Oral Testimony Research Articles

Rizaetdin Fakhretdin (1859–1936) as a Founder of Faizkhanov Studies

This article is timed to the 165th anniversary of the major Muslim theologian of Russia Rizaetdin Fakhretdin (1859–1936) and deals with the examination of his works on the life and activities of Husain Faizkhanov (1823–1866). The article shows that R. Fakhretdin was the author of the first works specially devoted to Kh. Faizkhanov and thus actually became the founder of Faizkhanov Studies. The article analyses the materials of R. Fakhretdinov’s materials published in the biographical work Asār (1908), the journal Shura (1916), and some unpublished works that appeared later are analysed. The article shows that R. Fakhretdin was purposefully engaged in the study of H. Faizkhanov’s activities and also purposefully collected the related materials. The range of sources he used is wide and varied. The main of them was the manuscript work of Shikhabetdin Marjani (1818– 1889) Vafiyyat al-’aslāf va takḥiyyat al-’akḫlāf, supplemented by documentary materials and oral testimonies obtained as a result of R. Fakhretdin’s own research. He details a number of information reported by Sh. Marjani. Some reports and comments of R. Fakhretdin were confirmed as a result of subsequent research.

Усна історія Голодомору:специфіка наративу усноісторичних джерел

The goal of the research is to reveal peciliarities of Holodomor oral history sources through the prism of oral history theory and trauma studies. Methodology of the research is built on the principles of historicism, systematic and structural approaches in combination with the elements of such methods, as source heuristics, comparative, historical-chronological analysis; extrapolation, textological and terminological analysis. Scientific novelty is revealing of the peculiaritites of Holodomor oral history as a historical source basing on the analysis of oral history sources. Conclusions. The article suggests a set of signs of Holodomor oral history, established with the help of approahes, used in oral history theory in three angles. The first sign is tied with coexistence of two spheres «official history/personal narrative». The author concludes that taking into account pressure of the state, caused by the ideological factors, information pressure of the state became visible in 2000s, when a reasonable part of oral history testimonies had been already written; and politics of the state on ban of presence in public sphere of information about the famine had resulted into reverse reaction – rootenization of famine in individual memory. In the frames of block “time/memory” the article separates age and gender specificity. The author points that the earlier a testimony is separated, the more details and social life of a village can be received; about mostly children memories with their specificity (fragmentary, with fixation on smell-taste-colors). The article points at distinctions of female (emotional and family oriented) memories from male (try to define experience of survival of a community, with attempts to provide background of events). The majority of peculiarities is revelaed in the spheres of «trauma/recalling» – five: specific terminology («graze», «to die out», «kurkul», about food); emotionality that blocked the road as a historical source to academic studies and information field; frequent articulation or observation of high traumatism of seen and lived through during the famine; victims as almost exceptional authors of the narrative; unification of narrative that allows separation of factographic core and reflexive component of oral history source.

Open Forum in the Dedicated Issue of East European Holocaust Studies on Oral History and the Holocaust

Abstract The events of the Holocaust are reflected in the numerous memoirs of rescued victims and witnesses of Nazi crimes. Collections of testimonies, memories and oral history on the Holocaust include thousands of early testimonies and life stories archived in for example the Yad Vashem and audio-visual collections initiated in later years such as the Institute for Visual History and Education USC Shoah Foundation, The Fortunoff Video Archives, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Yahad-In Unum and others. In this open forum we how the knowledge from collecting and using oral history and testimonies in Holocaust research can inform current collecting initiatives in relation to for example the ongoing Russian war in Ukraine.

“And then We Were Taken to Ravensbrück.” Early Oral Testimonies About Ravensbrück and Its Sub Camps

Abstract This article focuses on the analysis and interpretation of 15 testimonies collected immediately after the war by David Boder and by the Polish Historical Institute in Sweden with women deported to Auschwitz, evacuated to Ravensbrück in its last two phases and then to Malchow. The study of their statements can provide both a historical overview of Ravensbrück and its sub camps in 1944 and 1945, and help identify the effects of the camp, an overthrown social context, on individuals, women in this case, and groups. The comparative exam of the interviews allows to identify the crucial events and experiences which constitute the core of the interviewees’narration and representation of the events. The situations and episodes they chose to recall may explain their perception of the events and reveals a gendered perspective which affected their memories in terms of the selection of the events and their focus on specific issues. The memories were recalled in relation to social frames, which were different from those the survivors were previously used to and pertained to the context of the camp. These coordinates constitute a net which can provide an insight into the mechanism of memory construction and early representation of the Holocaust.

