Description

In the 1940-50s tens of thousands of Ukrainian women were sentenced to long-term imprisonment in the Gulag for political reasons. Their experiences of living in brutal conditions of the Soviet camps have not yet been a subject of special historical-anthropological research. This study is based primarily on the analysis of personal narratives of the Ukrainian female former prisoners of the Gulag (written memoirs, autobiographies, oral histories) as well as other sources (archival documents, demographical data, statistics, newspapers, male prisoners’ memoirs etc.), which help to reconstruct most comprehensively the Ukrainian women’s lives in confinement. This talk will discuss strategies devised by Ukrainian women to adjust to extremely harsh living conditions, to survive on the verge of starvation and physical exhaustion, to resist the prevalent violence and demoralizing impact of the camp regime, to preserve their ethnic, gender, and religious identities, and to protect their human dignity in the situation of total deprivation of rights and resources. Some traditional women’s practices and skills (housekeeping, singing, embroidery, religious celebrations, body care, etc.) helped women to create semblance of normal life and thus to maintain their connectedness to basic cultural values and social norms. Special attention will be paid to women’s solidarity and mutual support in resisting the systemic violence to which they were exposed.