Elli Karin Pavval, who became a character in a well-known children’s book about Sámi’s life when she was a child, told about the changes she experienced during her lifetime, from moving with reindeers as a child to living in a house nowadays. We also made a Stella, a decorated brass ring, to protect against evil forces.
Cultural guide Anna Kuhmunen, Silbba Siida, told about land rights and problems around reindeer herding today, in the traces of the forced migrations.
Anne Kirstine Hermann is a journalist, anthropologist, and assistant professor at Roskilde University. In her book, Imperiets børn [Children of the Empire] she has investigated the decolonization and modernization of Greenland in the 1950s. Her work includes elaborate archival research and interviews with Greenlanders who witnessed the period as children, were evicted from their settlements, abducted from their families or assimilated to Danish culture in other ways by the Danish government. In the lecture, Anne addressed the methodological aspects of interviewing informants about past trauma.
The event has been live-streamed, but the live stream is no longer available. For more information about the topic, please contact the lecturer directly through her own website: http://www.akhermann.com/
The lecture was held in collaboration with the Greenlandic House in Copenhagen, where the lecture also took place. Contact to the Greenlandic House in Copenhagen can be found here: https://www.sumut.dk/
Olga Pavlik, was born on October 15, 1974, in the city of Melitopol, Zaporizhia region. She is a philologist and a psychologist. Ukrainian language teacher at school, volunteer, and master of decorative and applied arts.
Olga presents her family history which has more than 400 people who now live in Moscow, Munich, Alma-Ata, and Sevastopol. She takes us through the history of her family and the migrations they did and how all these movements have shaped her family’s identity.
Over 100 people attended the meeting. Most of them were teenage students and senior citizens which makes them potential representatives of the first and third generation of interviewees. The meeting consisted of two speeches – scientific text prepared by prof. Skóra, read by Mrs Caryl Swift and Mrs Wladyslawa Diachenko’s personal impressions on the situation in Kherson under the war. The round-up of the meeting was the first Polish presentation of the joint film “Identity on the Line” prepared by the Polish partner.
The text by prof. Skora was talking about the difficult situation in Pomerania in the post-war period. Prof. Skóra used the interviews he had access to (not the ones gather by the Polish Museum) in an attempt to visualize the terrible and complicated liaisons between German inhabitants, Polish settlers, and Soviet soldiers in the aftermath of the second world war. He tried to show different points of view and find the reasons for certain behaviors without clearly judging or excusing any of the sides. His views were balanced, however uneven. Obviously, there were no easy solutions or truths given and the personal testimonies of each side still remain shocking and hurtful in the current situation.
Mrs Diachenko’s speech was simple, yet touching. She was talking about her love for the historical town of Kherson and the pain she feels knowing her hometown is taken over by brutal occupants. She also expressed her gratitude to everybody who helps her in the situation of forced migration and tries to give her some relief in difficult accommodation to life in a foreign country.
Prof. Wojciech Skora is a historian working for the Pomeranian Academy in Slupsk. His main fields of interest include the latest history of Pomerania.
Mrs. Wladyslava Diachenko is the vice director of the Art Museum in Kherson. She was forced to leave her town and country escaping from the war and Russian invasion of Ukraine. Today she lives in Slupsk together with her daughter, observing from afar the changes made in her Museum by the Russian authorities and damages made to Kherson and experiencing contemporary forced migration.
