Dalia Leinarte's Family and the State in Soviet Lithuania addresses a common belief that the family home was a space where pre-Soviet Lithuanian values and resistance were nurtured, a sphere walled off from official and obligatory ideologies and practices. Leinarte challenges this idea, drawing on over 100 interviews and expansive archival research to construct an alternative interpretation of the domestic sphere as a space permeated by the pronouncements and priorities of the Soviet state.
Leinarte shows that in Soviet Lithuania women's lives existed at the intersection of the private and public spheres: these “wives-mothers-workers served the socialist state and the ideology of the regime” (2). Soviet policies, previewed in the first year of occupation (1940–41), were stringently enforced in a post-war USSR focused on economic reconstruction. Many women were pushed into poorly paid sectors aimed at fostering industrial development and agricultural collectivization—the unemployed were labelled “parasites.” Women made inroads into occupational sectors previously dominated by men. However, “equality” was pursued in service to the state, and women struggled under the demands of paid labor (where they earned less than their male counterparts) and an unpaid second shift of domestic labor, as the “regime never attempted to change the foundations of patriarchal stereotypes about men's and women's roles” (21). Notably, Leinarte writes, gender equality was actively undermined by men in the layers of bureaucracy that undergirded official pronouncements
Chapter 2 covers marriage and divorce and policies and norms that shaped Lithuanians’ experiences. If the first piece of a marital story is a wedding, then this was the first place where the state exercised its will, using propaganda to discourage religious weddings in favor of civil marriages: “Propagandists presented couples appealing to God to assure them happiness in their marriages as infantilistic” (51). The state waged a campaign against popular belief in romantic love as a marital foundation: instead, marriage was characterized as a vehicle for rearing the next generation. While most Lithuanians married early, belief in “happy marriages” declined, as “[m]arried life and family began to be conceived of as hard work full of conflicts that would have to be suffered and resolved” (76).
The stresses of life in a repressive society with chronic shortages wore on families. Domestic violence was treated as a private matter, and “[a]lcoholism proliferated in every social demographic” (90), and was a commonly cited complaint in divorce. After divorce, ex-couples faced the challenges of splitting assets where housing was in short supply and few families owned more than one automobile. Leinarte notes that, “The most disheartening consequence of divorce was having to live in the same apartment together for many long years, or in some cases, for the rest of their lives” (105). For good reason, communal apartment living was a subject of wry humor in many Soviet-era anecdotes.
Chapter 3 discusses women as mothers and the normative expectations and pragmatic limitations of Soviet life. In the 1950s, about 80 percent of mothers with young children were in the workforce, and while the state promised collective support for mothers, spaces in preschools were few and child payments inadequate. Leinarte looks at the conundrum of care for mothers in Soviet Lithuania, which was characterized by a deficit of childcare spaces and an oversupply of men who resisted domestic responsibilities.
Chapter 4 considers life in a deficit-plagued economy. How did families—and the state—cope with persistent shortages? Leinarte emphasizes that housing was in chronically short supply: in 1970, about 70 percent of newlyweds began their life together under the roof of one or the other spouse's family. Interestingly, this undesirable situation was recast in propaganda, which praised the “family as a collective” theme. The dream of a modern home was nurtured in the popular press, but achievement of this aesthetic could be attained only through connections in the informal economy.
Family and the State in Soviet Lithuania is well-conceived and well-researched. It stumbles, however, in providing exhaustive details about Soviet-era policies and practices but not stepping back to assess the findings. The topical chapters end without reflection on the sociological significance of the information gathered. What, for instance, is the reader to make of Lithuanians’ challenges of marriage and divorce in the Soviet era, or the persistent patriarchal norms of domestic life? What are the discernible legacy effects in the post-Soviet period? And how might this research help illuminate broader issues of family in socialist (or even non-socialist) systems? The final chapter summarizes the work, but does not address the larger importance of the findings, or what further research might be catalyzed by the work. While more analysis would be welcome, the book is recommended to readers seeking a well-informed text that marries micro-level memories and macro-level policies and politics to show how the Soviet state shaped everyday family life.
