HSS Colloquium Hour. Wednesday, March 6th. 11:00am – 11:45am. SSB Atrium. Grace McHuguh HIS and Deaf Ed Major. DR. Cynthia Paces Faculty Sponsor, HIS. The year the breadbasket of Europe starved: an understanding of how the Holodomor affects Ukrainian descendants today. Ukraine has been subjected to the wrath of the Soviets or Russians for multiple generations often resulting in intensely traumatic experiences during events such as the Holodomor, which has a direct impact on the memory of survivors. Research shows that the trauma experienced by these individuals is often passed down to their children, manifesting in many ways. Oral testimonies given by survivors and their children have revealed that in the children of survivors, the trauma of their parents often results in a heavy emphasis on family, strict habits around food, and a feeling of responsibility to take on their parent’s trauma. It is unknown how these inherited experiences will combine with the traumas of the current war to affect future generations. I will discuss how I arrived at such an understudied topic in the field of history and how familial practices and discussions have created a situation where the second generation is affected by an event they did not physically experience. Maxim Shumylo, HIS and Sec Ed. Major, Dr Cynthia Paces, Faculty Sponsor, HIS. “The great upheaval in Jewish life: the pale of settlement in imperial Russia”
The pale of settlement in imperial Russia was created under the rule of Catherine II (Catherine the great) in 1791 and lasted until the end of the Russian empire in 1917, when it was dissolved by the newly formed communist government. This vast area was a specially designated territory where the Jews of the empire were allowed to live and encompassed a large area of Eastern Europe, including today’s Western Ukraine, Belarus, Eastern Poland, Lithuania and Moldova. During this time, Jews also faced legal restrictions as legislation governing their rights changed constantly, including in the field of education. Against this backdrop, Imperial Russia was also pursing what would become a decades long project to entice Jews to take up agricultural labor in modern day Southern Ukraine, then called “Little Russia.” This story has not been extensively covered in Western scholarship, and I hope to shed light on it with my own research.