Information on the thesis

The dissertation, based on a wide source of material, outlines the variety of
everyday practices of Eastern Galician women in the time interval from 1914, when the
First World War began, until 1921, when the Riga Peace Treaty was concluded, which,
in its essence, completed the period of the war and put an end to competitions for
national statehood for the Ukrainians, it was the time when men were able to return to
their homes from the front and captivity camps. The dissertation reveals the social roles
and daily responsibilities of Galician women on the eve of the war, the actions of
women in the war (in particular, family responsibilities, civil and military activities),
women’s images of war (in particular, regarding to patriotism and duty, life and death,
time and space, the notion of the House), gender relations in personal sources, reflection
of feminine images in fiction and visual arts.
This work refers to official, statistical, private (diaries, memoirs, correspondence)
materials, publications in the press, as well as literary and artistic works, which are
located at archives and libraries in Lviv, Ternopil, Ivano-Frankivsk, Warsaw, Wroclaw,
Krakow and also at museums and private collections. This approach of investigation
made it possible to observe the military everyday life of women in various ways – in the
eyes of the authorities, in the light of public opinion, from the men’s point of view, and
by women themselves. The main methodological basis of the thesis is a gender
approach, which involves the study of political, social, economic, everyday processes
and practices from the perspective of both sexes. Women’s life during the war was
considered as the combination of economic, social, political, cultural and ideological
circumstances which determined the living conditions of women, their attitude to
power/state, their understanding of the course and meaning of the war, and influenced
the emotional state, forcing to seek answers to questions like place and role of women
during the war, etc.
The daily life of Ukrainian Galician women during the war years was characterized
by a wide range of experiences, ideas about themselves and people around, events at the
front and in the back, feelings and life strategies. The war has become a shock as well as
it has opened opportunities for self-realization for women. The First World War gave a
strong impulse to the emancipation of women, but the level and outcome of the release
from dependencies were different. The most important challenges women faced then
were: how to combine social life with the family, to reconcile household duties with the
desire for personal fulfillment, and unite the desire for freedom with motherhood. The
work is based on the idea that women played an active role in social transformations.
This dissertation reveals there was no universal way to overcome the war, women lived
in a very different way and experienced the war differently.
Key words: women, everyday life, First World War, Eastern Galicia, personal
sources, women’s history.