2024 Oral History Association Annual Meeting

Throughout the two years of the Russo-Ukrainian war, numerous research groups have created archives addressing various aspects of everyday life and social transformations caused by the military conflict. At this roundtable, the speakers will present their work and reflect on the methodological adjustments they had to make, the risks they took and mitigated, and the overall challenges interviewers face while recording oral history of war.

ABSTRACT: One of the most visible and profound effects of war is that it tears the connection between past and present while also making the future the object of intense anxiety. How does that shape oral historians’ work? Oral history is one of the key methodologies applied in documentation of the Russo-Ukrainian war. Relying on a strong oral history research tradition, Ukrainian scholars started recording interviews with people fleeing the military conflict within the first months of the full-scale invasion. Throughout the two years of the country surviving through massive military action, numerous research groups have created archives addressing various aspects of everyday life and social transformations caused by the military conflict. At this roundtable, the speakers will present their work and reflect on the methodological adjustments they had to make, the risks they took and mitigated, and the overall challenges interviewers face while recording oral history of events associated with drastic and very painful change. Panel participants will focus on several topics pertaining to field research at the time of war. Svitlana Makhovska will reflect on her experience of crisis interviewing on de-occupied territories of Chernihiv region, Ukraine. Iuliia Skubytska will further the discussion with the analysis of oral history research with people who did not leave their homes in Kharkiv region despite that fact that it became a combat zone. Natalia Otrishchenko will examine the peculiarities of knowledge production in war documentation projects involving scholars from different personal and professional backgrounds. Finally Natalia Khanenko-Friesen, will address the topic of displacement by looking at how Ukrainians who fled the war are trying to create a new home in Canada.