Roundtable at Conference of the Oral History Association

HREC organized a roundtable panel at the annual conference of the Oral History Association in Minneapolis, Minnesota, with the aim of bringing to the attention of oral historians the wealth of interviews conducted with Holodomor survivors and the critical place oral history holds in the study of the Holodomor. The panel was titled, “Intergenerational Consequences of the Holodomor in Ukraine (1932-33 Famine): What Oral History Accounts from Ukraine and the Diaspora Tell Us.”

Oral History is now a developed academic field, and the topics of genocide and the Holocaust have been well incorporated into its practice. Interviews and memoirs have played a crucial role in elaborating the history of the Holodomor, perhaps more so than for other genocides, given the denials of Soviet authorities until the demise of the USSR. HREC facilitated a discussion of oral history in relation to Holodomor studies, including theoretical and methodological issues. Panelists included Sophia Isajiw, Assistant to the Director of HREC Education and the Interviewer and Research Analyst of the oral history project “Children of Survivors” at the Ukrainian Canadian Research and Documentation Centre; Brent Bezo, a PhD candidate in psychology whose work examines intergenerational trauma in Ukraine; Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, a Professor of Cultural Anthropology at St. Thomas More College, University of Saskatchewan, and the coordinator of the Oral History Program at the Prairie Centre for the Study of Ukrainian Heritage (PCUH).

The Holodomor Roundtable was featured twice in the Ukrainian Weekly, articles that can be accessed through the following links:

http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/holodomor-researchers-featured-at-conference-on-oral-history/

http://www.ukrweekly.com/uwwp/wp-content/uploads/current-pdf/The_Ukrainian_Weekly_2018-

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