Alex Averbuch, Postdoctoral Fellow, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, Harvard University

The talk will examine correspondence of Ukrainian forced laborers in Nazi Germany to relatives back in occupied Soviet Ukraine as literature, historical source, visual and textual propaganda, and transmitter of news and secret messages. I will provide a transdisciplinary analysis, considering these letters' inscribed literariness (rhythm, rhymes, Aesopian language) alongside photographs enclosed with them, and in light of the picture postcards the Reich authorities provided for this correspondence to tout Nazi "benevolence" and the Ostarbeiters’ “wellbeing.” I will juxtapose totalitarian methods of controlling communication with captive letter-writers’ attempts at creative escape therefrom, and will argue that the Ostarbeiters’ letter-writing and photography also functioned to form knowledge and opinions, and blurred the bounds between private message, public newsletter, and historical testimonial.

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Image: "Pile of letters in envelopes," Suzy Hazelwood, CC0 1.0.