Kis, O. (2017). Ukrainky v HULAHu: vyzhyty znachyt peremohty [Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag]. Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine
Annotation: This is the first historical-anthropological study of the everyday life of Ukrainian women political prisoners in the Gulag. Drawing on a feminist approach to studying women’s past, the author analyzes the personal memoirs of former prisoners alongside official documents to illuminate in detail the various dimensions of Ukrainian women’s daily life in the camps. The book attends to such aspects as the national question, religious practices, women’s creative expression, manifestations of humanity and femininity, women’s mutual aid, the female body and sexuality, and the challenges of motherhood behind bars. The study reveals the often inconspicuous yet effective female strategies of adaptation, survival, and resistance to the regime’s destructive impact — strategies that helped women preserve their core social identities, remaining human beings, women, and Ukrainians.
Intended for researchers in Ukrainian history, women’s history, historical anthropology, the history of totalitarianism, and the history of everyday life; human rights advocates and activists of women’s civic organizations; and all those interested in the history of Ukrainian women and gender studies.