Survival Under Extremes: Human, Environmental, and Material Relationships Amidst the Soviet Famines in Ukraine
Loading...
Authors
Skubii, Iryna
Date
2024-04-26
Type
thesis
Language
eng
Keyword
Famine , Survival , Environment , Land , Materiality , Consumption , Waste , Animals , Plants , Emotions , Memory , Holodomor , Soviet Union , Ukraine , Europe
Alternative Title
Abstract
Famine does not emerge in a vacuum but takes place in specific political, social, and natural environments in which all elements are intertwined. These interconnections played out vividly during the Soviet famines of 1921–1923, 1932–1933, and 1946–1947 in Ukraine. Each of these famines imposed significant pressures on the human, natural, and material worlds. As pivotal events in Ukrainian and Soviet history, they became major human existential crises of the twentieth century. This thesis seeks to complicate the understanding of human survival practices during the famines. Survival depended on a number of important factors, including human agency and the availability of resources. The study explores what resources were available to the starving across domestic and environmental spaces, such as kitchen gardens, fields, forests, water reservoirs and wetlands, and how the starving made use of them. Moving around the household as well as environmental and industrial landscapes, it further explores the significance of food waste in the survival practices of the starving. By ‘following’ the traces of waste in urban and rural landscapes, including, among others, dumpsters, slaughterhouses, cattle cemeteries and railway stations, the thesis charts the topography of waste and illuminates the critical changes in human–food and human–waste relationships in times of extremes. Looking at the larger scale of interactions with the environment, the study examines how famines impacted human-animal relationships and how Soviet state policies affected the livelihoods of animals, both domestic and wild. Taking into account the devastating impact of famines on animals, the study suggests approaching famines as multispecies catastrophes. Lastly, focusing on material objects as resources for famine survival, e.g. household items, clothes, coins, and jewellery objects, this research explores the changes in the essential meaning of things amidst times of extreme crises and violence. Focusing on the entangled histories of famine survival in times of extreme crisis, the study explores the impact of losses brought by famine experiences on individual and public memory.
Description
Citation
Publisher
License
Queen's University's Thesis/Dissertation Non-Exclusive License for Deposit to QSpace and Library and Archives Canada
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International
ProQuest PhD and Master's Theses International Dissemination Agreement
Intellectual Property Guidelines at Queen's University
Copying and Preserving Your Thesis
This publication is made available by the authority of the copyright owner solely for the purpose of private study and research and may not be copied or reproduced except as permitted by the copyright laws without written authority from the copyright owner.
Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International