Ordinary Grieving in the Lithuanian SSR: Atheization, Hybrid Meanings and Emotional Response

Abstract The article raises the question of what impact Soviet atheization, driven by Nikita Khrushchev’s reforms, had on the grief of ordinary post-Stalinist Soviet people. The analysis focuses on the case of one of the Soviet republics, the Lithuanian SSR , examining the emotions and meanings of grief that manifested in society during the 1960s to 1980s. The article argues that society reacted in two interrelated ways to Soviet policies: it formed a complex of hybrid meanings of death, combining pre-Soviet and new meanings, and developed an exceptionally emotional relationship with death. The article focuses on the expressions of grief used to mourn the deaths of distinguished individuals, which set normative boundaries for grieving and those for ordinary people. The analysis is based on the inscriptions on funeral wreaths, sympathy telegrams, and epitaphs on monuments, serving as material expressions of grief.