Naina Misra and Vladyslav Nekhoroshykh present a podcast on the book "Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag." This anthropological study was produced by Oksana Kis, translated by Lidia Wolanskyj, and published by HURI Books. The work examines the day-to-day lives of Ukrainian women imprisoned in the Gulag. Kis pulls from firsthand accounts, memoirs, and oral histories to reveal the resilience of these women as they fought to maintain their identity, traditions, and humanity. Join Misra and Nekhoroshykh with this new podcast from HURI, as they explore this chapter of Ukrainian history.

Survival as Victory Podcast

Comparative analysis: Social media activism in Ukraine and 2020 Karabakh wars

This podcast was produced by Lamiya Adilgizi as a final project for Dr. Emily Channell-Justice's course during the 2022 Harvard Ukrainian Summer Institute.

Podcast record time: Aug. 1, 2022, 19.00 CET, Berlin


Throughout the 65 min talk, we took the chance to compare the social media activism during the Ukraine and the recent Nagorno-Karabakh war in 2020 and came to a conclusion that in both conflicts social media was extensively used as an online battleground for the creation of the sides’ national narrative. Amidst all those bubble of fake news and images and lack of media literacy, hurt mentality and nationalistic sentiments added intensively to the detachment between the fighting sides rather than helping them come together. Therefore, most probably, the speakers are pessimistic about the future of a real peace in the region. Ukraine seems off the peace and Armenians and Azerbaijanis are far from peace, rather “a function co-existence” might be tried in Nagorno-Karabakh, the experts concluded.

The discussion was held with three experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine: 

Margarita Tadevosyan, Ph.D. - a Research Assistant Professor and post-Doctoral research fellow at Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution. She is a scholar-practitioner of conflict resolution with over a decade of experience of convening and facilitating Track II dialogue projects in the South Caucasus. Her primary area of research interest is locally-led peacemaking and peacebuilding work, with a particular emphasis on relationships developed between local actors and international organizations. Dr. Tadevosyan has worked in the post-Soviet space, in particular in the South Caucasus, engaging with Armenian-Azerbaijani, Armenian-Turkish, and Georgian-South Ossetian conflict contexts. She received her PhD from George Mason University’s Carter School for Peace and Conflict Resolution in 2019. She also holds Masters Degrees in Peace Operations Policy (2010) and Conflict Resolution (2008), as well as Certificate in Peace Research from University of Oslo (2010).  

Arzu Geybullayeva - Azerbaijani columnist and writer, with a special focus on digital authoritarianism and its implications on human rights and press freedom. Arzu has written for Al Jazeera, Eurasianet, CODA, Open Democracy, and Radio Free Europe, with a byline on CNN International. She is also a regional editor for South Caucasus and Turkey at Global Voices. In 2019, Arzu launched Azerbaijan Internet Watch, a platform that documents, and monitors information controls in Azerbaijan. Since 2015, she has been involved in various projects focusing on the safety of women journalists online. Arzu is based in Istanbul from where she continues her journalism work as well as her engagement in projects that continue to focus on the safety of women journalists online, platform accountability, and transparency.

Olena Dub - a Ukrainian journalist and social media specialist, who had to flee Ukraine due to the ongoing war. Having worked with local as well as various international media organizations such as Reuters Foundation and Internews etc. Olena has been responsible for years for the social media projects at Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, particularly leading the social media department at the radio’s media-project "Crimea.Realities". For the time being Olena is based in Poland and works as a social media editor at Human Rights Center ZMINA.

"Comparative analysis: Social media activism in Ukraine and 2020 Karabakh wars"

Conference: States, Peoples, Languages: A Comparative Political History of Ukrainian, 1863-2013
11–13 June 2014
Day 1: Wednesday, June 11
1:00 – 2:00 p.m.  Registration
2:00 – 2:15 p.m.  Welcome and Opening Remarks
Serhii Plokhii
Director, Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University
Andrea Graziosi
National Agency for the Evaluation of Universities and Research, Italy
Session 1.  Years of Dependence:  1863–1991
2:15 – 5:30 p.m.
Panel 1.  1863–1905:  Years of Prohibition and Russification
Chair: 
Michael S. Flier
Harvard University
1. The Fate of the Ukrainian Language under the Russian Empire
Johannes Remy
University of Helsinki
2. The Fate of the Ukrainian Language in the Habsburg Monarchy
Michael Moser
University of Vienna
3. Russian:  The Language of Empire
Alexei Miller
Institute for Scientific Information in Social Sciences, RAS, Moscow; Central European University, Budapest
4. The Formation of the Finnish Polity: Languages and the People in the Construction of the Nation State, 1863-1905
Ilkka Liikanen
University of Eastern Finland
Jussi Kurunmäki
University of Stockholm
5. When the West Meets the East: Slavia Romana at the Crossroad
Anita Peti-Stantic
University of Zagreb; Center for Cognitive Studies, Tufts University

