Dr Marta Havryshko

Marta Havryshko has been conducting research at the I. Krypiakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in Lviv since 2009.

She studied history at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, where she obtained her doctorate in 2010 with a dissertation on "The National Socialist Regime in Germany as Reflected in Galician Public Opinion, 1933–1939".

In addition to her research and teaching in Ukraine, Marta Havryshko has also held various fellowships in Warsaw, Hamburg, Jerusalem, the US, Vienna and elsewhere, including most recently in Munich. Her research interests include the history of sexual violence in war, the history of gender and of women, the history of nationalism and feminism, the history of the Second World War and the Holocaust, oral history, and memory studies.

Contact (marta.havryshko@unibas.ch)

War, Power and Gender: Sexual Violence during the Holocaust in Ukraine

Just how closely the past may be connected with the present and how quickly – and appallingly – history can catch up with us is underscored in the research of our new URIS fellow Dr. Marta Havryshko. Russia's war against Ukraine, launched in 2014, entered a new, brutal phase at the end of February 2022. Pluralistic forms of violence, including sexual violence, are a hallmark of this war. In her research, historian Marta Havryshko looks back 80 years to when the territory of modern-day Ukraine was a theatre of conflict in World War II. Then as now, the war was marked by various forms of sexual violence.

The phenomenon of sexual violence during World War II and the Holocaust has been studied in depth in recent decades. Most of these studies look at German perpetrators in the SS, the SD (Security Service) and the Wehrmacht, and consider their crimes in the context of the ideology and the military and political objectives of the "Third Reich". And yet there has still been little research on the subject of sexual violence towards Jewish women and men during the Holocaust in Ukraine, with offenders, some of them local, often not coming to light.

During her year-long URIS fellowship at the University of Basel, Dr. Marta Havryshko will work on her book War, Power and Gender: Sexual Violence during the Holocaust in Ukraine. The study focuses on dynamics and typologies of sexual violence against Jews of both genders during the Nazi occupation of Ukraine. It explores perceptions and discourses around femininity/masculinity, considers gender roles, and looks at the offenders' motives and strategies as well as the experiences of the victims and survivors. The project seeks in particular to give space to the individual voices of Jewish women and men who have had traumatic sexual experiences.

Teaching at the University of Basel

Dr. Marta Havryshko teached a course at the University of Basel on the subject of "Gender, Wars, and Violence in 20th- and 21st-Century Ukraine" in the 2022 autumn semester (Wednesday, 14.15-16.00h). The course was at the interface of gender studies, Jewish studies and history and addresses issues of "gender and war", genocide and violence, as well as militarism and its consequences in the territory of present-day Ukraine in the 20th and 21st centuries. Students considered topics including gender norms and gender roles of certain groups of offenders and victims, with a particular focus on sexual and sexualised violence against men and women in times of war and the consequences of such violence.

Media articles and online publications during the fellowship

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