Artem Kharchenko

The purpose of the project is to draft the first chapter of a book about homeless children and orphanages in Soviet Ukraine of the interwar period. The book will consist of several stories related to different cities/regions in Soviet Ukraine. During his fellowship at Index, Artem Kharchenko conducted research on an orphanage in Kyiv. Violent practices against children, including ideological indoctrination, have become part of the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian war, giving relevance to studies about a period when the criminality of these practices was not so evident in Europe. Intellectuals and writers of the period saw a future in which citizens would receive “good” education in their childhood. This was the case in Kalman Zingman’s utopian novel In the Future City of Edenye which turns Kharkiv into the prototype of a paradisaic capital where Jews and Ukrainians live side by side.

The aim of the project is an analysis of the practices that were used in Soviet Ukraine concerning children: forced deprivation of parental rights and placement of children in orphanages. The main thesis of the research is how the orphanage system served the purpose of educating “Soviet people,” besides other social functions. The research aims to analyze such practices and provide a collective portrait of the participants of the process––the children and staff. At the intersection of different aspects of Soviet policy was the individual child.