Workers of the Donbass Speak Survival and Identity in the New Ukraine, 1989-1992
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Lewis H. Sigelbaum is Professor of History at Michigan State University. He has written and co-edited six books on Russian and Soviet labor history. Daniel J. Walkowitz is Professor of History at New York University. He is the author of Worker City, Company Town: Iron and Cotton Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855-1884, and The Mystification of the Middle Class: Gender and Social Identity among Social Workers, 1900-1980. He has also produced several video documentaries including "Perestroika from Below."
<p>"This book is a valuable contribution to the field of post-Soviet studies; it addresses a number of crucial issues in an engaging and informative way. Most importantly, it allows Western readers to hear Russian and Ukrainian miners and their families speak in their own words. The interviews included here bring to life people of the former Soviet Union as they struggle to cope with the economic, political, and societal disintegration taking place around them. Particularly today, when scholarship and media coverage alike pay nothing more than lip-service to the 'hardships of economic transition,' it is important that Western audiences understand the hopes and insecurities felt by people of the former Soviet Union." — David Hoffmann, Cornell University</p>
An oral and local history of the coal mining town of Donetsk in the Ukraine. The workers describe their changing political and economic goals and their reaction to Western culture, the rising tides of nationalism and religion
In July 1989 coal miners throughout the Soviet Union engaged in a massive strike that briefly captured world headlines and inaugurated a movement of strike committees that persisted across the Soviet/post-Soviet divide. In this collection of interviews and essays based on encounters over a three-year period, the voices of industrial workers and their families in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the coal capital of the Donbass, are heard.
The stories collected here allow Western readers to "hear" these people describe their struggles for survival and identity in conditions of economic, political and social disintegration/transformation; and to analyze their testimonies and other kinds of texts in terms of changing meanings of work, gender, and national identity. Included are an examination of the "older generation" that came of age during the Stalin era; an analysis of the miners' movement and the trade union politics that emerged out of the strike of 1989; and a focus on the social crises and cultural disorientations accompanying Ukrainian independence.
Acknowledgments
Maps
Chronology
The Kuibyshev Raion
A Note on the Organizational Structure of Ex-Soviet Mines
Introduction
Part One
Worker Stories: The Older Generation, 1989
Introduction to Part One
1. Narsis Melikian, Retired Mining Engineer
2. Ivan and Gennady Kushch, a Miner's Dynasty
3. Marfa Ivanovna Limonets, Retired Mineworker and Her Daughter, Olga Nikolaevna Bondarenko
4. Viktor Mikhailovich Ignatov, Retired Steelworker
5. Evgenia Feodorovna Zilova, Retired Steelworks Employee
6. Vladimir Feodorovich Pogorelov, Miner-electrician
7. Feodor Skripai, Retired Miner
Part Two
Labor Politics, 1989-1992
Introduction to Part Two
Survival Strategies: The Miners of Donetsk in the Post-Soviet Era
Stephen F. Crowley and Lewis H. Siegelbaum
I. August 1989
8. Valery Vladimirovich Samofalov, Chair, Strike Committee, Kuibyshev Mine, August 2, 1989
9. Kuibyshev Mine Trade Union Conference, August 5, 1989
II. May 1991
10. Discussion—Kuibyshev Mine Leaders
Gennady Kushch, Chair, Council of Labor Collectives, Kuibyshev Mine
Valery Samofalov, Vice-Chair, Council of Labor Collectives, Kuibyshev Mine
Gila Tengizovich Alizaev, Director, Kuibyshev Mine
11. Discussion—City Strike Committee:
Nikolai Volynko, Member,
Yuri Leonidovich Makarov, Co-Chair,
Mikhail Krylov, Co-Chair
III. June-July 1992
12. Discussion—SNOP Delegates
Yuri Timofeevich Pivovarov, Chair, Donetsk Regional Federation of "Solidarity" Trade Unions of Ukraine
Olga Pavlovna Samofalova, Chair, Independent Trade Union of Textile Workers of Donetsk Cotton Mill
Sergei Gurovich Ignatov, Chair, Trade Union of Police and Judicial Personnel
Sergei Ivanovich Sobchakov, Chair, Union of Aviation Controllers in Donetsk
13. Evgenii Grigorevich Belous, Chair, Kuibyshev Mine Trade Union Committee
14. Giia Alizaev, Director, Kuibyshev Mine
15. Valery Samofalov, Miner, Kuibyshev Mine
16. Yuri Makarov, Co-Chair, Donetsk City Strike Committee
17. Mikhail Krylov, Co-Chair, Donetsk City Strike Committee
Part Three
Survival and Identity, 1992
Introduction to Part Three
"Normal Life": The Crisis of Identity Among Donetsk's Miners
Daniel J. Walkowitz
18. The Kushch Family
Gennady, Driver, Kuibyshev Mine Nadezhda, Housing Administrator, Kuibyshev Mine
Marina, Nadezhda's Daughter
Liudmilla (Gennady's ex-wife), Clerk, State Hardware Store
Ivan, Mechanic at Kuibyshev Mine and Pensioner
19. The Samofalov Family
Valery, Miner, Kuibyshev Mine Tatiana, Laboratory Assistant, Chemical Reactive Plant Svetlana Zaguliaova, Their Married Daughter
20. The Mezhinskii Family
Vera Aleksandrovna, Packer, Chemical Reactive Plant
Aleksandr, Miner, October Mine
21. The Zadorozhnyi Family
Viktor Andreevich, Accountant, Doka-TV; Former Komsomol Organizer, October Mine
Irina, Bank Economist on Maternity Leave
22. Vladislav Nikolskii, A New Entrepreneur, Director, Intertour Travel Agency
23. The Varevoda Family: Intellectual Workers
Yuri, Mining Engineer
Svetlana, Physicist at the City Planetarium
Viktor Yatsenko, Their Son-in-law, A Physicist
Aleksandr Yatsenko, Viktor's Father, A Professor
Vera, Svetlana's Mother, A Pensioner
Index
An oral and local history of the coal mining town of Donetsk in the Ukraine. The workers describe their changing political and economic goals and their reaction to Western culture, the rising tides of nationalism and religion
Produktdetaljer
Om bidragsyterne
Lewis H. Sigelbaum is Professor of History at Michigan State University. He has written and co-edited six books on Russian and Soviet labor history. Daniel J. Walkowitz is Professor of History at New York University. He is the author of Worker City, Company Town: Iron and Cotton Worker Protest in Troy and Cohoes, New York, 1855-1884, and The Mystification of the Middle Class: Gender and Social Identity among Social Workers, 1900-1980. He has also produced several video documentaries including "Perestroika from Below."