2014-06-11. States, Peoples, Languages. Day 1

In the flagship episode of the podcast series for the book "Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag" by Oksana Kis, Naina Misra, and Vlad Nekhoroshykh introduce the first chapter: "The Daily Life of Women in the Gulag in Research and Personal Memoirs." They explore the harsh conditions faced by Ukrainian women imprisoned in the Soviet Gulags from the 1930s until the 1950s, and how these women built communities, maintained hope, and preserved their identities despite unimaginable hardship. This episode introduces the challenges they faced, the effort that went into documenting these experiences, and the importance of remembering and honoring their retellings as part of Ukraine’s historical and cultural legacy.

"Survival as Victory" Podcast — Episode 1

Hosts Naina Misra and Vlad Nekhoroshykh delve into Chapter 2 of Survival as Victory, "Living Conditions in the Prisons and Camps in the 1940s and 1950s," examining the harrowing living conditions faced by prisoners of the Soviet Gulags. Through powerful testimonies from survivors and detailed historical analysis, this episode provides insight into the brutal realities of overcrowded barracks, extreme weather, starvation, disease, and forced labor, highlighting the superhuman resilience, resourcefulness, and solidarity that Ukrainian women utilized to survive.

"Survival as Victory" Podcast — Episode 2

Naina Misra and Vlad Nekhoroshykh discuss Chapter 3 of Survival as Victory, "National Identity and Christian Faith During Imprisonment," examining the ways in which women preserved their Ukrainian identity and Christian faith during their time in the Gulags, and how this served as a form of resistance against Soviet rule. Also discussed are the power of ethnic solidarity, religious practices, and the deep emotional bonds that sustained the women through decades in the prison. Through stories of exchanging secret letters to holding hidden church services, these experiences highlight resilience, inner power, and the enduring human spirit.

"Survival as Victory" Podcast — Episode 3

In the 4th Chapter of Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag, "Creativity and Free Time," Misra and Nekhoroshykh explore how Ukrainian women used their creativity as a form of resilience and cultural preservation. During their time in the Gulags, the women engaged in forms of artistry, including embroidering, singing, poetry, and theatre, to hold onto their identities, uplift each other, and preserve their mental health. These acts were defiant, even risky, but served as an important way to foster community among the women and maintain the hope that they would one day be free. Through these methods, the women stood fast against the Soviet oppressors and transformed their free time into a space of healing.

"Survival as Victory" Podcast — Episode 4

In Chapter 5 of Survival as Victory, "Humanity and Femininity in Captivity," the HURI Podcast explores the brutal tactics used in Soviet labor camps and how the Ukrainian women were able to face this ordeal. Prisoners were stripped of their identities, reduced to numbers, and subjected to physical and psychological torture. Despite these inhumane conditions, the women developed a unique sisterhood. After their release, many of these women continued to help each other for decades through the lifelong friendships and support networks they had formed. This chapter showcases the prisoners’ determination to preserve not just their lives, but their humanity.

"Survival as Victory" Podcast — Episode 5

Misra and Nekhoroshykh discuss Chapter 6, "Body, Sexuality, and Love" from Survival as Victory. Despite facing violence, hunger, and a consistent violation of their human rights, women used small acts of self-care and compassion to preserve their dignity and resist oppression within the Gulags. Oksana Kis highlights the complex dynamics of intimacy in the camps, which ranged from exploitation by those in power to genuine relationships of those imprisoned, and shows how love can serve as the ultimate drive to survive. Through survivor testimonies and firsthand accounts, this chapter delineates how pure human connection can arise and provide hope even during the darkest of times. 

