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Accepted Paper:
Oral history of Dnipro wetlands and Kakhovka reservoir: new-old methodology for talking about the Ukrainian environment
Anna Olenenko
(University of Alberta)
In this paper using the case of studying Dnipro wetlands and Kakhovka Reservoir I argue that oral history as an environmental methodology is able to shed light on human-environmental interactions from a new angle and thus challenge the legacy of colonialism in the study of Ukraine and environment.
Paper long abstract:
In 2023 the world was shaken by the news of the disruption of the Kakhovka HPP. It was called the largest environmental war crime since Russia's 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine. This event found a wide response in Ukrainian society and revived the discussions about the necessity of construction of the Kakhovka Reservoir in the 1950s, which flooded a historically, economically and culturally important landscape - the Dnipro wetlands. Studying the history of the Dnipro wetlands it turned out that oral histories are one of the most important sources for researching this case. The stories of local residents about wetlands and newly constructed reservoir made it possible to look at this story not as a history of the construction of a Soviet industrial giant, but as a story about land, water and nature and the relationship of human with the environment. Documentary sources of the Soviet period give us mostly the history of progress, oral sources instead - the human dimension, another lens through which we can see not only achievements in the name of progress. In this paper I argue that oral history can be and should be used in environmental history studies. Oral history should not be considered as an auxiliary methodology, aimed to fill the gaps that documentary sources have, but also as the main one. Oral history is able to shed light on human-environmental interactions from a new angle and thus challenge the legacy of colonialism in the study of Ukraine and environment.