Abstract
Paradoxically, in its move from socialism to global capitalism in 1991 Ukraine witnessed a general return to traditionalism, in which women were seen as maintaining linguistic and cultural traditions. The newly-elaborated social structure pushed women from the status of mother-worker to that of career housewife, and accorded men their traditional patriarchal role of breadwinner. The latter’s earnings, however, failed to offer the means to implement the new model of a nuclear family, with men at its head as providers. As for older women (ages 40–60), most were doubly displaced. First of all they found themselves redundant in their former role of providing childcare and tending to domestic obligations while daughters worked; and at the same time they were effectively expelled from Ukraine’s workforce.
This gave rise to two separate streams of out-migration to escape the resulting family impoverishment. The first stream comprised largely (although not exclusively) unemployed grandmothers who traveled to neighboring countries – Italy in Solari’s study – seeking job opportunities. This contingent constituted a body of female migrant workers Solari calls ‘exiles,’ who harbored feelings of expulsion from Ukrainian society. In Rome – the major destination point in Italy – they hoped to earn remittances to augment the family financial resources in Ukraine. Their move laid the groundwork for restructuring Ukrainian society to conform to the western ideal of a nuclear family. The second contingent consisted largely of families (partial or whole), with women generally in the forefront, who formed a body of out-migrants in a state of ‘exodus.’ They headed for California (one of the major receiving regions examined in the present study) with the aim of embracing capitalism and expectations of future citizenship as they integrated into American society – something that Italian exclusionary policy precluded. Their rationale was that children could be socialized into western capitalist values which might then be transmitted to those left behind to pave the way for Ukraine’s shift away from earlier socialist ideals toward integration with democratic values and ultimate membership in a transnational community of democratic nations.
On the Shoulders of Grandmother: Gender, Migration, and Post-Soviet Nation-State Building consists of three parts, divided into: ‘Genesis: Ukraine’; ‘Exile: Italy’; ‘Exodus: The United States.’ It focuses on nation-state building, and draws on conceptual work on femininities, masculinities, and new nationalisms. In bringing these issues together, the book offers a rich tapestry of a post-socialist independent Ukraine in transition. Solari takes ‘a gendered global, transnational approach.’ This provides a useful lens through which differences in migrant subjectivities can be examined in societies elsewhere.
Cinzia Solari charts a bold new course for her study of this post-socialist Ukrainian society in transition, where motherhood is the cornerstone of its state-building process. Based on an impressive number of 160 personal interviews in both Italy and the United States, Solari has produced a compelling and beautifully written study of post-1991 Ukrainian mass migrations, with middle-aged women their most prominent driving force. The author breaks new ground in treating the process as exile and exodus respectively.
One of Solari’s key arguments in this study relates to nation-state building. Mothers perceive their sacrifice as a way of helping their offspring to appreciate capitalist values and move toward western ideals in an effort to bring Ukraine into a state of conformity with global democratic values. The effort to help their offspring relies on remittances earned abroad as a means of bringing their families’ lifestyles closer to those western ideals. The attempt to move Ukraine toward western ideals is based on the view that direct integration into a capitalist society is the most effective way to scale up to transnational nation-state building. Each of these processes functions to restructure family, work, and state institutions away from the Soviet-instilled ideal of extended worker families laboring as collectives to build a new socialist state in favor of nuclear family units based upon individual initiatives and aspirations, of building a new nation-state.
This book, underpinned by several years of intensive field research, an impressive bibliography, and rigorous argumentation, makes a valuable contribution to academic programs and research across a range of disciplines. Among these are Post-Soviet Studies, programs on the impact of women’s critical roles in refashioning institutions and societies, Women’s Studies, Slavic Studies, and research on transnational families, the modernization of nations, and migration theories. Its engaging style, interesting content, and excellent writing should equally appeal to a wide array of general readers, young and old, who wish to expand their intellectual horizons and general knowledge of a changing world order. It merits a central position in global migration studies.