Inventing Ancestors and Limited Empiricism in Chosŏn Korea: A Case of the Kigye Yu Lineage

AbstractThis paper investigates how the members of the Kigye Yu lineage imagined and invented their ancestral roots during the Chosŏn dynasty (1392–1910) and how such a pursuit of ancestral origins led to subsequent developments in genealogical records. As early as the fifteenth century, Chosŏn elites began to show interests in genealogy that included identifying remote ancestors from ancient times for various political, social, and cultural reasons. From the seventeenth century, the transformation of kinship organization in line with the Confucian ideal of patriliny and elites’ competition for power and prestige intensified genealogical consciousness. Elites became heavily invested in searching for ancestral origins in the form of their lineages’ founders and their tombs. While claiming to rely on documentary and physical evidence, elites often deviated from their professed empiricism and adopted evidence from dubious sources such as oral testimonies and geomancy to rationalize invented ancestral roots. Such pliable approaches, often observed in other early modern cultures such as late imperial China and Europe, opened a floodgate of lineages glorifying their ancestry by pushing their origins back even to mythical founders of ancient Korean and Chinese kingdoms, and adorning their lineages with invented heroes. At the same time, loopholes and blank spots in genealogies enabled quasi- and nonelites to become a member of prominent lineages by grafting their names onto their family trees.

Implementation of positive psychology to surmount demoralization caused by a cataclysm in select works of Svetlana Alexievich.

Cataclysm refers to a large-scale and violent event involving disaster, catastrophe, calamity, and tragedy. The recent surge of a pandemic (coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)), humanitarian crisis in Sudan, civil unrest, and war, such as the attacks in Syria and Ukraine, reiterate the need to address the trauma attached to such catastrophes. This study focuses on adapting positive psychology, one of the newest branches of psychology to emerge, to help human beings prosper and lead healthy, happy lives. It also explores post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and means to overcome traumatizing psychological dejection caused by such mishaps. Demoralization is the immediate effect caused on victims and survivors of such devastations. A comprehensive study of cataclysm and demoralization is concomitant with the suffering produced by various factors pertaining to mass annihilation. A deductive methodology is incorporated into the qualitative data to analyze the oral testimonies of war and disaster survivors in Svetlana Alexievich's works titled Zinky Boys: Soviet Voices from the Afghanistan War, Second Hand Time, The Unwomanly Face of War and Chernobyl Prayer. Interpretation of the polyphonic voices in the oral sagas of interviewees in Alexievich's works reveals an increased level of anxiety, stress, and trauma post-catastrophic events. The implementation of positive psychology has been identified as an appropriate psychological intervention to address the issues related to psychological devastation.

Not only Väterliteratur: The engagement of several media in talking about the Nazi past in Wolfgang Glück’s Die kleine Figur meines Vaters (1980)

This article explores the adaptation of Peter Henisch’s novel Die kleine Figur meines Vaters made by Wolfgang Glück. The film produced by three (Austrian, West German and Hungarian) television companies focuses on conversations between father and son that relate to the Nazi past of the latter. What initially was planned as a biographical novel, in the end, became an intermedial work drawing on literature, a magnetic tape containing a recorded oral testimony, photography and film. In this article, I examine the film’s narration and reception to demonstrate that it was one of the first Austrian movies to deal directly with the ambiguous role ordinary Austrians played in National Socialism, which in fact preceded the political debate on Austria’s past generated by the election of Kurt Waldheim to the president’s office in 1986. The analysis of the film was possible thanks to the research conducted in the Austrian National Library in Vienna and the Archives of the Bavarian Television (BR) in Munich.

Changing Identities of Indian Migrants in the West:

The aim of this paper is to initiate a broader discussion concerning the identities of Indian migrants and their perceptions of arranged marriage. Through an oral testimony and a detailed life history of one interlocutor, my research explores my mother’s marital experiences, including the involvement of her family, the arrangement of the marriage itself, and the challenges that come with adjusting to marital life. Within the framework of this topic, larger theoretical and cultural phenomena are addressed such as the role of immigration, acculturation, changing notions of individualism, and identity in relation to diaspora. Such topics shed light on how Indian marital practices and related societal perceptions of identity such as gender norms, are changing for Indian migrants.

