The Covid-19 pandemic that erupted in 2020 has impacted most livelihoods and increased poverty levels worldwide. This thesis considers the impact which the Corona pandemic has had on Ukrainian seasonal migrant workers’ livelihoods in Poland. The societal travel restrictions’ short-term effects on the seasonal livelihoods are investigated along with the subsequent short-term coping strategies used by the seasonal migrant workers. The study draws on primary data from 10 semi-structured, digital interviews conducted with Ukrainian seasonal migrant workers from different sectors who worked in Poland during the pandemic period. Through the Sustainable Livelihood Framework, the cases were individually considered whilst also comparing within the sample groups from the sectors agriculture, construction, domestic services, culinary, and warehouse work. The findings of the study show that the seasonal migration livelihood strategy was resilient, lowered vulnerability, and allowed for sustainable livelihood outcomes despite the Corona pandemic. Travel restrictions and other institutional processes enabled or disabled the seasonal workers. Despite the Corona pandemic, the seasonal migration livelihood strategy was used as a short-, medium- and long-term strategy to alleviate poverty. The study increases the multidimensional understanding of the pandemic effects on Ukrainian seasonal workers in Poland. Therefore, this research provides an understanding of poverty alleviation, seasonal migration livelihood strategies, and resilience in a pandemic context.

À Astana, la capitale du Kazakhstan, le russe et le kazakh s’entremêlent quotidiennement dans les conversations. Ce mémoire porte sur les idéologies linguistiques qui soutiennent le codeswitching entre les différents registres du kazakh et du russe. J’ai réalisé trois mois de terrain ethnographique durant lesquels j’ai conduit de l’observation du paysage et des pratiques linguistiques que j’ai contrastées avec des entrevues de type récit de vie. Cette approche m’a permis de souligner que le russe est privilégié dans les contextes publics : c’est la langue de l’école, du travail, des commerces et des médias. Le russe ouvre de nombreuses portes et peut être considéré comme un index de réussite sociale. Le registre « domestique » du kazakh est caractérisé par ses emprunts et ses calques au russe. Il est principalement utilisé dans les contextes liés à la famille et aux traditions. Ce registre est un emblème de l’identité kazakhe. Pour cette raison, un parent peut exiger de quelqu’un qu’il performe ce registre, ce qui est une source d’anxiété. Cependant, le kazakh domestique n’est pas désirable dans toutes les situations. Des siècles de discours racistes ont stigmatisé la nationalité kazakhe et ce stigma est transmis au registre domestique. Le kazakh « institutionnel » est une variété qui a été développée par des acteurs qui gravitent autour du gouvernement spécifiquement pour échapper au stigma. Il s’agit d’une forme linguistique puriste qui vise à performer l’État-nation du Kazakhstan. Son utilisation, qui occasionne un maximum d’anxiété, est limitée aux rituels de l’État, tels que les discours présidentiels et les publications gouvernementales. Pour que cette théâtralité soit possible, le kazakh institutionnel est une exigence pour tous les employés du secteur public. Inversement, cela crée un incitatif à apprendre ce registre, particulièrement pour les Kazakhs qui ont un niveau d’éducation postsecondaire en russe. Je soutiens que la guerre russo-ukrainienne déstabilise l’équilibre entre les registres. Le conflit affecte l’Asie Centrale politiquement, économiquement et socialement, notamment par l’arrivée de centaines de milliers de migrants russes. Dans ces circonstances tendues, j’ai observé une augmentation de l’audibilité du kazakh. Surtout, je défends que la population est en train de redéfinir le sens de parler kazakh en public pour en faire un acte de résistance. Dans ce contexte en transformation, les langues sont utilisées métonymiquement pour discuter de questions identitaires et politiques. / In Astana, Kazakhstan’s capital, Russian and Kazakh are intertwined daily. This MA thesis is concerned with linguistic ideologies supporting code preferences