative, the reading and writing of Imbi Paju\u2019s maternal memories challenges the Soviet politics of destroying memory, intimacy and family ties in the name of a superior, supposedly stable sense of identity.”<\/p>\nAndreas Athanasiades<\/strong><\/h6>\nUniversity of Cyprus, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Memories Denied <\/em>resonates powerfully with the works of renowned intellectuals and writers, such as Still Alive<\/em>, the memoirs of Holocaust survivor Ruth Kluger, or Crabwalk<\/em>, the novel by G\u00fcnther Grass.<\/p>\nThomas Salumets<\/strong>,<\/b><\/h6>\nAssoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
In 2020, Memories Denied<\/em> was designated a contemporary literary classic in Finland by Like Publishers. The international journey of Memories Denied<\/em>, which was initially published in 2006, is testament to the timelessness of the book. It contains meanings to be discovered at different points in time and among different generations. Let us be glad that it has returned to us. The book gives us a deeply meaningful reading experience that continues to provide lessons of discovery about humanity and the fate of a single small person amid the storms of history.<\/p>\nMari Hyrkk\u00e4nen<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\neditor and department head of Like Publishers in Finlandl<\/p>\n
Feedback<\/p>\n
No Man Is an Island: Three Essays on the Gulag Archipelago<\/em>.<\/h2>\n<\/em>\u201c<\/h2>\n“The collaboration between Paju, Laar and Kross is welcome in every way, endeavoring to achieve maximum objectivity and with the somewhat different styles of each author still a consistent discussion of the life of one of the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s most influential writers.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nAivar Kull<\/strong><\/h4>\n– cultural historian –<\/p>\n
Outi Hyt\u00f6nen<\/b><\/b><\/span><\/p>\n Finnish author, translator and literary critic <\/p>\n \n “By describing the fate of her mother \u2013 arrested, imprisoned, deported to the Gulag as a young woman \u2013 Imbi Paju has, in effect, told the story of an entire nation. Widely admired in her native Estonia and elsewhere, Memories Denied<\/em> could bring that country\u2019s history alive for many others too.”<\/p>\n author <\/strong>of Gulag: A History<\/strong> (2003) on the Soviet prison camp system, which won the 2004 Pulitzer Prize for Non-Fiction.<\/p>\n “Imbi Paju\u2019s book opens doors onto dark rooms. Let them flood with sunlight. And let others follow the same example.”<\/p>\n British writer, journalist, security specialist and politician<\/p>\n \u201cImbi Paju\u2019s book (Memories Denied<\/em>) is equally impressive and necessary. It focuses on the denial of atrocities suffered in Estonia during the Soviet occupation: both the unspeakable and the unspoken. On the one hand it is about the denial of the victim. And on the other, it is a history of perpetrators and the dark powers that followed. Imbi Paju\u2019s book is an important contribution to a critical update of cultural memory in Europe. Such stories are critical, because only they can remind us how secretly memories can be denied. As the author says, it is personal memories that give history a human face. The book does, however, also reflected on the larger story: the history of a country that aspires to retain its independence \u2013 and has put its hopes into the EU for freedom and security.\u201d<\/p>\n Professor of Cultural Studies, Universidade Cat\u00f3lica Portuguesa, Lisbon<\/p>\n \u201cWritten by author and film director Imbi Paju, Memories Denied<\/em> is an impressionist work of art, which creates its images by abandoning the traditional rules and techniques of historical writing, instead using psychology, psychoanalysis, belles-lettres, philosophy, historical facts, personal memories of her countrymen, and the recollections of those close to her. It succeeds in creating an image of what a violent regime can do to people, showing the evil that man inflicts on man when the darkness lurking within his soul seizes power and when the political atmosphere fosters this kind of violence, and showing how a dictatorial regime manipulates remembering in order to hide its criminal actions.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The narrative emerges from Estonia\u2019s experience, from the author\u2019s own family story and personal childhood memories. In her work, Paju is not saying \u201cnever again!\u201d On the contrary, the book tells us that events such as these might well happen again. If we make no attempt to keep remembering, we shall never escape the consequences. This book explains how violent regimes founded on totalitarian philosophies persuade people to follow them, thereby stripping them of all their humanity.