Abstract
In: Jahrbuch für Historische Kommunismusforschung 2015. Berlin: Metropol Verlag, pp. 57–74.
The article is based on recently archive materials (both published and unpublished) and tries to reconstruct how female members of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) were arrested by the Communist security forces and subsequently instrumentalised for their own purposes. The article argues that such Soviet tactics proved to be successful and many Ukrainian insurgents – women, in particular – were employed as Soviet agents. The author analyses how and why so many Ukrainian insurgent women agreed to become involved with Soviet secret service, and details the Soviet mechanisms used to recruit new agents. Firstly, the article focuses on Soviet representations in the media; then, secondly, addresses perceptions of the betrayal and its gendered connotations. How exactly was this form of ‘interaction’ between the communist state and the arrested nationalists designed? Which survival strategies within the limits of possible violence were characteristic for women and what part did gender issues play?
Über die Autorin
Olena Petrenko, M.A., geb. 1980 in Ternopil, Ukraine. 1996 bis 2001 Studium der Geschichte in Kiew, 2004 bis 2008 Studium der Geschichte in Bochum. Seit 2009 Doktorandin und Dozentin an der Ruhr-Universität Bochum. Veröffentlichungen u. a.: »Anatomy of the Unsaid: Along the Taboo Lines of Female Participation in the Ukrainian Nationalistic Underground«, in: Maren Röger/Ruth Leiserowitz (Hg.): Women and Men at War. A Gender Perspective on World War II and its Aftermath in Central and Eastern Europe, Osnabrück 2012, S. 241–262. »Zwischenpositionen. Frauen im ukrainischen bewaffneten Untergrund der 1940er–50er Jahre«, in: Klaus Latzel/Silke Satjukow/Franka Maubach (Hg.): Soldatinnen. Gewalt und Geschlecht im Krieg vom Mittelalter bis heute, Paderborn 2011, S. 257–278.