Social Anthropology of filling the Void: Poland and Ukraine after World War II, Interview

Social Anthropology of filling the Void: Poland and Ukraine after World War II

The central concept of the research project is «social void», a phenomenon that was characteristic of Central and Eastern Europe during and immediately after World War II as a result of mass ethnic cleansing, political revolutions, forced displacement and migration. The project focuses both on the material dimension of post-war social change (e.g. acquisition of property) and the subjective sphere of social practices and relationships. His goal was to examine the processes of replacing the missing elements of social life with local communities of Poland and Ukraine. The interviews conducted as part of the project show how the void was filled after the social groups (e.g. landowners, wealthy peasants), representatives of ethnic communities (Jews, Poles, Ukrainians) and professional groups (e.g. shoemakers, pharmacists, doctors, or more broadly – craftsmen, intelligence) were evicted by the war and post-war changes. The analysis concerns changes in the ownership structure, economic dysfunction, transformations of social and cultural practices, as well as changes in relations and social norms. The conversations archived at the Center were recorded in a dozen of locations in Lviv, Ivano-Frankivsk and Ternopil regions by an interdisciplinary team of Polish-Ukrainian researchers. The research was carried out in small towns and villages, combining the methodology of microhistory and biographic interview as part of oral history. In total, almost 150 interviews were collected in Ukraine, of which 40 are currently available in UStories collection. The conversations recorded in Poland as part of this bilateral study are preserved in Warsaw at Archiwum Historii Mówionej. The project coordinator is Anna Wylegała, a researcher at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Project is financed by the National Humanities Development Program, registration number 12H 13 0584 82. Galyna Bodnar worked with the materials before their publication.

Female, born 1926

An interview with a native resident of the village Osivtsi, now Buchach district, whose parents died during World War II. The narrator shared her memories of the pre-war landowner of the village and the cohabitation of the Polish, Jewish and Ukrainian population of the village before the war. A separate conversation thread is devoted to the Holocaust.

Female, born 1927

An interview with a native resident of the village Osivtsi has a brief description of the Ukrainian, Polish and Jewish village communities, collectivization, one’s own work in the collective farm, the massacre of the Ukrainian underground hideout.

Female, born 1931

A woman was born in the village Stare Selo, Pidhaitsi district. The conversation is unstructured and contains a lot of details and personalities. The leitmotif is the Holocaust in Pidhaitsi.

Male, born 1933

An interview with a native resident of the village Halych of Berezhany (now Pidhaitsi) district in Ternopil oblast has a detailed description of the post-war life: repressions of the Soviet government, forced collectivization, teachers coming from the Eastern regions.

Male, born 1922

An interview with the native resident of the village Perenivka, Rohatyn district. Considering the narrator's age and his excellent memory, the conversation has a vivid description of the pre-war, war and post-war life of the city Rohatyn and the neighbouring villages with numerous details and examples.

Male, born 1934

An interview with a native resident of the village Kniahynychi, Rohatyn district, which is known as the place of active Ukrainian nationalist underground activity. The interviewee and his father both belonged to OUN and UPA (Ukrainian Insurgent Army).

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