A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland

by Kate Brown

This is a biography of a borderland between Russia and Poland, a region where, in 1925, people identified as Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians lived side by side. Over the next three decades, this mosaic of cultures was modernized and homogenized out of existence by the ruling might of the Soviet Union, then Nazi Germany, and finally, Polish and Ukrainian nationalism. By the 1950s, this “no place” emerged as a Ukrainian heartland, and the fertile mix of peoples that defined the region was destroyed.

Kate Brown’s study is grounded in the life of the village and shtetl , in the personalities and small histories of everyday life in this area. In impressive detail, she documents how these regimes, bureaucratically and then violently, separated, named, and regimented this intricate community into distinct ethnic groups.

Drawing on recently opened archives, ethnography, and oral interviews that were unavailable a decade ago, A Biography of No Place reveals Stalinist and Nazi history from the perspective of the remote borderlands, thus bringing the periphery to the center of history. We are given, in short, an intimate portrait of the ethnic purification that has marked all of Europe, as well as a glimpse at the margins of twentieth-century “progress.”

Genres: History, Ukraine, Russia, Nonfiction, Poland, Geography, Grad School

322 pages, Paperback

First published February 23, 2004

About the author

Kate Brown (born September 24, 1965) is a Professor of Science, Technology and Society at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She is the author of Manual for Survival: A Chernobyl Guide to the Future (2019), Dispatches from Dystopia (2015), Plutopia (2013), and A Biography of No Place (2004).

Reviews

[Katie · Rating 5 out of 5]

By far, the best book I've read in grad school thus far. Brown does an excellent job of weaving first-person narrative with historical research. She's a great story teller and can masterfully connect the stories and their people to the larger historical context.

[James · Rating 3 out of 5]

This one took a while to get into, but definitely a worthwhile read if you're interested in the subject. The author seeks to explain how early 1920s western Ukraine--a heterogeneous mix of Ukrainians, Poles, Jews, Russians and Germans--became post-1945 western Ukraine, or basically just people that identify themselves as Ukrainians. It's an interesting analysis of ethno-linguistic identities being brought to one of the last parts of Europe that didn't have them. Often, though made with good intentions, these changes had dire consequences for the people that were living in this part of Ukraine.

The result was two parodoxical microcosms: one of Eastern Europe past (adoption of national identity over feudalism) and one of Eastern Europe future (disintegration along ethno-linguistic lines).

[Meredith Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

There once was a place, a ‘no place’ if you will. A ‘no place that was dominated by a large forest that was filled with several thousand different types of plant life as well as animal life, each one more unique than the last.

Outside of that forest was boggy land, which meant the weather around said forest was always a few degrees cooler than elsewhere. And the boggy ground made it harder than usual to plant the usual stock of crops as well.

The agelessness of this ‘no place’, worked to its advantage, for it was a borderland. Polish people, German people, Russian People, Jewish People, Ukrainians People among others found peace living side by side one another in small villages. And it remained like that for a long time.

However, it was not to last. Famine and war forced those who had called this area their home elsewhere, and soon civilization as well found its way to the ‘no place’. decades later, that no place was more well known for being a literal melting pot, rather than the cultural melting pot it had been just a generation earlier.

This ‘No Place’, meaning the borderland between Poland and Russia, is covered in Kate Brown’s, A Biography of No Place: From Ethnic Borderland to Soviet Heartland.

In her book, she covers how this area, coveted by people displaced by the first world war, thought they had found a new home, but were soon displaced once again by World War Two, and the rise of the Soviet Union, is more well known to people due to it being the area where the Chernobyl disaster happened back in the 1980s.

in order to tell the story of this long lost culture, Brown uses not only official sources recently declassified (recent at least when the book was published in 2005) from various European archives, but she also uses first-person narratives, collected from those who had been displaced long ago, and those who still live in that borderland.

Brown is wise enough to realize that as a historian, one must consider all sides in a historical conflict, even those written by winners of said conflict (no greater example can be seen in this book than during the final chapter, which discusses at great length the Nazi occupation of the ‘No Place’)

I did wish however, she would have taken the time to discuss the Holodomor (the two-year-long famine that swept across the Soviet Union, and the current school of thought is that it was a deliberate act of genocide ordered by Joseph Stalin himself) I mean, if you’re going to discuss all the other bad stuff to happen in that region (Nazi’s, modernization, toxic waste caused by a nuclear power plant melting down) I’m certain there would be time to talk about that. Though if I must admit, Brown probably had real valid reasons to not include that in this book, and whatever they might be, we must respect her for that.

Overall, this is the fourth out of eleven books we have to read for this course, and so far, this is probably my favourite one. A well-written book with wonderful research. I can’t wait for what’s in store next week.

[Erma Odrach · Rating 5 out of 5]

The land of "no place" is a corridor of land, where "...villages and hamlets are small islands between forest and bog", between Poland and Russia, once called the kresy by the Poles. The area, or "borderland", though it was never a "political polity" or "possessed any historic notoriety", culturally was very rich and diverse, and in 1925 was inhabited by Poles, Germans, Jews, Ukrainians, and Russians. Brown writes how over the next 30 years the area not only homogenized, but in 1986 became famous/infamous for being in the Chernobyl zone.

Beautifully and forcefully written and with great insight. With ancestry traced to the region, for me it was an extra fascinating read.

