Abstract

DOI

Art between Manliness and Activism. The Role of Ukrainian Women Artists
During Political Transformations

Traditionally, manliness is understood as a stereotypically male trait, which is characterised by willpower, determination, and physical strength. Manliness is the skin of heroism. However, we will turn to examples where female artists took on these qualities and, with their artistic practice and civic stance, defended minorities and disadvantaged social groups. An important book dedicated to the topic of the manliness of citizens in the Soviet times is O muzhestvennosti [On Masculinity]. ¹ In the original Russian title, there is a play on words: muzhestvennost means masculinity, but half of the word, zhestvennost, means femininity. In the 1960s, such features as ‘manliness’ were linked to political virility and justice, becoming one of the consistent tropes of visual (non)conformist art. Manliness, courage and heroism were once again appreciated more than the artistic value of the works; ethics – more than aesthetics. Georgiy Kasianov, a historian specialising in the late Soviet period and intellectual history, said that a generation of artists and intellectuals is emerging whose position and activities will lead to the growth of artistic and creative issues into socio-political and human rights. ² This generation of artists tends to ignore the Socialist Realist canon, appealing rather to social and political injustice, proclaiming the ideals of humanistic art. ³ In this article, I prefer to use the term manliness, rather than masculinity. The choice of such a word is due to several foreign publications which investigate different manifestations of manliness in culture, such as the book by John Lash entitled The Hero: Manhood and Power. ⁴ The author poses a provocative question: what is manliness in the era of feminism? Many Soviet Ukrainian women artists and contemporary Ukrainian women artists associate themselves in their diaries, letters, interviews and memories with the artist’s strong spirit, whose art conveys a crucial socio-political message. Furthermore, during Soviet times manliness becomes not just a character trait, but, for example, an offence called dissent. For example, in the biographical essay devoted to the artist Alla Horska, ⁵ Liudmyla Tarnashynska presents a glorifying image of the artist: ‘Horska’s artistic legacy impresses with her creative pursuits in the field of monumental art, examples of high courage, consistency, and devotion.’ ⁶

Kasianov emphasises important changes in Soviet society, in which, according to him, such characteristics as individualism, the cult
of freedom of expression, scepticism, humanism, and partly cosmopolitanism suddenly appeared. ⁷ All these qualities were different from the moral code that dominated the previous generation of Soviet citizens. Similar intellectual discussions were taking place in other socialist countries. According to Michal Kopecek, each socialist country, despite a certain consensus around human rights, resolved this question in its own way. ⁸ Many nationalist pursuits (persecution based on ethnic and national intolerance, political interests, etc.) were presented by human rights organisations in Czechoslovakia and Hungary as human rights violations.

Rethinking Soviet masculinity: female artists and the human rights issues of the Soviet 1960s

The development of human rights in connection with national movements and freedom of speech occurred in parallel with remembering the past, issues of national and cultural identity, and cultural heritage in general. Ukrainian intellectuals began rethinking Soviet policy on these issues. For example, Ada Rybachuk ⁹ took an active position concerning the memory of those who were killed in Babi Yar. She was not punished for her stance, but her design of the monument, which she submitted together with her partner Volodymyr Melnychenko, was rejected by the authorities. Later, the situation repeated itself with the work Wall of Memory ¹⁰ (Stina Pam’iati), whose construction began in 1968, resumed in 2021, but was never completed. In her diaries, Rybachuk repeatedly wrote about the course of these efforts and the opposition that they faced throughout. Descriptions of the generation of artists that came to the forefront in the 1960s often begin with the word ‘unbowed’, focusing on the artists’ virtues, rather than on art itself. ¹¹ At the time, artists were seen by themselves and by critics as indefatigable, endowed with superhuman heroic traits, like inner strength, manliness, courage, zeal, and fearlessness. It seemed that only such a person could resist the system and defend the basic principles – the right to education, the right to be a believer, freedom of speech, and other civil rights and freedoms. After all, it was precisely these disobedient people who could resist the system and the repressive policy of the state. ‘Creativity requires courage, both as a material and a condition. The human and art pay a high price to become omnipotent and eternal’, Ada Rybachuk said in 1959. ¹²