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n The early 1940s saw the immediate imposition of the Russian SSR Criminal Code, which defined the \u201cobjective enemy\u201d\u2013 a bandit, an enemy of the people, a kulak, an undesirable element, a hostile nation. According to the renowned Gulag researcher Anne Applebaum, every memoir, every document on the history of the Gulag is but a fragment of the puzzle, a fraction of the explanation. Without these pieces, we might wake up one day not knowing who we are. And without these pieces, words such as \u201chuman rights\u201d, \u201ccompassion\u201d and \u201ctrust\u201d will become mere clich\u00e9s.\u201d<\/p>\n President of Estonia (2006-2016)<\/p>\n “An important change in the Estonian culture of remembrance was signaled in the mid-2000s by Imbi Paju\u2019s documentary Memories Denied<\/em> (2005) and her popular history book by the same name. When the film, which had been released in Finland, was first shown in Estonia it provoked a strong emotional response both from renowned cultural critics as well as from a wider audience, as if the Soviet deportations and the Gulag had been addressed for the first time. After two decades of working through the painful memories of Soviet oppression, the film seemed to have captured its impact on people\u2019s lives.”<\/p>\n Professor of Comparative Literature, Tallinn University <\/p>\n “During the Soviet occupation of Estonia in the 40s and 50s, tens of thousands of people were sent to the Siberian gulags, with Imbi Paju\u2019s mother among them. The author\u2019s memoir Memories Denied <\/em>constitutes an attempt to come to terms with this dreadful past through reading and writing her mother\u2019s memories. The present article argues that there are complex connections between the imagined and lived experiences of trauma in the memoir, as the author\u2019s (re)constructions of the past are inextricably tied to that of her mother\u2019s, in that Paju does not deny her mother\u2019s memories in order to survive, but dwells in them. Through such a process, which can be called archaeology of subjectivity in the sense that she constructs a self and a persona in large part by excavating through the self-constitutive memories of the previous generation, the article focuses on the transgenerational transmission of trauma through the gendered conduit of remembrance, which is the mother. Memories Denied <\/em>is, more than anything, an intriguing example of how individual consciousness infuses collective imaginaries. As the repeated tragedy of a single family through the retelling of stories becomes a national tragedy deeply rooted into a fragmented, European narrative, the reading and writing of Imbi Paju\u2019s maternal memories challenges the Soviet politics of destroying memory, intimacy and family ties in the name of a superior, supposedly stable sense of identity.”<\/p>\n University of Cyprus, Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.)<\/p>\n Memories Denied <\/em>resonates powerfully with the works of renowned intellectuals and writers, such as Still Alive<\/em>, the memoirs of Holocaust survivor Ruth Kluger, or Crabwalk<\/em>, the novel by G\u00fcnther Grass.<\/p>\n Assoc. Prof. Emeritus, University of British Columbia, 2019<\/p>\n In 2020, Memories Denied<\/em> was designated a contemporary literary classic in Finland by Like Publishers. The international journey of Memories Denied<\/em>, which was initially published in 2006, is testament to the timelessness of the book. It contains meanings to be discovered at different points in time and among different generations. Let us be glad that it has returned to us. The book gives us a deeply meaningful reading experience that continues to provide lessons of discovery about humanity and the fate of a single small person amid the storms of history.<\/p>\n editor and department head of Like Publishers in Finlandl<\/p>\n Feedback<\/p>\n “The collaboration between Paju, Laar and Kross is welcome in every way, endeavoring to achieve maximum objectivity and with the somewhat different styles of each author still a consistent discussion of the life of one of the 20th<\/sup> century\u2019s most influential writers.<\/p>\n – cultural historian –<\/p>\nComments by others on Imbi Paju\u2019s Memories Denied<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Anne Applebaum<\/strong><\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Edward Lucas<\/strong><\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Prof. Dr. Peter Hanenberg<\/strong><\/strong><\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Toomas Hendrik Ilves<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Eneken Laanes<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Andreas Athanasiades<\/strong><\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Thomas Salumets<\/strong>,<\/b><\/h6>\n
<\/span><\/p>\n\u201c<\/h4>\n
Mari Hyrkk\u00e4nen<\/strong><\/b><\/h6>\n
No Man Is an Island: Three Essays on the Gulag Archipelago<\/em>.<\/h2>\n
<\/em>\u201c<\/h2>\n
<\/a><\/span><\/p>\nAivar Kull<\/strong><\/h4>\n