Oksana Klymenko

In the Soviet Union of 1920s, with the granting of new rights to women, they were also expected to work like men did. Alongside this, in the USSR there was a big agitation campaign among housewives to work at the factories. Drawing on the stories of the women presented at the “evening of memoirs” about soviet plants and factories in the 1930s, Oksana Klymenko traces the characteristics of the image of the “new soviet woman”; researches stereotypes about work of men and women, which circulated in the soviet society; and demonstrates “hierarchy” of women’s participation in “building of socialism”, their attitude to their appearance, family and to the job: to working overtime, under any circumstances, to taking part in “socialist competitions”.

This project looks at the Soviet campaign to compile memoirs of the workers involved in the construction of DniproHES, a major hydroelectric power station on the Dnipro river, in the 1920s-1930s. It explores how Soviet authorities created new "places of memory" and taught workers to "remember" and to speak like "New Soviet Men". Oksana Klymenko also examines the theory and practice of memoir collection and the specifics of daily life for those working on DniproHES.