The war in one fate : biographical narratives of widows of soviet servicemen on the basis of letters to the authorities of Lviv in 1944-1945

The article analyzes letters written in late 1944 and in 1945 by widows of Soviet servicemen to the authorities of the city of Lviv requesting a permit to move or return to Lviv, the construction of women’s biographical narratives and the image of women in the war. The main topic discussed in post-war correspondence was the war trials and different fates of women sharing the experience of life in Lviv in 1939 -1941. It demonstrates similar strategies of survival and communication with the totalitarian state, and the contradictory image of woman in war time. The personal drama of her husband’s death, the sudden collapse of the social hierarchy, and, in particular, the destruction of “pre-war” housing stock in Lviv and other livelihood opportunities in a big city, prompted woman, in the already partly assumed role of the head of the family, to look for ways to regain their former position. Probably, they wrote special letters, among many other quite similar appeals to the government, in order to attract attention to themselves. The narrative analysis of the letters has made it possible to isolate the images of Lviv in the representations of people of the (post)war period, to disclose the „Soviet language” and the (un)typical gender-related aspects of texts written by women.