Archive
«Narodoznavchi Zoshyty» 2018 year, issue 3 read »
The Ethnology Notebooks. 2022. #5 (167). P. 1011-1244 DOI... read »
«Narodoznavchi Zoshyty» 2014 year, issue 5 read »
The Ethnology Notebooks. 2023. № 1 (169). С. 1-270 DOI... read »

« 2021. # 1 (157)

The Ethnology Notebooks. 2021. # 1 (157), P. 53—64

УДК 94(477.83-25)”18″-055.26-058.34

DOI https://doi.org/10.15407/nz2021.01.053

Ivanna CHERCHOVYCH

  • ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3078-7003
  • PhD in History, Research Fellow,
  • Department of Social Anthropology,
  • Institute of Ethnology, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine,
  • 15, Svobody Avenue, 79000, Lviv, Ukraine
  • e-mail: ivankacherchovych@gmail.com

TO LIVE AT THE MARGINS: POOR AND PREGNANT IN LEMBERG IN THE LATE 19th CENTURY

This article is dedicated to one of the most unexplored group of that time Lemberg’ citizens – working women, their private lives and motherhood experiences. Despite of the fact that they represented the majority of female urban population, their stories are still untold. Partly because of the silence of sources with their direct speeches, partly because of the need to select information about them from the testimonies of others – correspondence of their employers, press and literature of that time. The relevance and purpose of this paper is driven by the lacunas in this area and the lack of its analysis, hence by the desire to contribute to it. Labour migration from countryside to the city obviously affected matrimonial market, making women more economically independent, but also (which was not surprising) uncovering their vulnerability. Single motherhood was becoming more and more visible experience of working women’ private life in that time city.

The sources of this research are above mentioned testimonies of others (private correspondence of employers and press) as well as the criminal cases about infanticide, child abandonment and abortion, which were considered by Lemberg Regional Court in 1865—1905. The stories of these cases were covering in fact small autobiographies of accused women, since the investigative interest had required very detailed self-narrations from defendants. These stories are especially interesting in regards to industrialization, urbanization and emancipation as a key processes of that time society, which enlarged dramatically percentage of women on the labour market and their mobility.

In this research I use a combination of two methods, content analysis and critical discourse analysis. The first makes information from the sources systematically comparable, the second one helps me to explore the links between language use and social practices. These stories fall into genre of the microstudy  — the history of individuals, small communities, exclusiveness or randomness, examples of which shed light on the one of the most «silent» experiences of everyday live in late 19th century in Lemberg.

My key research conclusions are based on the thesis of special connection between women’ poverty and sexuality at that time society. To be poor for women meant to live under much more severe social pressure and ongoing risk to be compromised regardless of real facts or just assumptions.

Keywords: women, illegitimate children, motherhood, criminal cases, late 19th century, Lemberg.