between registers of Kazakh and Russian. I conducted three months of ethnographic fieldwork involving the observation of linguistic landscape and practices that I contrasted with life stories interviews. This approach allowed me to highlight that Russian is privileged in public contexts, such as schools, place of work, shops, and medias. For this reason, Russian opens many doors and can be considered an index of social success. The “domestic” register of Kazakh is characterized by borrowing and calques from Russian. It’s most employed in contexts relating to family and deemed as traditional. This linguistic variety is emblematic of Kazakh identity. Consequently, parents, especially elders, can demand someone to switch to this register, which is a source of anxiety. However, domestic Kazakh isn’t desirable in all situations. Centuries of racist discourse led to the stigmatization of Kazakh nationality, a stigma which is transmitted to the domestic register. “Institutional” Kazakh is a linguistic variety developed by actors close to the government specifically to escape the stigma link to the domestic register. It’s a purist register that aims to perform the Nation-state of Kazakhstan. Its use, which leads to a maximum of anxiety, is limited to state’s rituals, such as presidential speeches or governmental publications. For this performative theatricality to be maintained, institutional Kazakh as to be a requirement for all public sector’s employees. In turn, this requirement creates an incentive to learn this register, especially for Kazakhs who already hold a postsecondary education in Russian. I argue the Russo-Ukrainian war is destabilizing this equilibrium between registers. The conflict affects Central Asia politically, economically and socially, notably through the arrival of hundreds of thousands of Russian migrants. In this tense circumstances, I observed an increased audibility of the Kazakh language. Most importantly, I assert the population is redefining speaking Kazakh in public—in a wider array of forms—as an act of resistance. In this uneasy and moving context, languages seem to be used metonymically to discuss identity and political claims.

The exogenous shock that Russia's invasion of Ukraine entailed brought great challenges and demands for change in companies worldwide. Governing under these conditions is not easy, nor is knowing what is actually right to do. There is research on turbulent environments and exogenous shocks, divestments, and legitimacy, but research on the interaction between these is limited. In this study, we examine how companies have responded to exogenous shocks, more specifically how Swedish MNCs have acted and communicated as a result of Russia's invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The study consists of 69 Swedish MNCs that were active in Russia pre-invasion and their communications and actions as a result of this event, with data drawn from press releases, company reports, state registers and the media. The results show that many of the examined companies have acted in a similar way and divested the Russian market, albeit with varying quickness and forcefulness, thus adopting an approach consistent with what may be considered to be a legitimate strategy, with a few exceptions where the companies' actions has not been as consistent. What this means is that despite the fact that these decisions are made by the respective company management, the measures are generally in line with each other, which may be a result of pressure from both internal and external stakeholders and society at large.

The Ukrainian national bard Taras Shevchenko constitutes one of the best known lieux de mémoire and symbols of identification in Ukraine. The article engages with the imagining of Shevchenko in the texts of the intellectual Ivan Dzjuba. It focuses mainly upon the essay “Shevchenko forever” from 2008 and the changes evident in this version compared to a previous version from 1989. The article investigates Soviet continuities, as well as transformations in the image of Shevchenko that are connected to the gaining of Ukrainian independence in 1991. It shows how the text preserves its sense of contemporary societal relevance under new cultural conditions.

