Childhood After Chornobyl: A Social History of Childhood in Ukraine 1986-1996

Abstract

Childhood After Chornobyl is about children and childhood in Ukraine in the period surrounding the establishment of independent Ukraine in 1991 (1986-1996). As an interdisciplinary and multi-lingual project with a focus on linguistic, narrative, and theoretical perspectives on childhood, the aim is the expansion of field knowledge toward the further development of theoretical perspectives for international Childhood Studies. The dissertation documents a social history of Ukrainian children through interviews and the investigation of secondary discourses. The recollections of individuals are supported by an investigation of narratives for and about children appearing in periodicals published at the time. The study of children is therefore limited to the reconstruction of memory and language towards an understanding of late-Soviet and Ukrainian childhoods.