"Survival as Victory" Podcast — Episode 6

In the final episode, we dive into Chapter 7: Motherhood Behind Bars. Through heart-wrenching survivor testimonies, Misra and Nekhoroshykh explore how women in the Gulags navigated pregnancy, childbirth, and motherhood. Stories of mothers separated from their children, babies lost to orphanages, and the physical and emotional toll of raising children in the camps highlight their experiences of loss and resilience. However, maternal love evolved into a new form of resistance, and Kis reframes survival not just as endurance, but the ability to preserve identity, humanity, and hope. This chapter serves as a tribute to these women’s strength and a reminder of how such struggles are faced even today by mothers living in conflict zones, such as those in modern-day Ukraine. Thank you for joining us on this journey through Survival as Victory, a powerful reminder of how resilience, resistance, and everyday acts of courage shaped women's fight to not only survive, but reclaim their humanity among the harsh conditions of the Soviet Gulags.

"Survival as Victory" Podcast — Episode 7

The Bohdan and Neonila Krawciw Memorial Lecture

April 4, 2016

‘A Bridge between Us’: Literature in the Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar Encounter

Rory Finnin, Head, Department of Slavonic Studies, University Senior Lecturer in Ukrainian Studies; Director, Cambridge Ukrainian Studies program, University of Cambridge, UK

Harvard University

‘A Bridge between Us’: Literature in the Ukrainian-Crimean Tatar Encounter

Interwar Poland has a less than stellar reputation for its treatment of minority ethnic groups, which was cause for concern, considering that nearly one-third of Poland’s population comprised minorities—particularly Ukrainians, Belarusians, Jews, and Germans. While most historical literature focuses on group-level policies pursued by Warsaw to create an ethnically homogenous Poland, in this seminar I will disaggregate the level of analysis to focus on the dynamics between the Polish government and political organizations that claim to represent minority ethnic groups. 

Using the case of the Ukrainian minority, I explore how the Polish government pursued a divide and rule strategy to manage Ukrainian opposition. This was done through the promotion and exploitation of inter- and intra-organizational conflicts, the creation of loyalist Ukrainian organizations, the activation of sub-ethnic group cleavages, and the banning of organizations that could credibly unite the Ukrainian opposition. I reconstruct the intentions of policy makers using process-tracing analysis and extensive archival research of the main organ responsible for formulating minority policies, the Ministry of Interior (Ministerstwo Spraw Wewnętrznych). 

Daniel Fedorowycz
Eugene and Daymel Shklar Research Fellow, HURI

Read a Q&A with Daniel here: http://huri.harvard.edu/news/news-from-huri/298-daniel-fedorowycz.html

Daniel Fedorowycz completed his doctorate in Politics at the University of Oxford. His dissertation examines ethnic politics in multinational states and focuses on the variation in state response to minority group organizations in interwar Poland. More broadly, Daniel researches questions relating to the causes of ethnic conflict through examining local-level dynamics in the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands during the interwar and World War II era. In 2014-15, Daniel was a pre-doctoral fellow at Yale University’s Program on Order, Conflict, and Violence. He holds a MA in European, Russian, and Eurasian Studies and BA(Hons) from the University of Toronto. Currently, Daniel is a Shklar Fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute.

2017 03 27 Daniel Fedorowycz: Divide and Rule: Managing the Ukrainian Minority in Interwar Poland

George Grabowicz HUSI Lecture: New Research on Taras Shevchenko

Seminar in Ukrainian Studies 
A Quiet Revolution: Ukrainian Poets of the 1970s 

Oleh Kotsyuba
2017 Mihaychuk Research Fellow, HURI

Oleh Kotsyuba’s presentation focuses on the generation of poets that arrived at the literary scene in the late 1960s and the 1970s. After wars, famines, and repressions of the preceding decades, these poets were able to focus on matters of art – and poetry in particular – to an extent that was entirely unexpected at the time and in a way that remained largely unknown until the political relaxation of the perestroika period. In their writings, these poets particularly distanced themselves from the literary practices of the state-sanctioned literature (and the style of Socialist Realism) as well as from the artistic and moral compromises to which certain representatives of the preceding generation, shistdesiatnyky (generation of the 1960s), agreed. In a close though virtual conversation with Western poets (mostly representatives of late Modernism), they explored issues of the nature of poetry, the poet’s position and her or his voice, and poetry’s relation to reality that it attempts to grasp and convey. Dr. Kotsyuba’s presentation will center on Oleh Lysheha’s work and his relation of consonance with several Western poets, while also shining a light on such other important poets of this generation as Hrytsko Chubai, Viktor Kordun, and Mykola Vorobyov. As Dr. Kotsyuba argues, the generation of post-shistdesiatnyky was able to achieve a “quiet revolution” by turning away entirely from the Soviet political system and state-sponsored art and instead participating directly in a framework of reference common with their Western counterparts.