Die ukrainische Sprache, die zu den Nominativ-Akkusativ-Sprachen gehört, weist sowohl historisch als auch synchron Abweichungen vom kanonischen Lizensierungsmuster dieser beiden Kasus auf. So kennt das Ukrainische resultative, inkongruente, in den Finitheitsmerkmalen neutralisierten Passiv-Partizipien auf -no, -to, die wie finite Aktiv-Verben ihrem internen Argument Akkusativ zuweisen, aber historisch auch Nominativ am Patiensargument lizensierten. Solche Kasus-Zuweisung am Patiens passivischer und impersonaler Verben bei fehlender oder Default-Kongruenz stellt einen wichtigen Prüfstein für die theoretische Erfassung von Kasus, Finitheitsmerkmale und Subjektmarkierung dar. Das Ziel der Untersuchung war, über die etymologische Fragestellung hinaus, ein korpus-basiertes und quantifizierbares Bild des diachronen grammatischen Wandels der -no, -to-Formen im Mittelukrainischen zu erstellen. Synchron sind -no, -to bereits gut erforscht: die Struktur erlaubt eine overte Agensangabe im Instrumental und eine optional eingesetzte overte Kopula. Diagnostische Subjekteigenschaften wie Kontrolle in die Infinitiv- und Partizipialkontexte, sowie die Bindung von Reflexiva greifen nicht. Historisch dagegen bestehen noch große empirische Lücken und Beschreibungsdesiderate. Es wurden einige der empirischen Lücken in der Diachronie der -no, -to auf der Grundlage eines elektronischen, diachronen (1500-1800) mittelgroßen Korpus literarischer und administrativer Texte geschlossen: die Arbeit beschäftigt sich mit der Kongruenz und Transitivität der -no, -to und untersucht sie parallel zu den morphologisch identischen passiven kongruierenden -no, -to. / The Ukrainian language belongs to the nominative-accusative languages and demonstrates both historically and synchronically the deviations from the canonical case licensing pattern. That is, Ukrainian has resultative, non-agreeing and non-finite passive participles ending in either -no or -to that assign accusative to their internal argument, just like finite active verbs do. Historically -no, -to forms licensed the nominative on the patience argument as well. Accusative case assignment on the patience in impersonal verbs that lack agreement represents an important touchstone for the theoretical understanding of case, finiteness and subject marking. Along with the etymological questions, the aim of this investigation was to obtain a corpus-based quantifiable picture of the diachronic grammatical change of -no, -to forms in Middle Ukrainian. The modern -no, -to structure has already been properly investigated: it is clear that the structure allows for an overt agent phrase in instrumental and for an optional copula. Diagnostic subject properties like control into the infinitival and participial contexts, as well as the binding of reflexives do not apply. Historically however, there are large empirical gaps and desiderata as to the development of -no, -to. The thesis closes several of the empirical gaps in the diachrony of -no, -to on the basis of a middle-sized electronic corpus of literary and administrative texts from 1500-1800. The thesis deals with the agreement and transitivity of non-agreeing -no, -to that have been investigated parallel to the morphologically identical to them agreeing passive -no, -to.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian society faced a new reality. The new reality involved consolidation and transformation of collective identities. The reinvigoration of national identity led to a change in the emphasis on how the past was dealt with – many things which were regarded as negative by the Soviet regime became presented as positive in independent Ukraine. The war-time nationalist movement, represented by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), became one of the re-configured themes of history. While most of the studies of memory of the OUN and UPA concentrated on the use of the history of the OUN and UPA by nationalist parties, this study goes beyond the analysis of such use of history and scrutinizes the meaning of this history in nation- and state-building processes in relation to memory work realized on the small-scale regional and local levels with the main focus on Rivne and Rivne oblast’. Moreover, this book focusses not only on the “producers” of memory, but also on the “consumers” of memory, the area which is largely understudied in the field of memory studies. In the book the main emphasis is put on monuments which are regarded as catalysts and symptoms of memory. The present study showed that the OUN and UPA are used more as the metaphors of the anti-Soviet and anti-communist struggle for independence than as historical entities. This past is largely mythologized. Functioning as a myth the memory of the OUN and UPA obliterates difficult knowledge that the historical research reveals on the questionable activities and ideology of those organizations. As a result, the past of the OUN and UPA is re-imagined, re-filled with new meanings so that it is used along even with the democratic and pro-European claims in the present. It was especially well-observed during the Orange Revolution in 2004 and during the Euromaidan in 2013-2014, when the European Union’s flags were seen next to the OUN’s red-and-black flags or when the pro-European slogans were proclaimed alongside the OUN and UPA slogans. At the same time, the results demonstrated an intricate complexity of memory work shaped by intensive dynamics of private and public, grassroots and official, local and national encounters. Although there have been attempts made by political actors to draw a direct link between the national identity, political allegiances and proposed heroic version of memory, the study showed, that such attempts did not really work. In the pluralistic context the meanings are too fluid and adherence to one version of history does not preclude adherences to other versions of history which are presented as diametrically opposite in the political sphere. As result, on the recipients’ grassroots level, the memory reveals its amalgamated characteristics. Drawing on studies about post-colonial subjectivities and theories of remediation developed in memory studies, this book explores the changes in memory culture of contemporary Ukraine and examines the role of memory in producing new meanings under the rapidly changing conditions after the collapse of the Soviet Union up to 2014. The book contributes to the studies of memory culture in post-Communist countries as well as to the studies of society in contemporary Ukraine.

