The catastrophic terror Soviet power unleashed on the Ukrainian
countryside in the early 1930s altered every aspect of village life.
Based on extensive interviews with villagers throughout Ukraine, The
Transformation of Civil Society provides an oral history of the material
and cultural destruction sustained in rural Ukraine throughout the
Stalinist era. Beginning with wholesale deportations and evictions,
followed by the process of collectivization in Ukraine, the Soviet
state's impact on peasant life extended deep into the fabric of society.
Targeting the cultural life of these Ukrainians, the 1930s began with
the physical repression of religious institutions and personnel, the
repression of church ritual, and later, the repression of entertainment
and expressive culture such as music making. By bringing to light the
experiences of more than four hundred Ukrainians who witnessed the
terror of the Stalinist era, William Noll privileges villagers' points
of view on the near total destruction of their world and preserves the
memory of their civil society. Almost twenty-five years after its
Ukrainian publication, The Transformation of Civil Society makes this
classic available in English for the first time.
