Sources of Personal Origin in Covering the Sphere of Everyday Life and Emotional Experiences of Women during the World War I

Abstract

The letters of the period of the Great War have remained a significant source of Ukrainian history of the 20^th century. The World War I posed new challenges, aggravated the old problems, and prominently identified the disadvantages of social life. The epistolary significance of the mentioned period is found in the author’s specific vision of the world and reflection of the direct perception of the historical events and phenomena.

Tending to understand the significance of the Great War, as contemporaries called it, together with the desire to leave reliable evidence of the tragic events to future generations, has encouraged scholars to study memories, letters, diaries, and arrange the documents of that time. O. Melnychuk, L. Varavko, Y. Zin'ko, O. Kravchuk, V. Kosakivsky, and V. Rud’ addressed this extremely important topic in their researches. The works of the authors mentioned above relate precisely to the male vision of the Great War, which gives researchers the opportunity to recreate the features of the era more faithfully and fully through the reflection of the details of everyday life and the realities of masculine lifestyle, to show and feel the way of life of the male society under conditions of war to a certain extent.

The presented study deals with unpublished women's letters written to the centennial Roman Sushko. They testify the life of civilian women and their engagement in fighting had become a severe test not only for the whole society, but also for the weaker sex. Women viewed their participation in military operations as a patriotic duty and expansion of women's skills and practices, rather than as a violation of gender roles.

 Shifting of the emphasis on the history of women's war experience, studying of women's models of memory of the war, and state policy regarding the women's front-line past, the analysis of the features of women's military psychology and women's behavior in sources of personal origin has appeared to be the richest material giving a more complete picture of life and survival within the frames of evaluation and interpretation of participants of the turbulent years of 1914-1918.