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OLHA KORNIIENKO

Historian of Fashion and Material Culture: Ukraine and USSR

Ph.D. in History, co-founder and head of the Ukrainian Fashion History Digital Archive.
Ph.D. in History, co-founder and head of the Ukrainian Fashion History Digital Archive.

About Me

I hold a Ph.D. in History from the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences. I am the founder of the Digital Archive of the History of Ukrainian Fashion and am currently a visiting fellow at the Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL) in Berlin, Germany. I specialize in the history of modern Ukraine with a particular focus on fashion and culture. I am working on my book titled “Fashioning Freedom: Ukrainian Soviet Fashion from World War II to Independence.”

 

I combine approaches and methodologies from various disciplines, including sociology, anthropology, and digital humanities. My research interests include Soviet fashion, Ukrainian culture and identity, visual and material culture, Cold War culture, socialist consumer culture, and late Soviet everyday culture. I also have experience in organizing fashion exhibitions.

 

My research has been supported by numerous international organizations, including the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute (HURI), Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF), Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL), Volkswagen Foundation, European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants, Institute for Human Sciences (IWM), and the Center for Urban History of East Central Europe in Lviv.

Education

B.A. and M.A. degrees awarded by Karazin Kharkiv National University, Ukraine

2010-2014

B.A. degree

B.A. in History, graduated: June 2014

2014-2015

M.A. degree

M.A. in History, awarded: June 2015 

Ph.D. degree awarded by the Institute of History of Ukraine, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

2015-2020

Ph.D. degree

Ph.D. in History 

Thesis title: A Fashion Phenomenon: State Policy and Everyday Life in
Ukrainian SSR, 1956–1985

My current project

Ph.D. in History, co-founder and head of the Ukrainian Fashion History Digital Archive.
Ph.D. in History, co-founder and head of the Ukrainian Fashion History Digital Archive.

The project disentangles the many strands that make up the history of Ukrainian fashion production, products and consumption, casting Ukrainian fashion as a colonizing as well as colonized actor within the Soviet Union and as an agent of Ukrainianness acting on a global stage. It draws and impacts on a variety of on-going discourses including Soviet cultural and nationality politics, the role of art, design and consumption under authoritarian rule, Cold War soft diplomacy, and the role of the Ukrainian diaspora. The examination of Ukrainian Soviet fashion reveals the mechanisms of inter-republican relations, the pivotal role played by the Ukrainian SSR within the community of Soviet republics, the influence exerted by the West, and the negotiating potential of consumers. In essence, fashion pertains to a number of questions that have shaped Ukraine into what it is today while offering clues about the factors that guided Ukraine along its path toward independence.

Selected Academic Writings

2021

Ukrainian Fashion Houses as Centers of Soviet Fashion Representation. The Hungarian Historical Review. Vol. 10. Issue 3. 2021, pp. 495–528 (got the award “The Hungarian Historical Review’s Editors’ Special Mention”)

2018   

Periodicals of the Ukrainian SSR in the 1950s-1980s as a Tool for Influence on Fashion and Everyday Life. Journal of Karazin Kharkiv National University “History of Ukraine. Ukrainian Studies: Historical and Philosophical Science”. Vol. 27. Kharkiv, 2018. pp. 77–89 (in Ukrainian)

2018

Structure and Peculiarities of the Fashion Industry Functioning in the Ukrainian SSR in the Second Half of the 20th Century. Scientific Notes of V. I. Vernadsky Taurida National University “Historical Sciences”. Vol. 29 (68). Kyiv, 2018. pp. 18–23 (in Ukrainian)

2016 

In Search of Soviet Fashion: Foreign Business Trips to the “Fashion Trendsetters” Countries in 1950s–1960s.  Journal of Karazin Kharkiv National University “History of Ukraine. Ukrainian Studies: Historical and Philosophical Science”. Vol. 22. Kharkiv, 2016. pp. 49–55 (in Ukrainian)

2014     

Soviet fashion through the lens of the satirical magazine Perets’ (1964–1991): database, content analysis of caricatures. Historical information science. Vol. 4 (10). Barnaul, 2014. pp. 50–67 (in Russian)

2014  

Organization and management system of French fashion enterprises through the eyes of Soviet fashion designers (based on archival materials from the 1950s–1960s). Journal of Kharkiv National University V.N. Karazin. “History”.  Vol 49. 2014. pp. 218–229 (in Russian)

