Page - 50 - in Mobile Culture Studies - The Journal, Volume 4/2018

50 Mobile Culture Studies. The Journal 4 2o18 Tuulikki Kurki | Border Crossing Trauma Pauli’s identity, and the present that is created by the disintegration appears as being broken, empty, and artificial (Epstein 2000, 4–7). The relationship between these new identities and the past is necessarily ambivalent. The new identity attempts to separate itself from the past and stresses the separation between the post-Soviet and Soviet era. Yet, at the same time, the new identity also creates connections with the past (Beumers 2013, 3). After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, some of the former Soviet citizens felt estranged by the Soviet past, and some former Soviet states tried to forget their Soviet past as soon as possible (Abashin 2012, 153–154). However, returning to the past and an open and honest discussion of it turned out to be crucial for the formation of new post-Soviet identities (Shneidman 1995, 6; Abashin 2012, 153–154). Thus, an increasing am- bivalence emerged where the Soviet past could simultaneously appear as a traumatic experience and also as a source of nostalgia for the former Soviet citizens (Beumers 2013, 3; Aarelaid-Tart 2006, 35). The world that opens after crossing the border appears incomprehensible, and the corridor ends in a surreal room: “Fool knows that he was to be arrested, but again he was not noticed, and he jumps out of the window and falls, falls like in an endless childhood nightmare…” (Perttu 2001, 218). The surreal room reflects an experience of the world that reveals itself after the disintegra- tion process. The disintegration did not necessarily lead to the better future that Perestroika promised, and instead the future appears very uncertain. The world that Pauli recognizes after reappearing from the corridor seems chaotic, fragmentary and gloomy, where the distinction between the dream reality and the reality we experience in our everyday lives becomes blurred. Discussion In both Pain and Symposium of Petrozavodsk, crossing the territorial and symbolic border creates experiences that disturb the border crosser’s sense of time and place, and force the border crosser to redefine his or her identity. After the border crossing, the experienced time and place become ambivalent and surreal, as the border crosser moves in a state of uncertainty, confusion and extreme discomfort. Not being able to comprehend the radically changed situation, the border crosser moves in a trauma space that is located outside the present state of the world that is real to others in their everyday lives. These traumatic spaces are located in intoxicating fanta- sy, artwork, in surreal tunnels and rooms, or in distorted reflections in a mirror. The identity of the traumatized border crosser is also based outside the coherent experiences of place and time. This is typical when processing traumatic experiences, where the distinctions between the past and the present may become blurred (LaCapra 1999, 699). According to Schweiger (2015, 347), “Traumatic events defy comprehension and cannot be overcome or integrated mean- ingfully within ordinary cognitive structure through simple recollection”. Literature research- er Kerstin Bergman (2008, 148) suggests that every fiction work represents its “own theory” of remembering and representing trauma. As an example, she mentions a flashback that has represented the remembering of trauma in films, prior to the formulation of modern trauma theories. It can be suggested that grotesque, hyper-natural and surreal narrative elements can also provide “theories” or a “language” of remembering and representing individual, collective