In 1968, 139 artists, scholars, and poets wrote a collective letter to Soviet leaders – Leonid Brezhnev, Aleksei Kosygin, and Nikolai Podgorny – protesting political repression, closed trials, and the persecution of Ukrainian intelligentsia. The signatories included at least four women artists: Alla Horska, Halyna Sevruk, Liudmyla Semykina, and Tetiana Yablonska. Sevruk recalled: ‘Horska, Semykina, and I were punished for the letter by being expelled from the Union of Artists as if we were criminals. All the other artists who signed the letter (there were twelve of them) repented and avoided punishment. It was only three women – stubborn, arrogant, and defenceless – who were punished. For twenty years, the Union kept its doors closed to us. No exhibitions were allowed. Only in 1989, on the eve of Independence, the doors opened and we had our membership in the Union of Artists restored.’ ¹³ The artist wrote that when many of her
colleagues were arrested and sent to exile, she found her salvation from depression in work. ‘I was not fired, but inspections were frequent’, she said in 2008. ¹⁴

After Horska died in 1970, all her letters were seized, and finally, the very name of the artist was removed from her works. ¹⁵ The works of another artist, Stephaniia Shabatura, were destroyed as portraits of ‘convicts’ and ‘pictures of convicted life’ in a Soviet forced labor camp. ¹⁶

Honest art

The words ‘manliness’ and ‘courage’ came to denote an important human trait of the vivid generation of the 1960s and rapidly entered everyday and professional use. In one of her letters to her son, Alla Horska asks: ‘How do you show your courage?’ ¹⁷ In another letter, artist Opanas Zalyvakha wrote to Alla Horska: ‘Your heart is filled with patience and courage; it is kind and sensitive, offering joy and strength, pleasant to us and our descendants…’ ¹⁸ So, on the one hand, art was declared as a priority, and on the other hand, paradoxically, art had to adhere to the principles of party affiliation, nationality, international complexity of fraternal cultures. Describing the decorative art of the 1950s and 1960s, Yulia Karpova addresses the analysis of the rhetoric of the time and emphasises the tone of the art apparatus: ‘spirituality’, ‘depth’, ‘power’, ‘diversity’ and ‘complexity’ then, in fact, flooded the magazine Decorativnoe iskusstvo SSSR. ¹⁹ In official art criticism texts, we see how the rhetoric of the civil and human rights sector enters the professional artistic circulation and is used to denote quality art. Describing Soviet decorative art, Karpova used such phrases as ‘honest art’. Here it is worth paying attention again to the rhetoric used by the author – the material should speak for the artist. Karpova writes: ‘Applied artists believed – or hoped – that material cannot lie.’ ²⁰

Interestingly, the rhetoric about the works of Soviet artists was constructed in such a way that valour and manliness were attributed not
only as human (patriotic) qualities of artists, but also as a characteristic of the material from which the work was made. The special need to be ‘honest’ was also mentioned in the introductory text to the Obrazovoche mystetstvo magazine. ²¹ The essay became a kind of recommendation of how the authorities should see the role of artists, as well as a warning, should they go against the official narrative. It is no coincidence that the issue came out in the month of Horska’s death. However, the fact of the artist’s death was not mentioned in it. Vasyl Borodai, a sculptor and the Chairman of the Board of the Union of Artists (Spilka khudozhnykiv URSR) wrote in his essay Virnist Partii i narodovi [Loyalty to the Party and the People]: ‘This year, the artistic community of the republic made another extremely important report on the depth of ideology and passionate citizenship, the level of skill and relevance of their work. After all, this was the year of fulfilling our artistic and civic obligations to the Communist Party and the Soviet people, to the history and immortal eternally living image of Lenin’. ²²

