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Topic

Hybrid Memorial Culture: Moving Beyond Rigid Interpretations of Ukrainian Memorial Culture at Babyn Yar

School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures

Date & location

• Monday, April 7, 2025
• 9:00 A.M.
• Virtual Defence

Examining Committee

Supervisory Committee

• Dr. Serhy Yekelchyk, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, University of Victoria (Supervisor)
• Dr. Megan Swift, School of Languages, Linguistics and Cultures, UVic (Member)

External Examiner

• Dr. Thomas Saunders, Department of History, UVic

Chair of Oral Examination

• Dr. Georgia Sitara, Separtment of History, UVic

Abstract

As the most recognizable symbol of the Holocaust in Ukraine, Babyn Yar’s culture of memory has long been of interest to Western scholars of history and memory. Despite this interest, little has been done to approach Ukraine’s post-Soviet Holocaust memorial culture through a post-colonial lens. Once a silenced memory subsumed into the broader Soviet myth of the Great Patriotic War, memory of the Holocaust only officially entered Ukraine’s mnemonic space in 1991. At the core of the existing scholarship over how Ukraine has approached the memory of the attempted destruction of Europe’s Jews is what Michael Rothberg has referred to as a logic of scarcity. This logic assumes that the emergence of other previously banned memories such as Stalin’s man-made famine, also known as the Holodomor (1932-1933), and the anti-Soviet activities of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), have automatically pushed memory of Holocaust out of the mnemonic space. Scholarly literature targeting English-speaking audiences has utilized this competitive logic, following an assumption that post-Soviet Ukrainian presidents have continued the Soviet culture of denial, while simultaneously suggesting the presence of wide-spread ethnic nationalism introduced by the state. This thesis contends that Holocaust memory in Ukraine is more complex than the rigid binaries articulated in previous literature. By taking a post-colonial and multidirectional approach to Babyn Yar’s official and non-governmental memorial culture, this project demonstrates that a new humanistic and hybrid model of Holocaust memory has developed in the post-Soviet space; a model that is neither the former Soviet culture of denial, nor an overall reinterpretation of the past. Rather, it is a new model of memory that blends the intersecting and multiple layers of memory at Babyn Yar.