Abortion, Emancipation, and Reproductive Disobedience in Ukraine

A lecture by Kateryna Ruban, Mihaychuk Postdoctoral Fellow at the Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University.

IN-PERSON 

Casual lunch will be provided.

About the Lecture

Kateryna Ruban will present her book project that explores how abortion as a constant political problem in the 1910s-1960s shaped female emancipation in Ukraine. At the center of this study are doctors for whom abortion was a matter of professional autonomy and their relationship with the state, as they insisted that women had the right to decide their own maternity. One of such doctors was Nina Holopatiuk, an obstetrician-gynecologist who worked in a provincial hospital in postwar Transcarpathia. In her memoir, she describes abortions that she or other doctors performed — often beyond the legal limits — and an abortion that she had herself. The story of Dr. Holopatiuk is connected to the broader history of Ukrainian public healthcare and abortion politics, showing how doctors’ autonomy was possible, even during Stalinism, when access to abortion was severely restricted and supposed to be fully controlled from above. The book offers to look at the history of abortion in Ukraine within a broader framework of political struggles for autonomy, sovereignty, and emancipation, in which Ukrainian doctors participated.

About the Speaker

Dr. Kateryna Ruban is a Ukrainian historian who specializes in Ukrainian and Soviet history with an emphasis on women’s history. In September 2022, she received a PhD from New York University. Kateryna holds master’s degrees in history from Central European University and in cultural studies from Kyiv-Mohyla Academy. Before coming to HURI, she was a fellow at the Research Center for the History of Transformations (RECET) at University of Vienna and taught a course on Ukrainian history at the Diplomatic Academy of Vienna. During her Mihaychuk Postdoctoral Fellowship at HURI, she is turning her dissertation into a book. Kateryna also continues her research on Ukrainian artists, scholars, and writers that refuse to participate in events alongside Russians since the full-scale invasion as part of a broader demand for decolonization addressed to Western academic and cultural institutions.

──────────────────

This event is organized by Harvard's Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI) as part of the Ukraine Study Group.

Persons with disabilities who wish to request accommodations or who have questions about access, please contact Hanna Leliv, HURI Events Logistics Coordinator, at hleliv@fas.harvard.edu at least two weeks in advance of the session.

Watch videos of past HURI events on our YouTube Channel and subscribe to our email list to receive announcements about events and other activities.