About
Our Story
the story
Hey there! My name is Laura Osadciw, and I'm a 20 something PhD student at University College London.
I'm also a third generation Ukrainian.
My grandad, Jurko 'Frank' Osadciw arrived in Britain in 1948 as a Displaced Person, after having been taken by the Germans and used as a slave labourer during the Second World War. He eventually settled in Warwickshire, and remained a proud Ukrainian for the rest of his life.
His story is my legacy.
the research
My PhD is focused on the Ukrainians who came to Britain after the Second World War, and the ways they chose to engage with and tell their stories. How did they choose to navigate their pasts? And what impact did this have on future generations?
ukraine still
Over the course of my research, I have been overwhelmed with the amount of stories that have reached me, stories never told before and almost lost to the historical record. Thousands of stories, as well as photographs, objects, letters, and documents.
Alongside these stories and sources, arose a very real call for preservation within the community itself, a desire for these stories to be recorded and conserved for both the historical record, and for the Ukrainian diaspora of the future.
From this came the idea for 'ukraine still' an online archive which would serve as a central system for preserving the Ukrainian British story, and the names and histories which make it up.
the aim
Ukraine Still is intended to be an ever growing resource, a place for stories to be added, and to grow, as history continues to unfold itself, and my own research continues to develop. It is not a closed space, but an open one, where the story of the Ukrainian British Diaspora may continue to transform and grow as time goes on, adding to the historical record, and to the available resources for this understudied yet important group.
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