[Spencer Willardson · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was a fascinating new look at what is now Central Ukraine, but which for centuries has been a borderland between different empires, states, cultures, and religions. The story that is woven here is mostly about the ways that the Soviets tried for two decades to remake the area in various ways - and then how Nazi Germany finished the job. These 30 years turned an ethnically, religiously, and culturally diverse region into an ethnically homogeneous area.

This book hit home for me in a lot of ways. I spent two years of my life living in Eastern Ukraine. My wife's family is originally from the Poltava region of Ukraine. Knowing the history of the atrocities that have afflicted the people of that region over the centuries gives me a deep sense of sorrow and empathy. I am currently living in Kazakhstan working at a University that is part of a larger nationalization project - one that seems to be displacing many of the ethnic minorities that were brought here as a part of the remaking process in the borderlands. This process is less violent, but seeing how history is repeating itself in so many ways is troubling.

This is definitely a book that inspires reflection. It is well-written and accessible for non-academic audiences as well, which is definitely a plus.

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

What if the people don't want to imagine their own community? What if they do imagine a community and the state decides they're wrong? Kind of flips Benedict Anderson upside down if you ask me.

[Hugolane · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had long wanted to read this book, since hearing about it shortly after it came out. I was a bit disappointed that it did not go back a bit deeper into the imperial Russian past than it did; although, that territory has now been nicely covered in Faith Hillis's _Children of Rus′_. Besides once I understood that Kate Brown's focus was on the Soviet Period, that made sense too. Brown's argument that one way or another the Western Ukrainian borderlands of pre-1939 Soviet Union would become homogenized makes a lot of sense. That is a major feature of modern states, especially ones that for all their ostensible federalism, are essentially centralized. We get an excellent glimpse about the factors that undercut the initially truly federal system of the Soviet Union, and Ukraine's efforts to live up to that. The personal stories of those affected by decisions are invariably poignant. That said, I am not quite so sure that the homogenization process has been quite as successful as Brown suggests. The gap between the way various groups imagine the Ukrainian nation and the realities of regional diversity remains large, and until Ukrainians feel secure enough to begin considering true federalism that gap isn't going to go away. One tip, that may be useful for people thinking about using this book in a class,, despite the time period, this book doesn't have a great deal to say about Holodomor because the region in question was so behind in collectivization. This is not a fault, but a reality of the material she dealt with.

[Marta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bardzo ciekawa, choć momentami nie lekka w lekturze, książka, którą można zaliczyć do nurtu studiów postkolonialnych. Monoetniczna, monokulturowa Ukraina to wynik kilku "projektów" wyobrażania wspólnot narodowych za pomocą inwentaryzacji. Przez wieki mieszkańcy prawobrzeżnej Ukrainy nie myśleli o sobie w kategoriach narodowych - byli "tutejsi". Najpierw w latach 20. i 30. XX wieku Związek Radziecki zaczął zliczać mniejszości etniczne, domagać się deklaracji i przez to - często wbrew mieszkańcom - tworzyć tożsamości narodowe i zwalczać te hybrydowe. Sowieci deportowali "stworzone" uprzednio mniejszości narodowe ze względów klasowych i politycznych, Niemcy podczas drugiej wojny światowej dodatkowo "urasowili" kresy. Istnieje ciągłość między tymi "projektami" - Niemcy wykorzystali narodowościowe spisy przygotowane przez sowietów do robienia czystek rasowych. Te procesy zrodziły między innymi nacjonalizm ukraiński i ideę jednoetnicznej Ukrainy, bez Polaków, Żydów i Niemców. Te projekty nie zostały zarzucone po wojnie - wielkie etniczne czyszczenie Ukrainy i Polski miało miejsce w latach powojennych. Książka powinna nastrajać sceptycznie do kategorii narodu jako kategorii "wymyślonej" przez nowoczesność.

[Katie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Would like to read again more thoroughly! Blends archival sources with ethnographic-type interviews. The argument didn't feel very surprising to me but the narrative was well-written and self-reflective in a good way.

[John M · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting look at a group and place that is specifically completely gone from the world and of little global significance, yet still of value.

The 1st person parts are especially interesting and add a little context and humanity that's not usually in a book like this. Very cool.

[Beata Horała · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dla wszystkich kochających Kresy coś niesamowitego, bo anglojęzyczna książka. Napisana przez kogoś zza oceanu. Czytałam z zaciekawieniem.

[Bonita Braun · Rating 4 out of 5]

exhaustive Study

An exhaustive study of the borderlands comprising mostly Trans Carpathia. How hegemony and “progress” brought ruin to many who dwelled in this are for centuries.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story of poverty, uncertainty, and violence. Reading this book was a struggle - it was full of recalled encounters with the local people, but a bit short on documents-based knowledge.

[Emily Hanamann · Rating 3 out of 5]

genuinely insane how an entire cultural population can just be wiped off the map

[Reader Alpha · Rating 2 out of 5]

It kept all seven redbulls in my fridge to keep me awake whist reading this

[Alexandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

Inspiring use of first person

[sarah mackenzie · Rating 5 out of 5]

SOOO SO SO SO GOOD. kate brown i want to be you.

[Wendy · Rating 3 out of 5]

What?!! Cultural identity and nationality are an invention of the state? Used to control individuals for political gain?

[Marsha · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent.

[Leslie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing, one of my favorite books I've read for school thus far