Demons, spirits, and haunted landscapes in Palestine

In recent decades, a spectral turn has animated geography and related fields like archaeology, memory studies, and landscape studies, examining how places can be haunted by the ghosts of the past, with heavy emphasis on metaphorical specters and spirits. The geography of spirits and other unseen forces presented here takes a less metaphorical approach to haunted landscapes. This paper examines how spirits have traditionally dwelt within everyday places and objects like trees and stones in Palestine, and how people have sought to cohabitate with or settle such spirits. Attending to the physical geography of the spirit world can shed light on how spaces become sacred through belief and practice, and how sacred spaces are continuously remade within changing social, cultural, and political contexts. Drawing together historical observations by European and Palestinian ethnographers and interweaving the voices of Palestinian elders in the form of recorded oral history testimonies, this paper examines the typologies and environments of spirits and jinn in Palestine, with particular attention to water demons and haunted trees. The paper reflects on how these unseen forces play a role in establishing moral, gendered, and sacred boundaries, while at the same time blurring boundaries between popular religion and religious orthodoxy.

Aftermath of a Storm: Women and Reparations for Residential School Abuses

This article is an effort to explain how a gender-specific (women only) community-based research project, working in partnership with an Indigenous women’s organization, made visible issues of gender, sexuality, and race in the Indian residential school (IRS) compensation claims process. The study focused on the Independent Assessment Process (IAP), which involved an out-of-court adjudication whereby IRS Survivors gave oral testimony to an adjudicator about serious physical and sexual abuses they experienced at IRS and the consequential harms. The IAP was a key part of the IRS Settlement Agreement. The article discusses the IAP in the context of Canada’s colonial history, and then it provides, through results of a community-based study, insights from Survivors, support workers, and adjudicators. The study demonstrated how the absence of a gender lens in legal policy and practices can create unfair bias and, conversely, how attention to gender, sexuality, and race can assist in mitigating colonial or settler bias. The article was inspired by a 2014 Queen’s University Faculty of Law conference in honour of the late Dr. Patricia Monture.

Past Forward: Holocaust Testimony in Documentary Film

Abstract This paper addresses the use of oral history sources in my practice of documentary filmmaking as a second-generation Holocaust survivor. It examines how the filmic documentation of oral history sources can reflect aspects of testimony, memory, and postmemory, as they are theorized in the field of Holocaust Studies. In my film “Past Forward: Journeys to Transnistria,” I document the challenge of relating an intergenerational and cross-cultural story while preserving historical accuracy. Filmed in Ukraine in 2002, it tells the story of my mother, a child-survivor of the Romanian Holocaust. Through oral testimony, the film captures my mother’s survival story as she tells it to me and later to her granddaughter who documents it for a history school project. It then retraces my mother’s journey between 1941 and 1944 from her hometown of Dorohoi, Romania to Transnistria as it was called then under German-allied Romanian occupation. Survivor’s testimony combined with onsite witness interviews, and an archival military map, were used to trace the story of a little Jewish Romanian girl who survived the journey to Transnistria. Recently available archival sources have further validated her story. It has also contributed to locating the film within the broader context of the Holocaust in Ukraine.

A fading mountain world? Landscape change driven by the economic and socioecological fabric of the Pyrenean area around Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park (1900-2020)

Industrialization and the subsequent transition to a tourism-based economy, together with the globalization of the agri-food system, have transformed how natural resources are used, the relationship between the local population and the landscape, and the biodiversity of mountainous areas. This article analyses the agrarian and environmental history of the area surrounding Cadí-Moixeró Natural Park, in the Catalan Pyrenees, from the early twentieth century to the present day, through oral testimonies, old photographs, demographic and socioeconomic data, and a GIS-based map analysis of changes in land use and the location of the resident population. The results show that economic tertiarization and the end of integrated productive land management have given rise to a forest transition towards less landscape diversity. This threatens the entire range of landscape ecosystem services that make the area appealing for a more diversified and sustainable mountain tourism model.

