Graduate Student Profile
Frunchak, Svitlana B.A. (honors), M.A.
Field: Soviet/Eastern European
Supervisor: Lynne Viola
Thesis Title: “The Making of Soviet Chernivtsi: National “Re-unification,” World War II, and the Fate of Jewish Czernowitz in Postwar Ukraine”
Adopting an interdisciplinary approach to the study of empire/periphery relations and nationalism in the modern period, Svetlana’s dissertation studies the incorporation of Chernivtsi— one of the several cities acquired by the USSR in the course of World War II—into Soviet Ukraine. Focusing on the late Stalinist period (1940-53) but covering earlier (1774-1940) and later (1953-present) periods, this dissertation utilizes archival documents, personal accounts, films, images, and published texts to explore the relationship between the ideas behind the incorporation; the lived experience of the incorporation; and the historical memory of the city’s distant and recent past.Svetlana’s research has been supported by Chancellor Jackman Humanities Institute, Ontario Graduate Scholarship Program (OGS), the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC), Open Society Institute (OSI), American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS), and various centres and departments at University of Toronto.She is a Jackman Graduate Fellow in the Humanities and a member of the Canadian Association of Slavists, Canadian Historical Association, and the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. Svitlana has published two articles in East European Politics and Societies (2010) and The Carl Beck Papers in Russian and East European Studies (forthcoming February 2011, 194 pages in manuscript).