The Dryland Diaries is a multigenerational narrative in the epistolary style, a tale of four women, central character Luka; her mother Lenore; grandmother Charlotte; and great-grandmother Annie – cast in the Quebecoise tradition of the roman du terroir, invoking place and family, the primal terroir of a storyteller. The novel is driven by three acts of violence – the possible murder of Annie’s husband, Jordan, by her Hutterite father; the rape of Charlotte; and the probable murder of Lenore by a notorious serial killer. Set in rural Saskatchewan and Vancouver, Luka, a single mother, finds Annie’s and Charlotte’s journals in the basement of her farm home, where both her predecessors also lived. She reads their stories while attempting to come to terms with her search for her missing mother, and with her attraction to her former flame, Earl, now married. Luka learns that Jordan disappeared shortly after the Canadian government enacted conscription for farmers in the First World War, when Annie became a stud horsewoman, her daughter Charlotte born before the war ended. Letters and newspaper clippings trace the family’s life through the drought and Great Depression; then Charlotte’s diaries reveal her rape at Danceland during the Second World War. Her daughter, Lenore, grows up off-balance emotionally, and abandons her daughters. Luka returns to Vancouver and learns her mother’s fate. Told from Luka’s point of view, in first-person narrative with intercutting diary excerpts and third-person narratives, the novel examines how violence percolates through generations. It also examines how mothers influence their children, the role of art, how the natural world influences a life, and questions our definition of “home.” At its heart, the novel is a story about what makes a family a family, about choices we make toward happiness, and about how violence perpetuates itself through the generations. Inspired by Margaret Lawrence’s The Stone Angel, Carol Shields’ The Stone Diaries, and the place-particular writing of Annie Proulx and Guy Vanderhaeghe, The Dryland Diaries paints a family portrait of loss, hope and redemption, locating it on the boundaries of historical fiction, firmly within the realm of epistolary and intergenerational narrative.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Ukrainian society faced a new reality. The new reality involved consolidation and transformation of collective identities. The reinvigoration of national identity led to a change in the emphasis on how the past was dealt with – many things which were regarded as negative by the Soviet regime became presented as positive in independent Ukraine. The war-time nationalist movement, represented by the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), became one of the re-configured themes of history. While most of the studies of memory of the OUN and UPA concentrated on the use of this history by nationalist parties, this study goes beyond the analysis and scrutinizes the meaning of this history in nation- and state-building in relation to memory work realized on the small-scale regional and local levels. Moreover, this book focuses not only on the “producers” of memory, but also on the “consumers” of memory, the area which is largely understudied in the field of memory studies. Drawing on studies about post-colonial subjectivities and theories of remediation developed in memory studies, this book explores the changes in memory culture of contemporary Ukraine and examines the role of memory in producing new meanings under the rapidly changing conditions after the collapse of the Soviet Union up to 2014. The book contributes to the studies of memory culture in post-Communist countries as well as to the studies of society in contemporary Ukraine.

