Ukrainians at the DP-Epoch: From Everyday Culture to the Creation of (Trans)national Community

Author

Kobchenko Kateryna

a Ph.D. in History, a research fellow at Taras Shevchenko Kyiv National University Philosophical Faculty the Center of Ukrainian Studies

Ukrainians at the DP-Epoch: From Everyday Culture to the Creation of (Trans)national Community

Abstract

A short campperiod from 1945 until the beginning of the 1950s is of an outstanding significance in the history of the 20th century Ukrainian emigration. About 200 thousand of Ukrainian Displaced Persons (DP) who have avoided forced repatriation to the USSR are found on the territories of Western Germany and Austria. The population of different parts of Ukraine, former Polish or (in minority) Soviet citizens and also the representatives of old (interwar) emigration, the persons with different political views, distinct (inter)war experience, of different age and educational level, divided for centuries, have joined here in a close contact for the first time.

Ukrainian national identity of the representatives and the idea of state independence of Ukraine defending have become the decisive factors for the consolidation of this heterogeneous group into the transnational community. In the conditions of DP-camps, under the military administration of the allies, Ukrainian DPs have been able to enjoy political freedom impossible in the Soviet Ukraine. It has been shown in the active processes of political and intellectual life, in the development of national scientific and educational institutions.

This short period is also full of events and ambivalent processes of consolidation and conflictization, manifestations of mutual understanding or, vice versa, distrust. In such situation different political groups have tried to develop their strategies of struggle for state and ideological liberation of Ukraine, since new realities put the exile politicians before new challenges they have to confront. At the same time intensive processes of cultural life have taken place, while significant intellectuals among the DPs make efforts for the national consolidation of heterogeneous community and youth upbringing. 

The main peculiarities of the activities and special significance of Ukrainian group of displaced persons as transnational community are analyzed in the article; the importance and place of this period both in the general development of Ukrainian emigration and in the Ukrainian history of the 20th century altogether are defined. It is shown, that the key processes of political and intellectual nature, which have taken place in the milieu of Ukrainian emigration during the second half of the 20th century have their origins in the camp period.

Keywords

Ukrainian emigration, the Third Wave, Displaced Persons (DP), DP Camp, World War II, Western Allies, occupation zones, Germany, Austria.

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