Room S-050, CGIS South, Harvard University 
1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge, MA

2017 11 20 Oleh Kotsyuba: A Quiet Revolution (Ukrainian Poets 1970s)

Seminar in Ukrainian Studies
Confronting Health Care in Ukraine: Patients’ Coping Strategies

Olena Levenets, Early Stage Researcher, Department of Law, School of Business and Governance, Tallinn University of Technology, Estonia; Visiting Fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard

Omeljan Pritsak Memorial Library, Ukrainian Research Institute, 34 Kirkland Street, Cambridge

11-20-2018 Olena Levenets: Health Care in Ukraine

Seminar in Ukrainian Studies
The Old Slavic Digenis Akritis: Its “Formulaic Style” and the Question of Adaptation or Translation
Robert Romanchuk, HURI Research Fellow and Pribic Family Associate Professor of Slavic, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics, Florida State University

This presentation grows out of the author’s project of a critical edition of the Old Slavic translation of Digenis Akritis. Known as “Byzantium’s only epic poem,” Digenis Akritis was oriented toward the genre of the romance in all stages of its transmission in Greek. The Slavic version—produced from a concise early Greek version and contemporary Greek and Slavic oral-formulaic techniques in either 13th-c. Ukrainian Galicia (according to majority opinion in the Slavic field) or 14th-c. Macedonia (in the thesis of André Vaillant)—represents the work’s only consistently epic extension: it is at once the “Byzantine epic” as such, unfettered from the romance, and the earliest uncontested witness of Slavic epic composition. In its “folklorism” and brutal epic ethos, the Slavic version diverges greatly from any extant Greek text, especially the one to which it is stemmatically most closely related, the highly romanticized Grottaferrata version. Paradoxically, in its style and ethos it is closer to the vernacularized Escorial version, a more distant relation.

Comparative study of oral-formulaic composition in the manuscripts of Digenis Akritis, Greek folksongs (the “Akritika”), and Slavic epic (the Tatar-Turkish cycle of dumy and the “Kyivan” byliny, the South Slavic “Marko Kraljević” songs) shows that in many places where the Slavic Digenis diverges from the Greek versions, it makes use of formulas (“group[s] of words … regularly employed under the same metrical [vel sim.] conditions to express a given essential idea” [Milman Parry]) or themes (“group[s] of ideas regularly used” in telling a tale, “repeated passage[s] with a fair degree of verbal or formula[ic] repetition from one occurrence to the next” [Albert Lord]) found in either Greek or Slavic folksongs. Yet the Slavic text is not the transcription of some ballad-monger’s recitation, any more than the demotic Escorial: rather, its formulaic style shows its translator, whose local tradition did not know the romance, authorizing his vernacular writing by “referring the audience to [the] familiar semantic world” (Paul Zumthor) of the epic “singer of tales.”

Vaillant, who resolved numerous problems around the Slavic version, claimed that it was not a translation, but “un récit libre d’après une version grecque du poème.” Is the Slavic Digenis, radically altered by oral-formulaic (re-)composition, a translation? The theory and practice of vernacular translation in the European Renaissance would suggest that it is. Popularizing vernacular translators such as Louis Le Roy granted “the rhetorical resources of the target language … at the very least, ‘equivalent weight’ to those of the source text” (Kenneth Lloyd-Jones), while philologist-translators into Latin such as Henri Estienne (Stephanus) privileged the source language (Greek) and its resources. By analogy, the “rhetorical” oral-formulaicism of the Slavic Digenis may be distinguished from the literalism of “philological” translators of the Euthymian school. We may even consider the Escorial version to be a translation into vernacular (demotic) Greek, with all this implies for its style and ethos.

Robert Romanchuk (PhD Slavic, UCLA 1999) is Pribic Family Associate Professor of Slavic and Associate Chair for Undergraduate Studies in the Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics at Florida State University. His fields are philology and psychoanalysis.

10-15-2018 Robert Romanchuk: Digenis Akritis

Founded in June 1973, the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) serves as a focal point for graduate and undergraduate students, fellows, and associates pursuing research in Ukrainian language, literature, and history as well as in anthropology, archaeology, art history, economics, political science, sociology, theology, and other disciplines. 

HURI

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