“Soviet Milk” by Nora Ikstena: On the consequences of Soviet rule on everyday life in Latvia

“We were cut off from the world. We were destined for a somnambulant existence and condemned to call it life.” How was it to try living a fulfilled and self-determined life in Soviet Latvia, when the state did not just control politics but the everyday lives of its citizens, their career options, the places they could live and work, and ultimately, their happiness and sanity?

The novel Soviet Milk by Latvian author Nora Ikstena is not just the story of a mother and daughter, their relationship, and their lives that started out so promising for them, both intelligent and diligent women, dedicated to their respective studies. It is also the story of Latvia under Soviet rule. Of how the state and politics interfered with the happiness and the lives of generations of women. Switching between the perspectives of mother and daughter, the reader learns about their lives, their complicated relationship, and their personal struggles with the Communist system.

Many stories have been told about life under Soviet Communism, but most tend to focus on Russia. With Soviet Milk Ikstena provided a long overdue refocus on the Baltic states, presenting a touching story about Latvia “under the Russian boot”. This English translation by Margita Gailitis enables a wider audience to familiarise themselves with a region and its history, with Latvia and its past as an involuntary Soviet Republic. 

Soviet Milk tells the story of a nameless mother and her daughter. The mother, a once promising medical student, got banished from work as a gynaecologist in the city of Riga due to political reasons after an incident during her study exchange program in Leningrad. Now, alone with her daughter in the countryside, she increasingly struggles with her mental health until losing her will to live. The daughter, torn between caring and worrying for her emotionally distant mother, and longing for the loving care of her grandparents back in Riga, has to grow up too quickly. At first,  the daughter struggles to understand her mother’s constant grieving over being caged and having all spheres of life controlled, but once she learns more about Latvia’s recent past and the duplicity of the political system, she comes to understand her mother better and better. Growing up, her mother already felt this internal rebellion against the political system and the pretense society at large, as well as her family in particular, put on to feign complicity with it. “Within me blossomed a hatred for the duplicity and hypocrisy of this existence. We carried flags in the May and November parades in honour of the Red Army, the Revolution and Communism, while at home we crossed ourselves and waited for the English army to come and free Latvia from the Russian boot.” The novel perfectly captures the mother’s feeling of alienation, not only from society, but also within her family and towards her daughter, having lacked a kind of mother instinct even during her daughter’s infancy. “I headed past our building, where my stepfather was preparing breakfast while my mother braided my daughter’s hair for school. Past their life, where I didn’t fit, but inhabited it like a ghost from another world to whose mystery I was increasingly drawn.” 

Whereas the whole story focuses on the Soviet repression in Latvia, two metaphors represent Soviet rule with its lack of freedom and the feeling of being caged symbolically. On the one hand, there is a rather obvious metaphor, the story of a hamster. The grandparents bought the pet for the grand-daughter to play with on the weekends, when she visits Riga from the countryside. The hamster that only lived for the weekends when it was let out of the cage and experienced freedom roaming around the flat. The hamster that ate its offspring, seemingly to protect them from this caged existence. The hamster dying, apparently because it lost its will to live waiting in vain for the day it could be free again. And on the other hand, there is the metaphor of the mother’s milk, lending the story its title. The milk as poison for the child that drinks it. As the mother’s generation is already poisoned by the Soviet state, how can they, with a clear conscience, give this kind of poisoned life to another generation?  

The book is as much about the complicated family dynamics as it is about life under Soviet rule. About being caged, the seemingly unreachable dream of freedom, and the question whether such an existence ultimately is worth living. The changing perspectives between mother and daughter beautifully explore the differences between the two generations marked by their respective times and degrees of oppression in the Soviet system. The mother, resigned and pessimistic from long years under the repressive Soviet system and her personal experiences of politically motivated punishment, of a life determined by external political factors. And the daughter, still young and optimistic despite her experiences and watching her mother suffer, awaiting change that might never come and then at once arrives faster than expected. 

I thoroughly enjoyed this book, its language, the focus on individuals, the women of one family, dissecting their lives and emotions. In this way the story offers an exceptional balance of character depth without losing the bigger historical picture. The book genuinely manages to show the impact of Soviet rule on Latvian citizens through its female protagonists. I fullheartedly recommend this novel to anyone interested in learning more about the Baltic states, their Soviet past and its impact on society. Learning about and understanding this chapter in history serves to reflect on the situation and the difficult relationship that modern Latvia finds itself in today with its eastern neighbour.

The book was published in the Latvian original in 2015 under the title Mātes Piens and won the Annual Latvian Literature Award for best prose in that same year. The English translation by Margita Gailitis was first published in 2018 by Peirene Press. 

 Featured image: Canva