ABSTRACT
The chapter examines the impact of trauma and memory in the lives of three women deported from Estonia in the 1940s and 1950s and explores how issues of culture and language inflected their articulation and remembrance of loneliness. Loneliness operates on multiple levels and is inflected by culture and expectations. It is subjective and thus varies by how people feel loneliness. It is not about being alone but is a state of mind that can be drawn from a variety of situations and articulated in diverse ways. This chapter argues that while loneliness underpins all three life stories, it is articulated as loss or longing, while loneliness is almost absent. Their losses included family, friends and home but also, and importantly, loss of self and loss of homeland.
