Voices of Displacement: Gender, Memory, and the Ukrainian Minority in Poland

This article presents part of the findings of a research project that focuses on women from the Ukrainian minority in Poland. There is a huge imbalance between the strong involvement of Ukrainian women in maintaining the culture of the minority and their absence from collective memory and historical knowledge. Families store memories of women, but in the process of institutionalization the collective memory of the public automatically becomes masculinized. Therefore, collective memory ignores the real experience of half the minority and perpetuates the conservative gender division. These conclusions are further analyzed in the context of contemporary conditions that shape the collective identity of the minority. Currently, as Russia continues its full- scale invasion of Ukraine, questions about the masculinization of national memory and the collective dismemory of women’s war experiences have returned.