Preserving Self in the Soviet Prison System: Relationship Between Resistance and Embroidery During Iryna Senyk’s Incarceration

• In Event: Ukrainian Identity Within and Against Official Soviet Culture

Abstract

This presentation analyzes the relationship between self-narration and embroidery in Iryna Senyk's memoir Butterfly Memories. Memoirs and Embroidery Designs (Metelyky spohadiv. Spohady i vzory do vyshyvannia) specifically focusing on the period of the author’s incarceration in the Soviet Mordovian prison between the years 1972 and 1978. During that time, she along with several other political prisoners organized a social circle centered around the practice of embroidery to support each other and invent ways to resist repressive prison rules by creating social ties, forming spaces of collected privacy, and maintaining their individuality and humanity. The study draws connections between Senyk’s evolving understanding of embroidery and the practice’s manifestations in the life of the Soviet prison as a means of self-identification, resistance, and cultivation of own political culture.

Author

• Alina Orlova, U of Chicago