The intimate dimension of women's everyday life in the camps of interned Ukrainian soldiers in Poland (1921–1922)

Abstract

While in a camp isolation, women played different social roles in camps: if one part of them were devoted wives and caring mothers, then on the opposite pole were the camp and divisional prostitutes who fulfilled their specific mission. In the presence of the "priestess of love" in the camp, the first interest was the category of officers, who did not want to bind him to a serious relationship during internment. Some women were in their actual marriage with their constituents, and some agreed to become dependent. The opposite format was also possible, when the woman himself initiated the change of her elect, considering only their financial ability to provide for her needs. But the difficult conditions of staying in the camps, leaving a large part of the interned at work – led to that, that the need for services of prostitutes was rapidly  decreasing, and for them the camps themselves became an unacceptable habitat. At the same time, the command of the Ukrainian People’s Republic troops gradually eliminated them from the camps, and in addition – the general of warfare rapidly lost interest and condolences to those women’s representatives, which have not made any effort to develop in them a lasting vital and spiritual-ideological foundation.