Cooperation, community, and networking

The figure of Alla Horska has become important and consolidating in the community not only because of her artworks, ²³ but also because of her activism and strong support for political prisoners. Despite the repression and death of one of their colleagues, female artists continued to fight for their rights. This is evidenced by the open letters from women, representatives of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, who were in the camps for political prisoners. For example, on 15 February 1975, five women activists from Soviet political labour camps wrote a letter to the UN Commission on Human Rights in honour of the International Women’s Year: ‘1975 – the International Women’s Year – began in а camp for women political prisoners on December 12, 1974. For our attempt to celebrate Human Rights Day, the authorities punished not only us but also our young children by denying them their annual visit to us. In response, we renounced forced labour, and thus protested against the laws that degrade human dignity and punish children for the crimes of their mothers. Detached from our native land for no earthly reason, we are fully prepared to endure any suffering for which we are destined […] as long as we can retain a sense of intrinsic freedom.’ ²⁴ The letter was signed by writer Iryna Stasiv-Kalynets, artist Stefaniia Shabatura, philologist and human rights activist Nadiia Svitlychna, microbiologist and immunologist Nina Strokata-Karavanska, and an activist of the Organisation of Ukrainian Nationalists (Organisatsia Ukrainskykh Natsionalistiv) Odarka Husiak. In 1976, Nina Karavanska became one of the founders of the Ukrainian Helsinki Group (Ukrainska Helsinska Spilka), which was founded by Soviet dissidents to promote the Helsinki Accords. In their numerous letters, the women focused on being denied the opportunity to see their families, to live in their homes after returning from the camp, they wrote about the many persecutions, and also petitioned for better conditions of detention, since the conditions of work and stay in the camp seriously affected their health. In multiple reports on human rights, we see that the pressure on women was strong. Alla Horska was not the only woman threatened or abused by the authorities. For example, the 1981 report on Human Rights in Ukraine and the Soviet Union mentions the disappearance of Larysa Rudenko, ²⁵ a writer and poetess, and Iryna Seniuk, a historian, who also signed the letter of the intelligentsia. ²⁶ Later, she ended up among political prisoners. Having united in groups of interests and creativity back in the 1960s, the artists did not understand that they were creating not only a club of creative interests, but also a community aimed at civic activism that could resist the system. The formation of a strong community began in 1961 and is associated with the Creative Youth Club named Suchasnyk (The Contemporary Man), which was then the centre of Ukrainian national cultural life in Kyiv. The Youth Club became a place for information exchange, a place of support. Although it existed only in 1961–1965, its role in the Ukrainian intelligentsia went down in history as a place where the Ukrainian national idea flourished, Ukrainian culture revived, and a discussion on human rights activities and review of rights and responsibilities of citizens took place. The club became a place where connections between communities developed. It was friendship and close cooperation that provided support and a sense of collective courage.

Monumental art itself became a kind of bolthole and a place of freedom, where artists implemented their creative ideas. ²⁷ The work on a monumental and decorative panel required collective participation. Creative art groups did not always include just artists. For example, one of the creative groups headed by Alla Horska included her friend, translator, and human rights activist, Nadiia Svitlychna. Such trips,
especially to Donbas, gave the necessary feeling of support and cohesion. ‘Monumental art is the art of the collective. Like a sea created by rivers. When one of these rivers turns and spreads, it loses its strength, and the sea melts’, said Horska. ²⁸ The new form of collectivity and the need to grow a community developed thanks to female artists. Women became a unifying factor that created the conditions for the exchange of ideas and the emergence of mutual support. ‘When Alla Horska was killed, each of us understood that in a sense we were also killed’, stated Yevhen Sverstiuk. ²⁹

 

Art and activism in Ukraine after 2004

The crisis of the Soviet Union and its artistic structures, the subsequent Perestroika, and independence of Ukraine brought fundamental economic and social changes, putting this activist’s tradition of nonconformist female art on hold. ³⁰ The artists focused on other topics such as personal mythology, identity, escapism, family issues and the like. ³¹ In 2004–2005, there was a new need for collectivity, related to the artistic and political activity of the intelligentsia. This time paved the way for a new generation of artists who returned to the topics of politics, ³² nationality, human rights and freedoms, honesty and collectivity. A new turn in artistic and socio-political life is also associated with the emergence of new female names. However, this art is not ‘narrowly feminine’ (although it includes female experience), as noted by Yevgeniya Belorusets, an artist. This means that art created by female artists is more inclusive. It concerns and embraces the experiences of different groups. ³³

The understanding of tradition, nationality and ethnicity remains an important question. In the 1960s, these topics became a battlefield for artists’ history and culture, the revival of traditions, the vision of the future. Today, these topics are raised in the context of difficult and suppressed periods of Ukrainian history (one crucial example is the Babi Yar tragedy). However, this topic is worthy of a separate article, in which these connections could be traced more closely.

