Agency vs Victimhood: Women’s Experience of the Holodomor 1932-33 in Ukraine
Date and time:
Wednesday 26 November, 2025
18:30 - 20:00
Location:
Association of Ukrainians in Great Britain
154 Holland Park Ave
London
W11 4UH
Join us for a talk by historian Oksana Kis as she examines the experiences of women who lived through the Holodomor.
The history of the Holodomor (the Great Famine) of 1932-33 in Ukraine features prominently in Ukrainian public discourse and scholarship today. However, its gender dimension remains understudied. This lecture is based on an analysis of personal narratives of female Holodomor survivors to explore women's experiences of survival under genocidal conditions. It focuses on women's resistance to state-sanctioned violence, their coping strategies and life-saving practices under conditions of total starvation and lawlessness. It also reveals a spectrum of women's agency aimed at protecting family property and food supplies from violent expropriation by the authorities. Controversial aspects of women's experiences are also addressed, including women's roles as perpetrators, sexual violence against women, and the ambiguities of motherhood during famine.
Speaker
Oksana Kis
Oksana Kis is a feminist historian and anthropologist, Head of the National Research Foundation of Ukraine (based in Lviv). She is also a President of the Ukrainian Association for Research in Women's History. Her most recent book, Survival as Victory: Ukrainian Women in the Gulag was published by the Harvard University Press in 2021. She is the recipient of several academic awards, research grants, and fellowships. Her research interests include women’s lives in the traditional Ukrainian peasant culture and society, women’s experiences of the Holodomor (Great Famine of 1932-33), women’s participation in the Ukrainian nationalist anti-Soviet underground in the 1940-50s, as well as gender transformations in post-socialist countries. Currently Oksana Kis is a VUIAS fellow at the Imre Kertesz Kolleg Jena.
