Coping With Repression In Soviet Ukraine

Abstract

The psychology of the Soviet period in Ukraine still needs to be analyzed because living witnesses of those times are gradually passing away. In this mixed-methods study, a sample of 56 respondents aged 63-102 were administered a semi-structured interview created for discovering the ways and resources people used to overcome the oppression of the Soviet regime. A qualitative analysis of participants’ testimonies through conceptualization revealed the following helping resources: social, financial, and informational support, faith, creative work, the example of family members, upbringing, humor, self-esteem, and morale, and taking responsibility. Though respondents mentioned all strategies, emotional reactions were notably missing from the strategies. Thus, participant responses were quantitatively analyzed for emotional content as well, allowing for detection of subjects’ non-conscious attitudes towards the topic under discussion.