An important unifying factor of the 1960s and 2000s is the special attitude towards community formation. Artists of the 2000s generation no longer formed clubs; they created forms of collectivity that could respond quickly to current challenges – among others were R.E.P., ³⁴ Hudrada, ³⁵ and the SOSka Group. ³⁶ In 2016, the Open Group (Vidkryta Hrupa), ³⁷ an artistic group from the western part of Ukraine organised an exhibition entitled ‘Dependence Degree: Collective Practices of Young Ukrainian Artists 2000–2016’ (‘Stopień zależności. Kolektywne praktyki młodych ukraińskich artystów 2000–2016’) at the BWA Awangarda Gallery in Wrocław, with discussion panels on various types of cooperation during the period from the early 2000s to nowadays. In their curatorial text, they mentioned that ‘the phenomena of “interaction”, “unification”, “cooperation” have simultaneously become one of the most relevant in the last few years in Ukraine’. ³⁸ According to the Open Group, one of the main reasons for the growth (revival) of this practice is the lack of cultural infrastructure. Jessica Zychowicz also writes about the continuity of collectivity, noting this feature as one of the characteristics of the artistic community of the new era. ³⁹ Essentially, artists are forced to pool their resources to establish the necessary conditions for creating projects and the projects themselves. However, collectivity here is not limited to artistic associations; it also actively involves the audience in the artistic processes – for example, artist and writer Yevgeniya Belorusets ⁴⁰ includes oral history elements in her projects. So, further, I will focus on the practice of this artist because in her artistic method she consistently uses a combination of artistic, journalistic, and activist components.

Through artistic work and communication with the art environment, each of these social groups has the opportunity to find their political voice, demanding their rights as citizens. For Belorusets, the question of human and economic rights may arise precisely due to the interaction with the environment. And all her projects take shape and content in close connection with work within the community. ⁴¹ The manliness on her part is that her protagonists (minorities and disadvantaged groups) gain a voice and become actors in socio-political life. ‘Participation in a photo project is also a kind of action. It is no coincidence that these people demonstrate an intimate area of their lives, not because they are so frank. This is their way of communicating the situation that has developed’, Belorusets comments on her project Gogol Street, 32 (2008–2011). ⁴² For three years she photographed inhumane living conditions in the building at the eponymous address and interviewed its residents. ‘This is just one of many cases of violations of the fundamental human right to housing and adequate living conditions. Some people managed to leave the house on Gogolivska vulytsia, but those who do not have any financial means to find housing elsewhere have no choice but to stay. They regularly write letters to the city authorities, initiate lawsuits and hold demonstrations, but their demands for decent housing remain unanswered’, wrote Belorusets about her project. ⁴³ Increasing the public visibility of the problem, in particular through this art project, resulted in an offer of new flats for the residents of the house.

Subsequent projects of Yevgeniya Belorusets also combined artistic and activist components. The combination of photography and interviews with the protagonists is important for her practice. According to the artist, such materials cannot lie and realistic images are very important. Photographs and interviews play the same ‘realistic’ role. More precisely, the author herself becomes a medium and conveys the message on behalf of a group of people. Describing Belorusets’ works, Jessica Zychowicz wrote:
‘In Belorusets’ work, there is a self-conscious, even quotidian quality of photos in their fixation on the vulgarity of daily life. It is precisely because of this fetishisation of everyday life, this sense of ordinariness transposed against the background of revolution, that the photos can convey a sense of witnessing human interaction, or disclosing the present condition of living badly/well in one’s own home, nation, skin, and so forth.’ ⁴⁴

In the project Me and Her (2012) ⁴⁵ Belorusets provided an opportunity for other artists to speak about their femininity. In the project
A Room of My Own (2012), she raised the topic of LGBTQ+ families. At the time, both these projects raised important social and political issues that were taboo in society. Moreover, these topics were very sensitive, and there was a danger in their articulation on the part of right-wing and conservative social groups. Finding a voice was not easy for both the participants and the artist. After the project was implemented, Belorusets began to receive threatening letters. ⁴⁶ On 19 May 2012, the exhibition was attacked by two people, who destroyed nearly forty artworks. ⁴⁷

With her projects, the artist undermines the generally accepted normality and speaks of the need to develop society, taking into account the interests of underprivileged groups and minorities. This emphasises a kind of manliness of the minorities themselves, but also creates conditions for a dialogue between different communities. In this regard, the issue of human rights – personal, social, labour and others – becomes unifying for everyone. The need to raise such issues is a reference to universal experience, an opportunity to talk about equality, about freedom in society and the country,

