Women's practices of everyday life in the conditions of the Ukrainian village in the first years of post-war reconstruction (1944–1947)

The care of the younger brothers or sisters also fell on the shoulders of the elders: («mother would take me to the field so that I could look after the younger one, to sit under the haystack with her. Because I was born in 1936, and the younger sister was born in 1939, and the brother was the smallest since 1942, so… where can you take them?» Recorded on May 19, 2021 in the village of Studenytsia of Korostyshiv district, Zhytomyr region from Honcharuk Olha Savetivna, born in 1936.). Often, small children were left under the supervision of older family members, because «there were no kindergartens when we were children. And most of them played there on the street» Recorded on May 14, 2021 in the city of Khmilnyk, Khmilnyk district, Vinnytsia region from Safonova Tamara Stepanivna, born in 1939.. It is significant that men in their memoirs emphasize the manifestations of sacrificial behavior of mothers in everyday survival practices in the first post-war years. «If someone had a father, then it's ok. But if the mother is alone - imagine, there were five, six, four children. Halia was 2 years old, her brother Vasyl was just born, and her older sister was born in 1937. The younger sister (2 years old) holds her brother in her arms, while the mother watches and milks the cows. That's how we survived» Recorded on on May 6, 2021 in the village Kukilnia, Berdychiv district, Zhytomyr region from Panasyuk Victor Hryhorovych, born in 1937..

Hygienic aspect was a separate aspect of complex post-war life. Under the conditions of actual impossibility of purchasing hygiene products, in particular soap, washing powder or shampoo, peasant women widely used traditional rural practices of washing clothes: «they made lye and poured it over, boiled it and washed the clothes like that» Recorded on May 14, 2021 in the village Zozulyntsi, Khmilnytskyi district, Vinnytsia region from Soroka Mariia Serhiivna, born in 1940., «there was the white clay. If you wash something, rub it with a little white clay and clean it» Recorded on May 19, 2021 in the village of Studenytsia of Korostyshiv district, Zhytomyr region from Honcharuk Olha Savetivna, born in 1936.. Soap was mostly used to maintain personal hygiene, «it was called lordly soap. Jews sold hygiene products» Recorded on December 15, 2020 in the village Myropol, Zhytomyr region from Dikhtiaruk Hanna Olesiivna, born in 1926.. Being limited in money, women «took it somewhere. They bought, exchanged, sometimes for beans or for onions» Recorded on May 8, 2021 in the village of Raci Romanivsky District, Zhytomyr Region from Siviuk Hanna Vasylivna, born in 1943., and even «when a dog dies, they made it of a dog» Recorded on May 6, 2021 in the village Kukilnia, Berdychiv district, Zhytomyr region from Panasyuk Victor Hryhorovych, born in 1937.. In general, women's practices of household organization in the first post-war years were based on the social experience gained during the years of German occupation. In the conditions of restoration of the process of functioning of the collective farm system, they adapted to the new realities.

Conclusions

The core of the post-war reconstruction of the Ukrainian village was the restoration of the collective farm system. First of all, it was about its economic component, such as: material and technical base, agricultural land, animal husbandry. In the structure of production relations of this system, the main labor force was the collective farm worker. Given the changes in the demographic situation caused by the war and the German occupation of Ukrainian territories, women were the main mobilization resource for replenishing the ranks of collective farm workers. The memories of peasant women/peasants of Zhytomyr region provide grounds for the conclusion that in the period under study, the collective farm system had a distinctly discriminatory nature for women. As a rule, they did not hold managerial positions in the organizational and management structure of the collective farm. The «professional career» of a collective farm woman was mostly limited to the roles of low ranks.

Labor relations in the structure of the collective farm, which during the famine of 1946-1947 had a repressive character, had a dominant influence on the everyday lifestyle of the rural family. According to the stories of our respondents, in the period we studied, the responsibility for the survival of the family mostly rested on the woman-mother. In historiography, this status of hers is usually called «double burden».

There have been certain changes in the spatial and temporal dimensions of women's everyday life. The woman had to combine hard work in the collective farm with work in the household and care and upbringing of children. In the absence of her husband, she adapted the traditional practices of everyday behavior to the realities of the new time, looked for ways to provide her own family with clothes, food, and everyday items in conditions of limited opportunities and resources. During the famine of 1946-1947, women's survival practices to some extent depended on her status: either she was a «widow» (the breadwinner of the family) or «had a husband» (responsibility for providing for the family was shared between spouses). In general, it can be confidently asserted that the strategies of everyday behavior of the peasants in the first years of post-war reconstruction had a clear imprint of gender colored labeling.

Further research in this direction can be focused on the study of women's experience of survival under the pressure of harsh repressive measures of the Soviet authorities against the so-called violators of the Charter of the Silhospartil (agricultural artil).

Acknowledgments. We express our sincere gratitude to all members of the editorial board for the advice provided during the preparation of the article for publication.

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survival female collective farm worker

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