The decline of Aboh’s economic influence in the Western Niger Delta of Nigeria in the era of legitimate commerce, 1830–1960

ABSTRACT This is a study of the decline of Aboh’s economic influence in the Western Niger Delta owing to Europe’s increasing influence in the internal affairs of the Niger Delta in the era of legitimate trade. It evaluates the extent to which European commercial activities influenced Aboh’s trade with other groups of the Western Niger Delta and how they reacted to the European commercial penetration of the Niger Delta interior. The paper depended on primary and secondary sources of data on the subject. The primary sources are largely colonial intelligence reports and oral testimonies from the field and supplemented with available secondary sources. It deploys descriptive and analytical methods to address the subject. The paper argues that Aboh’s pre-eminence as the key player in the trade of the Lower Niger was challenged by European commercial interests. Thus, the paper is a detailed long-run analysis of this well-known argument about European interest within a West African context. The findings show that Aboh lost its middleman position to European penetration into the Niger Delta hinterlands. It concludes that European commercial activities in the area granted economic gains to other Western Niger Delta groups originally under Aboh’s influence.

Contribution of Archbishop Zacchaeus Okoth to the Development of Higher Education in Nyanza Region of Kenya, 1985-2021

Purpose: The paper describes the contribution of Archbishop Zacchaeus Okoth to the development of higher education in the Nyanza Region of Kenya. It also dealt with the nature of the Nyanza region before the development of Uzima University. Methodology: Being a historical study, the historical method of inquiry was used to enable a deeper understanding of the phenomenon. Primary sources of data accessed included oral testimonies of actual participants' archival documents like personal materials and institutional information of written notes, photographs, minutes of meetings before the establishment of the institution, and publications. Secondary sources included books, journals, published and unpublished. The oral interviews were recorded, transcribed, and analyzed using qualitative methods. Results: The study findings demonstrated that Archbishop Okoth as an individual has contributed greatly not only to education but also to the medical sector in the Nyanza Region and Kenya. In addition, the study reveals that the Archdiocese of Kisumu together with the people of Nyanza region had an impact on the establishment of the institution and development. It can be concluded that Archbishop Zacchaeus played a vital role in the growth and development of higher education in Nyanza Region through the establishment of Uzima University. The institution has contributed a lot not only to the people of the Nyanza region but to Kenya at large. The impact has been felt a lot by the people of Kisumu and the Archdiocese of Kisumu, producing qualified doctors and nurses.

Reactivating voices of the youth in safeguarding cultural heritage in Iraq: the challenges and tools

This article contributes to a growing academic debate about the role of young people in safeguarding the memory of the past to support post-war rebuilding through physical urban reform and national rebranding. It also provides new opportunities for young people to amplify their voices after years of struggle. We pose the following question: How can the youth better leverage heritage to emphasise commonalities, cultural links, and educational understanding, which can break down ideological barriers and create sustainable peace? Through a critical thematic analysis of 45 open-ended interviews held in Iraq, we developed a set of recommendations that allows the youth to engage in dialogue around the country and its cultural heritage through oral history, testimonies, and documentaries. The outcomes of this research could enable the youth to reflect on their interpretation of heritage contestation and their active role towards safeguarding Iraq’s cultural heritage.

Compreender as Desigualdades Sociais e os Territórios pelas Histórias de Vida: reflexões partir das experiências do Núcleo IS-UP do Museu da Pessoa

The Nucleus of the ‘Museu da Pessoa’ (People’s Museum) was created to build a digital archive of qualitative data, while also promoting exhibi-tions and debates in research contexts. Through oral testimonies, life stories are collected and dis-seminated from a diversity of social actors across the national territory, facing various inequalities or vulnerabilities. With the aim of deepening the pro-cesses of structuring social inequalities and their individual inscriptions, this project democratises access to memory and gives visibility to socially vulnerable groups.Based on the experiences from the three main initiatives developed within the scope of the IS-UP Nucleus of the ‘Museu da Pessoa’, a reflection is made on the contributions of these initiatives. Framed by a theoretical-methodological framework related to the use of life stories in sociological research and situated in three different socio-territorial contexts in the northern region of Portugal, these initiatives focus on different social issues. They allow reflec-tions and analyses on various forms of social ine-quality. It is argued that this model enables simul-taneous knowledge acquisition, participation, and communication, combining fundamental research with the transfer and co-production of knowledge.

