Military Women in Museum Exhibitions in Lviv (Ukraine): Past Experience and Modernity

Abstract

Ukrainian women received military experience during the First and Second World Wars and in the contemporary Russian-Ukrainian War in services such as the Ukrainian Sich Riflemen (USS), the Ukrainian Galician Army (UGA), the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), the Soviet Army, and the Armed Forces of Ukraine (UAF). This paper analyzes the representations of Ukrainian women's military experiences during the twentieth and twenty-first centuries in museum exhibitions in Lviv (a city in Western Ukraine). The authors conclude that the experiences of women veterans of the First and Second World Wars frequently remain neglected, creating an incomplete picture of the past and continuing to shape representations of women’s roles in the current Russian-Ukrainian War.

Keywords

• museum
• military women
• war
• exhibition
• ukraine
• lviv