Crimea's voids bear the marks of violence

Image

In March 2014, the Crimean Peninsula was annexed by Russia following a referendum, considered illegitimate by a vast majority of the international community. The annexation marked the beginning of the conflict that later escalated with Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. For Natalia Volvach, postdoctoral researcher in Cultural Studies at the Centre for European Research (CERGU) and the Department of Cultural Sciences at the University of Gothenburg, these events have had a major influence on her entire academic career.

In her book Absencing and Haunting in Semiotic Landscapes: Words, Voids and Ghosts in Qırım-Crimea, she examines how language, symbols and historical narratives are transformed under occupation – and how these changes are closely relateted to violence.

Natalia Volvach was raised in the Ukrainian city of Kherson, around 200 kilometres north of Crimea. As a child, she used to spend her summers on the Black Sea peninsula. The personal connection has greatly influenced her work on the book.

"I wanted to write in a way that touches the reader and moves the reader", she says. "Every day we have another war or conflict unfold. For many, Russia's occupation of Crimea has almost been forgotten. But I believe it is important that we continue to pay attention to suffering, pain and violence."

Meaningful absence

The book is based on fieldwork that Natalia Volvach carried out in Crimea between 2017 and 2019. During several extended research visits, she documented changes in the semiotic landscape, which includes languages and symbols present in public spaces. She also conducted interviews and walking tours with people who had lived in Crimea their entire lives.

Above all, absences caught her attention. Following Russia's annexation of Crimea, Ukrainian street names, signs and symbols had gradually disappeared from public spaces.

"Sociolinguistic research on language in public spaces usually focuses on the language that is present," Natalia Volvach says. "But I also encountered many signs of language being absenced, and those absences became just as meaningful."

She observed holes in walls where Ukrainian signs had once been mounted and marks left behind after inscriptions had been removed. Natalia Volvach notes how such voids take on a "ghostly" presence of their own, continuing to bear the marks of violence.

The researcher's body as a tool

In the book, Natalia Volvach introduces the method of ghost ethnography. To understand how violence and trauma become embedded in a place, she argues that researchers must acknowledge their own bodies and senses. This makes it possible to capture observations that might otherwise disappear from both research and collective memory.

"Violence can take many directions," she says. "It can roar and shout, but it can also be silent. The body, emotions and human vulnerability are important parts of knowledge production. I wish for the book to generate a discussion about the place of research and the responsibility we have when producing knowledge in times of war."

She also hopes the book will reach readers beyond the academic community.

"I hope the book will be read not only by those who care deeply about Ukraine and Crimea, but also by anyone who wants to understand how violence operates in different shapes and colours – and how language can become part of it."

By Erik Pedersen