Fabricating modernity: female dress production, typology, and use in rural Cyprus (late 19th-early 20th century)

In modern Cyprological studies, the British Period (1878-1960) is widely acknowledged as crucially important for the advent of modernity. During this period, the radical transformation of Cypriot society was strongly expressed via the emergence and widespread adoption of novel cultural expressions and identities, largely adherent to Western/European lifestyle ideals. Processes of sociocultural change were initially and principally manifested in urban settings and among the middle and upper social classes. Nonetheless, by the dawn of the 20th century rural populations were set on their own path towards modernisation. Unfortunately, the introduction of new lifestyle elements among the wider social strata, the mechanisms involved, and the significance of changing behaviour patterns at the level of self-identification are yet to be fully examined, documented, and interpreted by scholarly research. The present analysis focuses on Greek-Cypriot female rural populations as an understudied segment of Cypriot society and aims to explore the potential of a dress study approach in the examination of British period modernisation processes. Dress comprises one of the strongest, non-verbal self-communicative mechanisms, and as such it is considered as a critical domain for the visual and tangible manifestation, but also the symbolic production and definition of sociocultural change. Drawing on evidence from the examination of extant dress items, oral testimonies, written accounts and visual materials, the current research endeavours to document the evolving female visual identity in late 19th‑early 20th century rural Cyprus; to trace new versus past and enduring elements in rural dress production, typology, and consumption/social use; and to discuss how basic modifications in the image of the clothed and adorned female body reflect identity transformations in rural society.

Balón parado. El sindicato de futbolistas de México y la huelga de 1971

This article examines the formation of the Mexican football players’ union and their call for a strike in 1971. I assert that the footballers fought to be recognized as workers in a spectacle that generated substantial profits for the organizers but did not acknowledge their labor rights; they suffered from low wages – except for star players – and were denied the right to freely contract with the employer of their choice, among other issues. I argue that three elements explain the articulation of their demands: 1) the consolidation of football as a sporting spectacle during the 1970s; 2) the context of intense union mobilization during the presidency of Luis Echeverría; and 3) the emergence of a certain class consciousness among some footballers. Although they did not achieve their goal of being recognized as subjects of labor rights, I conclude that the union and the Mexican players’ strike were part of a broader international struggle: the contest for the recognition of professional athletes as workers. This research was supported by newspaper sources and oral testimonies from footballers.

The Holodomor of 1932–1933 in the Greek Villages of the North Azov Region: Oral Testimonies of Victims

This article examines the testimonies of residents from Greek villages in the North Azov region who witnessed the Holodomor of 1932–1933. It highlights the scope of issues addressed by respondents in their recollections and identifies the specificity of these recollections compared to other historical sources on the given problem. Despite their fragmentary nature, the testimonies of residents from Greek villages in North Azov contain multifaceted and highly significant information for reconstructing prevailing attitudes, offering insight into the average person’s experience during this horrific catastrophe with its pain, despair, fear, and thirst for life. The source-critical analysis of the testimonies enables the clarification or elaboration of the famine’s causes, its scale, data on the population’s diet, survival strategies, and instances of self-sacrifice, as well as peasants’ perceptions of the dekulakization executors, disruption of burial rituals, and the composition and number of deceased or repressed individuals.

A construção da periculosidade em relatos sobre usuários de serviços substitutivos de saúde mental

Abstract Objective The psychiatric concept of mental illness disseminated the association between psychological suffering and dangerousness in the West and in countries like Brazil, influenced by Western culture. This article aims to understand how dangerousness is constructed as an identity trait of users accessing substitute services, specifically Psychosocial Care Centers and Therapeutic Residences. It is based on accounts from the population residing near these services in the municipalities of João Pessoa and Campina Grande (Paraíba/Brazil). Method The qualitative methodology of Oral History was employed, and 106 oral testimonies were collected from adult individuals and subjected to Discourse Analysis according to the perspective adopted by Discursive Psychology. Results Identity attributes such as aggressiveness, irrationality and several others with similar meaning were used with varying degrees of subtlety to describe users. Conclusion Despite the differences, the testimonies were employed to link the users with dangerousness and render them unfit for social life.