Memory Keepers: film screening and presentation of project results

The non-governmental organization Post Bellum-Ukraine, which has been actively documenting oral history in Ukraine for the international public archive memoryofnations.eu since 2022, presents the results of the massive interdisciplinary project “The Memory Keepers: The Experience of Ukrainian Women in the Donetsk Region in the 20th-21st Century”, implemented in 2024 with the support of the TRANSITION program of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Czech Republic.

The presentation will include a screening and discussion of the documentary film “Since 2014: Women’s Stories of the Donetsk Region,” with the participation of historian and writer Olena Stiazhkina, journalist and one of the film’s heroines Oleksandra Papina, and Yevheniya Nesterovych, the author of the idea and producer of the project.

The main goal of The Memory Keepers was to show women as active figures in history, to show their perspective and subjectivity. In addition, it was an opportunity to tell the history of the Donetsk region in women’s voices, to show the dynamics of changes in Ukrainian society in the areas over the last 50-60 years, and to share the front-line experience of the latest war decade.The Post Bellum-Ukraine team, along with their partners, created a film “Since 2014: Women’s Stories of the Donetsk Region,” based on 27 oral history interviews with women from Kramatorsk, aged 40 to 79. The screenings and moderated discussions of the film were held in 10 Ukrainian and 5 Czech cities. Also, the international exhibition titled “Kramatorsk – a City on the Front Line. The Voices of The Ukrainian Women,” was showcased In Prague and Bratislava; a radio documentary series on the history of the Donetsk region for Radio Kultura; a series of multimedia publications on DIVOCHE.media; a promotional campaign on social networks and an advocacy seminar for women. The collected interviews were also processed according to the methodology and published on the archive website memoryofnations.eu.

The film “Since 2014: Women’s Stories from Donetsk Oblast” was created by a team and is based on selected interviews featuring four testimonies. It has been shown in seven regions of Ukraine. All screenings were followed by discussions moderated by Lesia Berezdetska, sociologist, and Oleksandra Papina, journalist and one of the film’s characters. Historian and writer Olena Stiazhkina advised the project team during the development of the questionnaire for oral history interviews and also participated as an expert in discussions of the film and subsequent digital formats created based on the recorded materials. During the final presentation after viewing the film, we will discuss why we share and document complex and traumatic stories, and why it is crucial not only for future generations but also for us today.

“Since 2014. Women’s Stories of Donetsk Region”

2024, 43 min., directed by Olga Povoroznyk

Four different women from diverse backgrounds, ages, professions, and social statuses discuss their shared experience of the occupation and liberation of Kramatorsk in 2014. What is it like when your national flag becomes a forbidden combination of colours? What is it like when there is an enemy army checkpoint near your house, and you still have to take your children to school?What is it like when the town has been liberated, and it’s no longer scary to go outside? It is an honest women’s “kitchen talk” about the bewildering challenges of the modern historical era that they are experiencing to the fullest.

After a brief occupation in 2014, Kramatorsk became the centre of the Donetsk region, an active centre of business, volunteerism, and assistance to military personnel.The town has grown and flourished, even though it has since found itself in a front-line zone. Through the voices of Kramatorsk women, our film story narrates how everything has changed irrevocably – for them personally and for the country as a whole – since 2014 and how, with their daily work, they are bringing victory closer in the war that has been going on for over ten years.

Venue: National Museum of the Holodomor-Genocide, 3 Lavrska St.

Date: Friday, December 13, 2024, at 5:00 PM

Admission is free with prior registration. You can register here.