REFERENCES

  • Urbanik-Kopeć A. Instrukcja nadużycia. Służące w XIX-wiecznych polskich domach. Katowice: Sonia Draga, 2019. 304 s.
  • Wingfield N. M. World of Prostitution in Late Imperial Austria. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. 288 p.
  • Kis, O. (2012). Women’s history as a direction of historical research: the formation of feminist methodology. Ukrainian Historical Journal, 2, 159—172 [in Ukrainian].
  • TsDIAL (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv). F. 152. Оp. 2. Od. save 19376. Arc. 1—48 [in Polish].
  • Walkowitz, J. R. (1992). City of Dreadful Delight. Narratives of Sexual Danger in Late-Victorian London. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.
  • Piddubniak, O. (Ed.). (2018). Antin and Mariya Krushelnytski. True confession of life. Correspondence. Bila Tserkva [in Ukrainian].
  • Piotrowska-Marchewa, M. (2006). «You have three enemies, who are going to steal your soul…». Moral threats in Polish handbooks and press for domestic service at the turn of 20th centuries. Woman and revolution of tradition. Social and cultural aspects of sexuality, 9, 247—263 [in Polish].
  • Illouz, E. (2019). The End of Love: A Sociology of Negative Relations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • Dnistrianskyi, S. (Ed.). (1919). Civil law (Part 1). Wien [in Ukrainian].
  • Vasyl Stefanyk National Scientific Library of Ukraine in Lviv. Manuscripts department. F. 41. Od. save 55/3. Arc. 1—81 [in Ukrainian].
  • K-s’ka. The issue of women’s equality, Zhinoche dilo, Lemberg, 1912 [in Ukrainian].
  • Kattner, Fr. (Ed.). (1894). Lemberg in numbers. Lemberg: Publishing house of «Dziennik Polski» [in Polish].
  • (1898) Chronicle. Survey on Christian Female Workers, Dziennik Polski, Nr 116, 118, 122, 125, 131, 132, 140) [in Polish].
  • TsDIAL (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv). F. 152. Оp. 2. Od. save 18680. Arc. 1—19 [in Polish].
  • Anna, P. (1887). Working woman. Pershyi vinok. Women’ almanac, 361—365 [in Ukrainian].
  • Pawlowich J. Priest Z. Gorazdowski – creator of the first institution for single mothers. Retrieved from: http://www.pawlowicz.opoka.org/gor_matki.htm (Last accessed: 21.10.2020) [in Polish].
  • TsDIAL (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv). F. 152. Оp. 2. Od. save 21624. Arc. 1—34 [in Polish].
  • Stauter-Halsted, K. (2015). The Devils Chain: Prostitution and Social Control in Partitioned Poland. Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
  • Sikorska-Kulesha, J. (2004). Tolerated evils. Prostitution in the Kingdom of Poland in the 19th century. Warsaw: Mada [in Polish].
  • Wingfield, N.M. (2017). The World of Prostitution in Late Imperial Austria. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
  • TsDIAL (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv). F. 146. Оp. 59. Od. save 57. Arc. 1—4 [in Polish].
  • Huchtker, D. (2002). «Obscenity of women» and «baseness of Jews»: poverty in the descriptions of Berlin and Galicia in 19th century. Gender stories of Eastern Europe, 228—245 [in Russian].
  • Gondek, M. (2013). The Austrian criminal procedure in 1853 and 1873 based on the practice of the jurisprudence of Cracow courts. Studies on the history of the state and the Polish law, 16, 245–267 [in Polish].
  • TsDIAL (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv). F. 152. Оp. 2. Od. save 16041. Arc. 1—10 [in Polish].
  • TsDIAL (Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv). F. 152. Оp. 2. Od. save 16946. Arc. 1—20 [in Polish].
  • Heijden, M.P.C. van der. (2016). Women and Crime, 1750—2000. Oxford Handbook of the History of Crime and Criminal Justice. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 250—267. DOI:10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199352333.013.10
  • Karpinski, A. (1996). Criminality in Lemberg at the end of the 16th and 17th centuries. Historical Review, 87, 4, 753—768 [in Polish].
  • Illouz, E. (2012). Why Love Hurts. A Sociological Explanation. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • Kowalsky, S.A. (2009). Deviant women: Female crime and criminology in revolutionary Russia, 1880—1930. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press.

Read»

Our authors
Stepan Pavluk. Prof., full member of NAS of Ukraine,... read »
Yaroslav Taras. Head of Department, Professor, Doctor... read »
Oksana Kis. Senior scientific employee, candidate of... read »
Kuzmenko Oksana Senior Researcher, Candidate of... read »
On bessarabian and moldavian ukrainians in the studies of historical ethnography
The article has thrown some light upon a sum of scientific findings got during XIX to XXI cc. in historio-ethnographic studies of Bessarabia and Moldavian Ukrainians. In the pre­sent paper has been given author’s answer to the problem of lacking progress as for the numerous themes concerning Ukrainians. State and achievements of the research-works in Ukrainians’ material and spiritual culture by the scientists of Moldavia and Ukraine through the years of independence has been exposed.
Read »

Wax candle as ukrainian Christmas and epiphany ritualistic text
For the first time in native ethnology the article has brought some results of special study in sign functionality of a wax candle under the context of Ukrainian Christmas and Epiphany ritualistic text (ritualism of Christmas Eve, New Year, Epiphany Eve and Feast of Epiphany). The study has stated extremely high semiotic position of a wax candle as projection of Sun, mediator between the spheres of sacral and prophane elements, symbolic analogue of human existence, apotropy, cultural symbol re-establishing borders of acculturated space.
Read »

Daily bread baking of ukrainians in the south-western ethnographical region at the late XIX to early XXI cc.
The paper has dealt with analytic study in prescriptions, signs, customs, methods, ways of selection, procurement and some peculiarities in usage of subsidiary means — water, firewood and leaves in bread baking. The final aim of the mentioned actions had been (and still is) selection of the means and ingredients fit, by their characteristics, for the backing of bread. The paper has demonstrated dependence of bread backing subsi­diary means criteria from the folk nutritional standards and world outlook stereotypes as well as from regional social and economic, natural and geographical factors and peculiarities of material culture.
Read »

Traditional folk clothes of velikobychkovsky hutsuly of XIX — the first half of XX century
In the study based upon numerous field materials, literature sources as well as ethnographic, historio-cultural and regional museum collections has been performed complex analysis in traditional folk clothes by Hutzul population of Velyky Bychkiv village in Transcarpathian region. Detailed descriptions of femi­nine and masculine clothing complexes of the mentioned area have been presented. In characterizing of those main attention has been paid to the detail of cut in separate components of dress; cut of feminine shirt has been added as an illustration.
Read »