Conclusion

There are many differences, but also many similarities, between the periods discussed here. In each of these periods, the issue of freedom of speech and human rights, around which the intelligentsia was consolidated, grew more significant and topical. In such conditions, activities in the field of art and human rights became an important component of the intellectual process and conversations about what art and society should be like. In both these decades – in the 1960s and in the 2010s – there was a need for unification, consolidation, community, and other forms of collectivity. Collectivity not only broadens possible intellectual discussions but also builds strength
and manliness, by creating a safe space for discriminated groups of people, where they can talk loudly about their problems, discrimination and violence. Manliness becomes an integral part of artistic practice and activism in the years of political transformation. It confronts the risks and challenges faced by artists and the communities they enter or work with. If during the Soviet times Ukrainian artists worked with the topic of discrimination related to the issue of national identity, then in contemporary Ukraine
women artists approach the problem of violence more comprehensively and touch on the critique of sexual, gender, ethnic, systemic violence and other types of violence and discrimination. As a result, women artists play a significant role in intellectual and human rights circles. They support communities, show them trust and empathy, and create a space for displaying their positions. Consequently, true arts communities find their voices. Do not be courageous on your own, but share that manliness and inspire heroic and brave deeds. This manliness and heroism can manifest itself in a political position based on the awareness and acceptance of the Other.

