On August 3, 2023, the Center for Urban History hosted a conversation WOMEN’S DIMENSIONS OF THE PAST: HOW HISTORY BECOMES REALITY about the (not-so-)new and rediscovered meanings of women’s history studies in the context of a full-scale war for the future. The impetus for the discussion was the edited volume “Women’s Dimensions of the Past: Ideas, Experiences, Representations,” edited by Oksana Kis, soon to be published through the efforts of the Center for Urban History and the Ukrainian Association for Research in Women’s History with the support of the Heinrich Böll Foundation.
Originating from the eponymous conference held in June 2021, the volume brought together 22 co-authors whose research reveals little-known aspects of the historical experience of Ukrainian womankind in the context of prevailing social perceptions, legal norms, social institutions, and customary practices of the respective era and social stratum (from the late 17th to the early 21st century). Publishing this book during wartime became a personal challenge for everyone involved.
What happens to a researcher of women’s historical experiences when what she has been studying suddenly becomes part of her own lived reality? How does this personal wartime experience shape our research — how and about what we write, what questions we pose to the past, what new answers we find in seemingly familiar sources? What exactly compels us to continue (or not) our scholarly work during wartime, which aspects of research remain meaningful and significant, and which meanings have been lost — temporarily or permanently? To what extent are our (scholarly) texts also historical testimonies of this war? What is the mission and responsibility of a historian living through historical upheaval? Which theories of interpreting women’s historical experiences have (not) withstood the test of reality in the Russo-Ukrainian war, and what does this mean for women’s history studies in Ukraine and beyond?
The conversation was joined by Olena Haleta, Professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University, Ivanna Cherchovych, Research Fellow at the Center for Urban History, and Mariana Baidak, Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, moderated by Oksana Kis, President of the Ukrainian Association for Research in Women’s History. We invite you to watch the full video recording of the event!