Academic Scholarships and Awards

July  2024  

EUROPAST Summer School, Luxembourg

Since June  2024  

Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL), Visiting Research Fellow, Berlin, Germany 

Since May 2024  

Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF), Associated Researcher, Potsdam, Germany 

October 2023  

German-Ukrainian Historical Commission Award for Archive Services in Ukraine 

February 2023 - April 2024  

Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF), Postdoctoral Scholar, Potsdam, Germany 

April–September 2022  

Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History (ZZF), Postdoctoral Scholar, Potsdam, Germany

September-October, 2015               

Trier Digital Humanities Autumn School, Germany and Luxembourg

October 2013– June 2014

Lomonosov Moscow State University, Faculty of History, Historical Informatics Department, Research Fellow, Moscow, Russia

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Membership in Professional Associations

Since 2024

British Association for Slavonic and East European Studies
(BASEES) 

Since 2023

The Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES)

Since 2023

The Canadian Association of Slavists (CAS) / The Canadian Association for Ukrainian Studies (CAUS)

Since 2018

The International Association for the Humanities (IAH)  

Since 2014

The International Association “History and Computing”

Selected Conferences and Public Talks

 

2024
Fashioning Freedom: Making Ukrainian Fashion in the Era of Change (1985-1991)

Leibniz Centre for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL), Berlin, Germany

2024
Fashion Through a Satirical Lens: Perception and Influence in Soviet Ukraine

EUROPAST Summer School, Luxembourg

2024
Fashion Across Borders: Soviet Ukraine’s Soft Power and Diplomacy

BASEES Annual Conference, University of Cambridge, the UK

2023

‘Kyiv Fashion is More American than Cossack’: (Re)discovering Ukrainian Heritage through Fashion in Late Socialism 

ASEEES (Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) Annual Convention at Philadelphia, USA

2023

Social Media, Memes, and Other Born-Digital Sources on the War in Ukraine: From Collecting and Archiving to Academic Research and Teaching (discussant and chair)

ASEEES (Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) Annual Convention at Philadelphia, USA

 

2023

‘From Fabrics to Fashions: Production and Labor in Soviet Ukraine’s Fashion Industry’

Loom and Labor workshop at Slavs and Tatars Pickle Bar, Berlin, Germany

 

2023

Ukrainian Folklore and Historical Heritage:
Efforts to Build a National Brand Through Fashion in the 1940s-1980s

The International Conference «Ukraine: History, Culture, and Politics» organized by the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami University, Cuma, Italy

 

2023

Ukrainian Identity Through the Lens of Fashion (Based on the Montreal Expo-1967)

Canadian Association of Slavists Annual Conference, Toronto, Canada

 

2022

Soviet Ukrainian Fashion During the Cold War

Ukrainian Research Institute, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA

2021   
Under the Western Brand: Official Portrayals of Soviet Fashionistas in the Satirical Magazine Perets” 

The International Conference “Consuming and Advertising – Eastern Europe Revisited”, Marburg, Germany

2021

Ukrainian ‘haute couture’ of the 1940s-1980s: from sketch to masterpiece

The International Fashion Exhibition “Kyiv Fashion”, Kyiv, Ukraine

2019  

Industrial Espionage or Cultural Cooperation? Fashion Tourism under Iron Curtain: Organization, Process and Samples Adaptation  

ASEEES (Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies) Summer Convention, Zagreb, Croatia

2018    

Constructing the Image of a Modern Woman in the Soviet Woman Magazine (1956–1991)

The International Conference “Exploring the Past: New Social History at the Crossroads of Methodological Trends” at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine

2017 

Satire as a Tool for the Formation of Views on Fashion in Soviet Society

Kharkiv Historical and Philological Society, Kharkiv, Ukraine

2017

Flipping through pages of the Perets’ magazine: Soviet and Western fashion in quantitative terms

The International Conference “Soviet Heritage Through the Prism of Modernization” at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv, Ukraine

2017        

Under the Western Brand: Soviet Dandies and Ladies in the 1950s-1980s

The International Conference “Exploring the Past: Methodological Update of Historiography in Ukraine” at Kyiv-Mohyla Academy, Kyiv, Ukraine

Academic and Public Activities

Organizations that supported my research

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