« 2022. # 2 (164)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2022. № 2 (164), 337—348

UDK 394(477.86/.87):329.614]82-94-043.3:316.62

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2022.02.337

(NON) INVOLVEMENT IN THE NATIONALIST UNDERGROUND AS A FACTOR IN CHANGING OF HUMAN DESTINIES: ON THE EXAMPLE OF NARRATIVES OF RESETTLERS FROM WESTERN BOYKIVSHCHYNA

KOLOMYICHUK Oleksandr

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-2865-2396
  • Ph. D. in History, research fellow,
  • the M. Rylskyi Institute for Art Studies,
  • Folkloristics and Ethnology
  • of the Ukrainian National Academy of Sciences,
  • 4, Hrushevskoho St., Kyiv, 01001, Ukraine,
  • Contacts: e-mail: kolsasha7@gmail.com

Abstract. The change of socio-political accents in the recognition of forced deportations of 1944—1951 at the state level actualizes the chosen issue.

The narratives of resettlers from Western Boykivshchyna, who were deported during two infamous eviction actions — Operation Vistula in 1947 and «Action 1951», are the object and source base of this study.

The purpose of this article — to trace how the fact of participation in the nationalist underground of someone from family of resettlers influenced the future fate of themselves of resettlers based on the oral memoirs of this ones introduced into scientific circulation for the first time, also published collections of memoirs and available scientific literature.

The circumstances under which personalities experienced radical changes in their own lives, without actually being involved in the insurgent resistance through the prism of the narratives of resettlers from Western Boykivshchyna were determined.

Historical context and conditions in which the nationalist underground operated in the second half of the 1940s in the light of eyewitness accounts have been traced. Special attention is paid to the most dramatic parts of the biographical narratives of resettlers, where they appear as young children. According to the research by modern western psychologists, older people have a much greater ability to recall detailed stories from their childhood. That’s why childhood recollections from the personal lives of resettlers in the light of their narratives in detail have been traced. Similar episodes from the past lives of the respondents as a kind of their traumatic memory have been described. High cost of such tragedies in the personal life of narrators have been emphasized; their role in the struggle for a free Ukrainian state was marked.

In addition to general scientific principles, comparative, textual methods, field research methods were used. The introduction into scientific circulation valuable materials of oral history, recorded from direct witness of the events, is a novelty of this study.

Keywords: resettlers, Western Boykivshchyna, narrative, nationalist underground, insurgent resistance, trauma.

Received 14.04.2022

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