Journal Presentation: Études Tsiganes: Ukraine, №72-73 (Spring 2023)
As the invited editor of the special issue of Études Tsiganes: Ukraine, Issue 72-73 (Spring 2023) published in French, Dr. Abakunova will present the journal and discuss the rich history of Roma in Ukraine from the past to the present. Études Tsiganes is a peer-reviewed academic journal for social sciences in French, published by the Fédération nationale des associations solidaires d’action avec les Tsiganes et les Gens du voyage. The special issue is dedicated to Ukraine and Roma living in Ukrainian lands to support research about the Roma of Ukraine that is interrupted due to the war that Russia conducts against Ukraine and to give visibility to the Ukrainian researchers who are carrying out this work. The accessibility to the journal is limited due to its publication in French only; therefore, Dr. Abakunova will provide a brief overview of each article and introduce the Ukrainian and non-Ukrainian authors who contributed to the journal and Ukrainian Roma whose interviews were published in the journal, including of those who are internally replaced or took refuge in other countries. Finally, Anna will discuss the current situation of Romani Studies in Ukraine and how the war conditions impact research.
Dr. Hanna (Anna) Abakunova
Dr. Abakunova is a PhD in Holocaust history and MA in Psychology who focuses on the history and memory of the Roma in Ukraine and neighboring countries as well as on the Holocaust history in Ukraine and Poland. She is currently working as the Director of Research for the Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, Refresh Project for Vol.2, the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (contractor), and a lecturer at the University of Alberta (Canada); Hanna is also affiliated with the Institute for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Uppsala University (Sweden). She is the editor of the forthcoming book Fates and Memories of Roma Deported to Transnistria during World War II: Surviving State Violence (Palgrave Macmillan, 2025) and co-author of Basic Historical Narrative of the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (Charity organization “Charity Fund Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial, 2018) and The Genocide and Persecution of Roma and Sinti. Bibliography and Historiographical Review(International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, 2016), amongst others.