Kis, O. (2020). Ukrainky v HULAHu: vyzhyty znachyt peremohty [Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag] (2nd rev. and enl. ed.). Kolo. ISBN 978-617-642-486-4
Annotation: This book is the first historical-anthropological study of the everyday life of Ukrainian women political prisoners in the Gulag. The author applies a feminist approach to studying women’s past, analyzing some 150 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 questions as the national question (national solidarity, interethnic relations, maintaining ties with the homeland); religious practices (prayer, the observance of Christian holidays); traditional women’s creative expression (poetry, song, theatrical performances, embroidery, drawing, and so on); manifestations of humanity and femininity (dehumanization and humanity, relations with criminal inmates, women’s mutual aid, attention to personal appearance, the ordering of living space); the female body and sexuality (the effects of imprisonment on the female body, sexual violence, intimate relations); and the difficulties of motherhood behind bars. The book reveals the often inconspicuous yet effective female strategies of adaptation, survival, and resistance to the regime’s destructive impact on prisoners’ bodies and psyches — 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.
This edition was made possible through the financial support of the Ukrainian National Women’s League of America.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
CHAPTER 1 THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK of FEMINIST INQUIRY into WOMEN’S HISTORICAL EXPERIENCE
1.1 Women’s history as a field of research
1.2 Women’s personal testimonies as a historical source
1.3 Everyday life in the GULAG as portrayed in current research and as told through women’s personal narratives
CHAPTER 2 LIVING CONDITIONS IN THE PRISONS AND LABOR CAMPS OF THE GULAG IN THE 1940s AND 1950s
2.1 Post-war changes in the composition of the GULAG prisoner population
2.2 Sanitation and living conditions in the GULAG
2.3 Working conditions and production norms
2.4 Issues of nutrition, health and medical care in the GULAG
CHAPTER 3 NATIONAL IDENTITY AND FAITH IN THE GULAG
3.1 National solidarity among the imprisoned
3.2 Keeping in touch with the homeland
3.3 Interethnic relations among female prisoners
3.4 Prayer and other Christian religious practices
CHAPTER 4 WOMEN’S CREATIVE AND LEISURE TIME PURSUITS DURING IMPRISONMENT
4.1 Singing behind bars : the songs of women prisoners
4.2 Poetry composed by female political prisoners
4.3 Staged plays and celebrations of religious holidays
4.4 Embroidering and its social functions
4.5 Drawing and other artistic activities
CHAPTER 5 FINDING HUMANITY AND FEMININITY DURING IMPRISONMENT
5.1 The dehumanization of prisoners and expressions of humanity
5.2 Mutual aid, solidarity, and sisterhood among the prisoners
5.3 Struggling against one’s own de-feminization by the prison regime
5.4 The woman’s touch: making a home in a prison cell an a barrack
CHAPTER 6 WOMEN PRISONERS’ EXPERIENCES OF BODY AND SEXUALITY AND THEIR PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS
6.1 Deterioration vs. Preservation of the female body behind bars
6.2 Sexualized violence
6.3 Sexuality as a resource and as a risk factor
6.4 Relationships with men
CHAPTER 7 MOTHERHOOD BEHIND BARS
7.1 Women with their infant children during transport to and in prison quarters
7.2 Labor camp “Mommies”
7.3 Children born into and raised in the prison of the GULAG
7.4 Separation from one’s children
CONCLUSIONS
List of the women-political prisoners whose testimonies are used in this book
List of the illustrations
BIBLIOGRAPHY
INDEX