Abstract

Through the analysis of memoirs, newspaper articles, and oral history interviews, this article explores the organizational efforts of Ukrainian women who found themselves in displaced person camps in postwar Europe. While they praised elements of domesticity and reiterated essentialized gendered roles of raising children and keeping houses, women nevertheless claimed an active involvement in political struggles, challenging the public-private distinction that relegates them to the domestic sphere. This case study enables the understanding of how discourses and institutions, both patriarchal and feminist, circulate in transnational milieus of nation-building, critically addressing the gendered logic through which the language of nationhood, belonging, and migration is not only constructed but also contested.