This dissertation is concerned with the formation of the Qazaqs in the context of the custom of political vagabondage known as qazaqlïq in post-Mongol Central Eurasia. More specifically, my study addressed the process whereby the Uzbek nomads inhabiting the eastern Dasht-i Qipchāq bifurcated into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century in consequence of the qazaqlïq activities led by two rival Chinggisid families: the Urusids and the Abū al-Khairids. Qazaqlïq, or the qazaq way of life, was a form of political vagabondage that involved escaping from one’s state or tribe, usually from a difficult social or political situation, and living the life of a freebooter in a frontier or other remote region. The custom of political vagabondage was by no means an exclusively post-Mongol Central Eurasian phenomenon. It existed in other places and at other times. However, it was in post-Mongol Central Eurasia that it became a widespread socio-political phenomenon that it came to be perceived by contemporaries as a custom to which they attached the specific term, qazaqlïq. During the post-Mongol period, the qazaq way of life developed into a well-established political custom whereby political fugitives, produced by the internecine struggles within the Chinggisid states, customarily fled to frontier or other remote regions and became freebooters, who came to be called qazaqs. Such Chinggisid and Timurid leaders as Muḥammad Shībānī and Temür became qazaqs before coming to power. The Qazaqs came into being as a result of the qazaqlïq activities of Jānībeg and Girāy, two great-grandsons of Urus Khan (r. ca. 1368–78), and of Muḥammad Shībānī, the grandson of Abū al-Khair Khan (r. ca. 1450–70) that resulted in the division of the Uzbek Ulus into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century. The Tatar and Slavic cossacks (Russian kazak, Ukrainian kozak) who appeared in the Black Sea steppe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the products of the qazaqlïq, or cossack phenomenon. Significantly, Ukrainian cossackdom led to the formation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate, which eventually contributed to the consolidation of a separate Ukrainian identity.

This dissertation is concerned with the formation of the Qazaqs in the context of the custom of political vagabondage known as qazaqlïq in post-Mongol Central Eurasia. More specifically, my study addressed the process whereby the Uzbek nomads inhabiting the eastern Dasht-i Qipchāq bifurcated into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century in consequence of the qazaqlïq activities led by two rival Chinggisid families: the Urusids and the Abū al-Khairids. Qazaqlïq, or the qazaq way of life, was a form of political vagabondage that involved escaping from one’s state or tribe, usually from a difficult social or political situation, and living the life of a freebooter in a frontier or other remote region. The custom of political vagabondage was by no means an exclusively post-Mongol Central Eurasian phenomenon. It existed in other places and at other times. However, it was in post-Mongol Central Eurasia that it became a widespread socio-political phenomenon that it came to be perceived by contemporaries as a custom to which they attached the specific term, qazaqlïq. During the post-Mongol period, the qazaq way of life developed into a well-established political custom whereby political fugitives, produced by the internecine struggles within the Chinggisid states, customarily fled to frontier or other remote regions and became freebooters, who came to be called qazaqs. Such Chinggisid and Timurid leaders as Muḥammad Shībānī and Temür became qazaqs before coming to power. The Qazaqs came into being as a result of the qazaqlïq activities of Jānībeg and Girāy, two great-grandsons of Urus Khan (r. ca. 1368–78), and of Muḥammad Shībānī, the grandson of Abū al-Khair Khan (r. ca. 1450–70) that resulted in the division of the Uzbek Ulus into the Qazaqs and the Shibanid Uzbeks in the sixteenth century. The Tatar and Slavic cossacks (Russian kazak, Ukrainian kozak) who appeared in the Black Sea steppe in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were the products of the qazaqlïq, or cossack phenomenon. Significantly, Ukrainian cossackdom led to the formation of the Ukrainian Hetmanate, which eventually contributed to the consolidation of a separate Ukrainian identity.