Bibliography

1. Belorusets, Evgeniya, Gogol Street, 32 <http://​belorusets​.com/​w​o​r​k​/​g​o​g​o​l​-​s​t​-32> [accessed 1 October 2021]
2. Belarusets, Evgeniya, Me and Her <http://​belorusets​.com/​w​o​r​k​/​m​e​-​a​n​d​-​h​e​r​-​y​a​-​i​-​ona> [accessed 1 October 2021
3. Borodai, Vasyl, ‘Virnist Partii i narodovi’’, Obrazotvorche mystetstvo, 6 (1970), 2–3
4. Evgeniya Belorusets. Vystavka “Svoya komnata”. Interv’iu’, Detektor Media, 22 May 2012 <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uAOc2s8KsIA>[accessed 1 October 2021]
5. ‘Eugeniya Belorusets, Nataliya Chermalykh: Obestsenivaya rabotu khudozhnika’, Zapreshchennoe iskusstvo, 21 March 2012 <http: //artprotest.org/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=10433> [accessed 1 October 2021
6. Hleba, Halyna, Kateryna Iakovlenko, ‘A Milk Portion for Working in Hazardous Conditions: Sexuality, Physicality, and Intimate Space in the Ukrainian Art of the 1990s’, in Why There Are Great Women Artists in Ukrainian Art, ed. by Kateryna Iakovlenko (Kyiv: PinchukArtCentre, 2019), pp. 62–78
7. Iakovlenko, Kateryna, ‘“Telo” Parizhskoy Kommuny. Chast pervaya’, Korydor, 7 March 2017 <http://​www​.korydor​.in​.ua/​e​n​/​c​o​n​t​e​x​t​/​t​e​l​o​p​a​r​i​z​h​s​k​o​j​-​k​o​m​m​u​n​y​-​p​a​r​t​-​one. html> [accessed 1 October 2021]
8. Iakovlenko, Kateryna, ‘Why There Are Great Women Artists in Ukrainian Art’, in Why There Are Great Women Artists in Ukrainian Art, ed. by Kateryna Iakovlenko (Kyiv: PinchukArtCentre, 2019), pp. 10–39
9. ‘Istorii feministok v Ukraini. Pysmennytsia Evgeniya Belorusets’, Hromadske TV, 7 November 2018 <https://​www​.youtube​.com
   /watch?v=Ku9oY1sG7bU> [accessed 1 October 2021]
10. Kadan, Nikita, ‘Iskusstvo v zerkale natsionalisma’, Korydor, 19 July 2010 <http://​old​.korydor​.in​.ua/​c​o​m​p​o​n​e​n​t​/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​8​-​b​l​o​g​s​/​9​1​-​I​s​k​u​s​s​t​v​o​-​v​-​z​e​r​k​a​l​e​-​n​a​t​s​i​o​n​a​l​i​zma> [accessed 1 October 2021]
11. Karpova, Yulia, ‘“A Glass without a Bottom”: Neodecorativism in Late 1960s Soviet Design’, Journal of Design History, 30, no. 1 (2017), 1–15
12. Kasianov, Georgiy, Nezgodni. Ukrainska intelligentsiya v rusi oporu 1960–1980-kh rokiv (Kyiv: Klio, 2019)
13. Kis, Oksana, ‘Choosing without Choice: Predominant Models of Femininity in Contemporary Ukraine’, in Gender Transitions in Russia and Eastern Europe, ed. by Ildikó Asztalos et al. (Eslöv: Förlags ab Gondolin, 2005), pp. 105–136
14. Kis, Oksana, ‘(Re)Constructing the Ukrainian Women’s History: Actors, Agents, Narratives’, in Gender, Politics and Society in Ukraine, ed. by Olena Hankivsky and Anastasiya Salnykova (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2012), pp. 152–179
15. Kis, Oksana, Tetiana Bureychak, ‘Gender Dreams or Sexism? Advertising in Post-Soviet Ukraine’, in New Imaginaries. Youthful Reinvention of Ukraine’s Cultural Paradigm, ed. by Marian Rubchak (Oxford and New York: Berghahn Press, 2015), pp. 110–140
16. ‘Kluchevoe slovo – aktivnost’, The Day, 42 (2011) <https://​day​.kyiv​.ua/ru /article/media/klyuchevoe-slovo-aktivnost> [accessed 1 October 2021]
17. Kopeček, Michal, ‘The Socialist Conception of Human Rights and Its Dissident Critique: Hungary and Czechoslovakia, the 1960s–1980s’, East-Central Europe, 46 (2019), 261–289
18. Lash, John, The Hero: Manhood and Power (London: Thames and Hudson, 1995)
19. ‘My obraly zhyttia. Rozmova z Yevhenom Sverstiukom’, in Bunt pokolinnya. Rozmovy z ukrainskymy intellektualamy, ed. by Bohumyla Berdykhovska, Olya Hnatiuk (Kyiv: Dukh i Litera, 2004), pp. 33–90
20. Mysiuha, Bohdan, ‘Vikova tradytsiya v mystetsvi Halyny Sevruk’, Ukraina. Nauka i kultura, 34 (2008), 428–434
21. ‘Na pidlozi pro zhinoche mystetstvo, Korydor, 3 May 2012 <http://old .korydor​.in​.ua/​t​e​x​t​s​/​1​0​3​1​-​n​a​-​p​i​d​l​o​z​i​-​p​r​o​-​z​h​i​n​o​c​h​e​-​m​i​s​t​e​t​s​tvo> [accessed 1 October 2021]
22. Ohneva, Liudmyla, ed., Zhyttepys movoyu lystiv (Donetsk: Muzei “Smoloskyp”, 2014
23. Open Group, eds., “Stopień zależności”. Kolektywne praktyki młodych ukraińskich artystów 2000–2016 / “Stupin zalezhnosti”. Kolektyvni praktyky molodykh ukrainskykh khudozhnykiv 2000–2016 / “Dependence Degree”: Collective practices of young Ukrainian artists 2000–2016, exh. cat. (Wrocław: BWA Awangarda, 2016)
24. Rybachuk, Ada, Zapakhy zemli (Kyiv: ADEF-Ukraine, 2013)
25. Sevruk, Halyna, Spohady, last edited on 15 January 2016, in The Free Museum of the Dissident Movement in Ukraine (Virtualnyi Muzei Dysydentskoho rukhu v Ukraini) <http://​museum​.khpg​.org/​i​n​dex .php?id=1454935332> [accessed 1 October 2021]
26. Sklyarenko, Halyna, Materialy do istorii. Monumentalno-dekoratyvnemystetstvo Ukrainy druhoi polovyny XX stolittia <https: //sovietmosaicsinukraine.org/media/uploads/text/StynopisG._Sklyarenko_MDArt_ Stinopis_Galina_Sklyarenko_MDArt
    .pdf> [accessed 1 October 2021]
27. Stefaniuk, Myroslava, Volodymyr Hruszkewych, trans. and eds., Documented Persecution: Ukrainian Women in the Soviet Union, compiled by Nina Strokata (Baltimore, Smoloskyp, 1980)
28. Tarnashynska, Liudmyla, Pleyada neskorenykh. Alla Horska, Opanas Zalyvakha, Viktor Zaretskyi, Halyna Sevruk, Liudmyla Semykina (Kyiv: Ministerstvo kultury Ukrainy, 2011) <https://​nlu​.org​.ua/​r​e​s​o​u​r​ses /nashi_vydannya/b-pleiada.pdf> [accessed 1 October 2021
29. Ushakin, Sergei, ed., O muzhestvennosti. Sbornik statei (Moscow: Novoe literaturnoe obozrenie, 2002)
30. Veenhoven, Willem Adriaan, Case Studies on Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms, vol. 2: A World Survey (The Hague: Martinus Nijhoff Publishers, 1975)
31. Zychowicz, Jessica, Superfluous Women: Art, Feminism, and Revolution in Twenty-First-Century Ukraine (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2020)

Kateryna Iakovlenko