TORONTO – Oksana Kis, a feminist scholar from Ukraine, delivered a public talk, “Ukrainian Women in the Gulag: When Survival Meant Victory,” on January 31. The event was sponsored by the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center and co-sponsored by the Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies (CIUS) at the University of Alberta and St. Vladimir Institute of Toronto.
Dr. Kis is a historian and anthropologist, a senior research associate at the Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, based in Lviv. Since 2010 she has served as the president of the Ukrainian Association for Research in Women’s History. She is the editor-in-chief of the academic website Ukraina Moderna.
Her research interests focus on Ukrainian women’s history and she has authored two books: “Women in Traditional Ukrainian Culture in the late 19th-early 20th Century” (Lviv, 2008, second edition, 2012) and “Ukrainian Women in the Gulag: The Victory of Survival” (Lviv, 2017).
In October 2018 to January 2019 she spent four months in Toronto as a Petro Jacyk visiting scholar at the Center of East-European, Russian and Eurasian Studies at the University of Toronto and as a recipient of the Kolasky research award from CIUS. During her fellowship she conducted research at the archives of the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Center (UCRDC) and began a new research project on the everyday lives of Ukrainian refugees in DP camps in post-World War II Europe.
At the end of the 1990s, Dr. Kis was studying in the Department of History at Ivan Franko National University in Lviv. She had entered the university in 1987, when Ukraine was still part of the USSR. She completed her studies in 1992, by which time history had radically changed and she found herself to be a student in independent Ukraine. This meant that students of history had to study a strange new mixture: the history of the Communist Party, the history of the Soviet Union and the history of Ukraine. That is why upon graduation she realized that history was not the discipline to which she was ready to devote herself. So she turned to the study of psychology with special focus on gender issues – something new in 1990s Ukraine.
Later she returned to historical research as a junior research fellow at the Institute of Ethnology (Instytut Narodoznavstva), National Academy of Sciences, but maintained her interest in gender issues, as is evident from the subject of her first dissertation – the situation and roles of women in traditional Ukrainian culture, specifically in peasant families and village communities in the 19th century.
At that time she believed, as most Ukrainians did, that Ukrainian women always had serious standing in the community and enjoyed a wide array of rights, and that a system of matriarchy was in force.
Dr. Kis applied the theories and methods of feminist anthropology to explore traditional Ukrainian society. Her focus was on the pre-industrial Ukrainian village, which lived according to centuries-long beliefs, social norms and traditions, defining a woman’s rights and duties, her roles and positions in a family and in society.
But the more Dr. Kis delved into her subject, the more she listened to stories of elderly peasant women across Ukraine who spoke about their lives – the lives of their sisters, mothers, grandmothers and neighbors – she gradually came to realize that the lives of real women in Ukrainian society were neither easy nor simple. Life was hard and unfair, and the existence of a matriarchal order was a beautiful myth having nothing to do with realities of ordinary women’s experiences. She defended her thesis in 2002 and earned the candidate of historical studies degree, with a specialization in ethnology.
Since then, Dr. Kis has become interested in women’s history of the 20th century. She started actively using oral history – the research method that proved its indispensability in historical research on most traumatic and least explored events of the recent past, such as the Holodomor, the nationalist resistance in the 1940s and 1950s, and women’s experiences as political prisoners in the Stalin-era gulag. She covered these topics in her second book, published in 2017. She defended her second thesis in 2018, and received the degree of doctor of historical studies, with the specialty of ethnology.
It became obvious to Dr. Kis that the themes she was interested in were either omitted by scholars or researched with a certain male bias. At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, when historians and ethnographers tackled the subject of women – their lives, their rights and their status – they did so from a male perspective. Not only were almost all the researchers men, but the society in which they lived was basically patriarchal. The people they interviewed were largely men, not women; in exploring women, they received their information predominantly from men.
As Dr. Kis advanced in her own research, she became aware of the fallacy of some basic conclusions made a century ago about Ukrainian women’s status in society. Hence, her study undermined many well-established – albeit fundamentally wrong – ideas about the situation of women in the traditional Ukrainian family and society. By using a feminist perspective, it was possible to explore the traditional Ukrainian culture more critically and comprehensively. She concluded that Ukrainian culture was not ruled by a matriarchy but was essentially patriarchal – one in which power, authority and resources belonged to men.
When Dr. Kis publicly presented her views and arguments, the reaction of her esteemed colleagues was rather negative. In the 1990s, not only in Ukrainian society in general, but also among women’s organizations and even in the academic milieu, people would prefer to believe in the matriarchal nature of Ukrainian culture. Ukrainian scholars kept referring to a matriarchal past and expressed the opinion that Ukrainian women always were respected and revered, and enjoyed various rights and opportunities that, for example, Russian or Polish women did not have.
Were Ukrainian historians aware of the true situation of women in their societies, Dr. Kis was asked. “I don’t think that they were,” she replied. In the early years of Ukrainian independence no comprehensive research on the history of Ukrainian women existed, while even the fundamental classical works of Western feminist historians were unavailable and unknown in Ukraine in the 1980s and 1990s. The contemporary trends in anthropological scholarship were also unknown in Ukraine. Hence, the criticism of Dr. Kis’ views, by other Ukrainians, was not based on academic criteria but rather on political ones. She was blamed for “giving insufficient credit to the founding fathers of Ukrainian history,” “not being patriotic enough,” “disrespecting Ukrainian women” and “undermining the sacred ideas of the Ukrainian nation.”
