A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet HeartlandThis is a biography of a borderland between Russia and Poland, a region where, in 1925, people identified as Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians lived side by side. Over the next three decades, this mosaic of cultures was modernized and homogenized out of existence by the ruling might of the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, and finally, Polish and Ukrainian nationalism. By the 1950s, this “no place” emerged as a Ukrainian heartland, and the fertile mix of peoples that defined the region was destroyed. Kate Brown’s study is grounded in the life of the village and shtetl, in the personalities and small histories of everyday life in this area. In impressive detail, she documents how these regimes, bureaucratically and then violently, separated, named, and regimented this intricate community into distinct ethnic groups. Drawing on recently opened archives, ethnography, and oral interviews that were unavailable a decade ago, A Biography of No Place reveals Stalinist and Nazi history from the perspective of the remote borderlands, thus bringing the periphery to the center of history. We are given, in short, an intimate portrait of the ethnic purification that has marked all of Europe, as well as a glimpse at the margins of twentieth-century “progress.” |
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"By the 1950s, this "no place" emerged as a Ukrainian heartland" - what a nonsense?!!!! These baseless statements demonstrate lack of profound knowledge and misguide a reader.
Contents
Introduction | 1 |
Inventory | 18 |
Ghosts in the Bathhouse | 52 |
Moving Pictures | 84 |
The Power to Name | 118 |
A Diary of Deportation | 134 |
The Great Purges and the Rights of Man | 153 |
Deportee into Colonizer | 173 |
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Common terms and phrases
agents Army arrested arrived authorities backward Balytskyi Bank became border zone borderlands building called Central century church civil collective farms collectivization Communist communities countryside culture DAZO deportation described economic especially ethnic Germans existence fact families followed forces former GARF groups homes houses identities institutions Jewish Jews Kazakhstan Kiev kresy kulaks labor land language late leaders lived looked March Marchlevsk mass means Moscow moved national minorities nationalist NKVD noted officials organization party peasants persons Poland Poles Polish political poor population problems Province Purges recorded reel region religious resettlement Right rule rural Russian schools sent served settlements settlers social socialist society Soviet Union space Stumpp territory thousands tion took towns tsarist TsDAHO Ukrainy turned Ukraine Ukrainian USHMM village women wrote York Zhytomyr
References to this book
Kaleidoscopic Odessa: History and Place in Contemporary Ukraine Tanya Richardson Limited preview - 2008 |
Bibliographic information
| Title | A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland |
| Authors | Kate Brown, Kathryn L. Brown |
| Edition | illustrated, reprint |
| Publisher | Harvard University Press, 2005 |
| ISBN | 0674019490, 9780674019492 |
| Length | 308 pages |
| Subjects | › › History / Europe / Former Soviet Republics History / Europe / General |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |