Represje i wojna w narracjach biograficznych Polaków z Żytomierszczyzny, Kijowszczyzny i Podola
Repressions and War in the Biographical Narratives of Poles Living in Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Podolia Regions

Summary/Abstract: The article researches role of war and Stalin’s repressions in the biographical narratives of Poles living in Central Ukraine. The text is based on the content of 63 interviews. For the purpose of the detailed analysis I have chosen four of them; each representing a typical narrative structure. The aim of the article was to show influence of the official Soviet memory of the II world war on the development of the oldest generation of Poles from Zhytomyr, Kyiv and Podilia region’s identity. As all inhabitants of the Soviet Ukraine, Polish minority was after the war subject of strong state propaganda, which glorified USSR victory over the Germans and silenced repressions of the 1930. In this situation the biographical memory of the interviewees was contradictory to the official one. Analyzed interviews represent various ways of negotiating one’s identity in the situation that might be called asymmetry of the biographical and collective memory. These are: denying part of one’s experience, moving it to the private sphere (separation) and various types of marginality (withdrawal and searching).

• Details
• Contents