Nevertheless, after she successfully defended her dissertation, published her book and, after many other similar publications appeared, the acceptance of her work became more positive.
For a long time, the topics of women’s experiences during the Holodomor and in the gulag were ignored in Ukrainian historiography. Although the role of women in the nationalist underground attracted the attention of the younger generation of scholars and resulted in several publications, historians were unable to discern and explore the gender dimensions of political imprisonment in the gulag.
But times are changing. Dr. Kis has herself seen this, although women’s history does not yet belong to mainstream historiography. At the beginning of the 1990s, there were a few researchers who were interested in pursuing the study of women’s pasts. When Dr. Kis began her academic career, the number engaged in such research was very small – singular instances of interest, five or six researchers scattered throughout Ukraine in various universities; rare examples of researchers with no academic milieu where they could discuss their projects or receive support for their work.
Today, however, there is widespread social interest and even a demand for this kind of knowledge; for example, publications on women’s history are bought and they thrive. People need to know – and want to know – what happened to Ukrainian women in the past.
In 2017, the Ukrainian Association of Researchers of Women’s History prepared an edited volume, “Ukrainian Women in the Crucible of Modernization.” This scholarly-popular compilation was released by KSD Publishing House in Kharkiv in a fairly large issue of 5,000. It became a bestseller and received a prize from the Lviv Forum of Publishers as the best book in the field of history. Three independent juries of experts – in Kharkiv, Lviv and Kyiv – unanimously decided to honor this book with an award.
“To me,” Dr. Kis said, “when ordinary people vote with their wallets, buying a book, while a jury of experts votes to select such a book as deserving of a prize, it proves that the time for women’s history has come. Our association aspires to promote the institutionalization of women’s history so that it becomes a full-fledged academic discipline in its own right,” she explained. Although it is not an easy task, this process is moving forward, and this gives Dr. Kis cause for optimism.
Nonetheless, women’s historical studies are still fighting for space in Ukraine. “Women’s history should become more a part of the mainstream. We do our best to make it visible and accessible, so UARWH members’ scholarly articles on women’s history are published on the Associations web page and can be downloaded for free,” Dr. Kis noted.
She believes that it is heartening that students and young researchers take advantage of this availability. To stock libraries with new books is costly (given their limited budgets), but electronic resources can help. In fact, gender studies are now a very popular area of research among younger scholars, but there is still some way to go for its proper institutionalization.
Dr. Kis was asked whether there has been any influence of the West on scholarship in Ukraine. Foreign scholars who come to Ukraine often serve as promoters and resource persons. For example, Prof. Martha Bohachevsky-Chomiak and Prof. Marian Rubchak brought the feminist agenda to historical scholarship from the West. Since 2000 it has become easier to access major publications from the West; some younger scholars benefit from participation in international summer schools in gender studies at the Central European University in Budapest as well as in Foros (Crimea), organized for many years by the Kharkiv Center of Gender Studies.
Western scholarship was unavailable in Ukraine before the collapse of the Soviet Union. “We obtained an intellectual impulse when we learned about gender studies, women’s studies and feminist anthropology, when they were introduced in Ukraine,” Dr. Kis pointed out. Since the mid-1990s, a number of Ukrainian and Russian translations of classical works in feminist theory and women’s history have been published in Ukraine (e.g. Kate Millet, Simone de Bouvoir, Dr. Bohachevsky-Chomiak). Many publications are now accessible online, so students and scholars can learn more. Foreign donor institutions and foundations provide enormous support for the development of gender studies as they award research grants and create opportunities for research fellowships at Western universities, and offer travel and publications grants.
The Fulbright Program has been organizing academic exchanges for 25 years, sending Ukrainian scholars to American universities. The Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Alberta awards grants to support research projects in history, including women’s history. The Heinrich Boell Foundation financially supports academic conferences and publications. There are many such examples. This help has enormous impact on the progress of women’s history and gender studies as the state-subsidized universities and academic institutes in Ukraine are not willing to invest in these topics.
Asked about the future prospects of academic institutions in Ukraine, Dr. Kis did not provide a very positive picture. According to her, with the academy’s permanent lack of funding, it is destined for degradation. In the government budget, there is a separate line for the financial support of the National Academy of Sciences in general and a separate line for costs to be spent on the Praesidium of the Academy, for which 100 percent financing is guaranteed. Thus, the elderly academics ensure their own well-being, leaving the rank-and-file scholars to survive on their own.
Dr. Kis said that the situation is problematic in terms of the institutional structure as well. The Ukrainian Academy of Sciences is a very archaic and awkward institution unamenable to reform in its current state. The younger scholars who are interested and willing to reorganize it do not have sufficient power or resources; the top management – elderly merited men – are too old to bother.
Although there have been attempts to reform the academic system in Ukraine, she continued, in its current circumstances, this structure cannot be effective. It is too hierarchical, too rigid for innovation and too patronizing. Young people are hardly interested in entering doctoral programs as they cannot see any prospects for future careers within the academy.