Associate Professor of the Department of Ethnology and Archaeology Oksana Drohobytska won 1st place in the nomination “Family Memorabilia” (documentary materials) of the international competition “The History of My Large Family” within the framework of the project “Public Archival Studies in Ukraine”. At the competition, she presented photos and documents from her own archive about the everyday life of repressed Ukrainians in Siberia (1950s – 1960s), as well as an essay dedicated to the history of her family.
First place in the nomination “Memoirs of my relative” (oral historical testimonies) of the same competition was taken by a student of group IA–41, specialty 032 “History and Archaeology” of the Bachelor’s program, Yelyzaveta Sylka. She presented to the competition committee an interview she recorded with her grandmother, Hanna Bondarenko (born in 1951). Oral testimonies illustrate how the Holodomor of 1932–1933 affected the family and was imprinted in the consciousness transgenerationally. Her father, Semen Kuschii (1923–2003), and her mother-in-law, Lyubov Nikulenko (1927–2010), who were eyewitnesses to the Holodomor, told about G. Bondarenko’s experiences.
In her essay, E. Sylka emphasizes, “Talking about genocide is painful and difficult, but necessary, because it is worse to remain silent. Preserving the memory of those who suffered from Bolshevism is the least and at the same time the greatest thing that can be done for them and for us. It is important to remember that their sacrifices and suffering were not in vain, so as not to repeat them, to understand who the enemy is, to realize the importance of Ukrainian independence, and to have bread that no one has taken away from us.”
The Dobra Volya Foundation (Krakow,) Republic of Poland in cooperation with the Ukrainian Oral History Association, the Stereotime NGO (Kyiv) and the National Women’s Council of Ukraine organized the competition.
We congratulate our student Yelyzaveta Sylka and her supervisor Oksana Drohobytska on their high honors at the international level!