Mute (in) Histories: Іn Search of Women’s Voices from Below in Fin de Siècle Habsburg Galicia” by Ivanna Cherchovych
SEENEXT Working Group
November 18, 2024
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Cherchovych's talk explores testimonies of “ordinary” women from poor peasant families. They left home early in search of work and better prospects, becoming domestic servants, urban workers, or legal immigrants; they also often ended up being involved in illegal “human trafficking” from Galicia to the North or South America, Africa, or the Middle East. Specifically, the talk considers three Ukrainian working-class women in the late 19th century Austrian Galicia. All three were daughters of impoverished peasants from Galician countryside and worked as domestic servants. Maria Linczak was a senior maid who lost her job due to her social activism. The 24-year-old Maria Petryshyn was accused of infanticide and managed to obtain her acquittal on the basis of the social and gender injustices that she had experienced and was able to prove in court. Anastasia Kuzyk’s story is that of upward social mobility achieved independently rather than through marriage.
Ivanna Cherchovych, PhD, is an accomplished scholar of women's history in Ukraine, the head of educational projects at the Center for Urban History (L’viv), and a research fellow at Ethnology Institute, National Academy of Science of Ukraine. She is a member of the Ukrainian Association of Researchers of Women’s History.
Cosponsored by Stefan and Lucy Hejna Family Chair in the History of Poland
Date posted
Oct 23, 2024
Date updated
Oct 24, 2024