Nataliia Zalietok
Fellow 2023/2024
History
National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, Kyiv
Imre Kertész Kolleg
nataliazaletok@gmail.com
Bio
Nataliia Zalietok is the Head of the Department for Archival Studies at the Ukrainian Research Institute of Archival Affairs and Records Keeping (Kyiv, Ukraine). Her studies are mainly dedicated to the investigation of the peculiarities of women’s military service in 20th-21th centuries and research in the field of archival science. She defended her Doctor of Historical Science dissertation at the Institute of History of Ukraine of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (2022). Nataliia was awarded by the Kyiv Mayor for special achievements of youth in the development of the capital of Ukraine - the hero city of Kyiv in the nomination 'Scientific Achievements' (2021).
She is also a winner of the competitions 'Young Scholar of the Year 2022' of the Council of Young Scientists of the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine (nomination ‘History and Archeology’) and ‘The Best Young Scholar of the Academy 2023’ of the Council of Young Scientists of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine (nomination ‘History, Philosophy and Law’). Nataliia was a Northwestern Buffett Virtual Visitor in 2022 (Northwestern University, Buffett Institute, United States) and IU-Ukraine Nonresident Scholar in 2022-2023 (Indiana University Bloomington, United States). Now she is an Imre Kertész Kolleg Fellow (Jena, Germany).
Constructing the Image of Military Women in Ukrainian Digital Media since 2014
The problem of organizing women’s military service is currently one of the most important problems in Ukraine. Although many Ukrainian women have voluntarily chosen a military career, joined the combat units that have been defending Ukraine in the East since 2014, and actively joined the Armed Forces and the Territorial Defence Forces with the outbreak of full-scale war on February 24, 2022, there are many stereotypes about servicewomen that hinder their comfortable service in the army. The Ukrainian government and society often follow the experience of the Soviet era in the treatment of women in the army and the organization of their service. This is reflected in the existence of gender stereotypes, the objectification of female soldiers, harassment, the concealment of their presence on the battlefield, and so on. In this regard, research on the construction of the image of military women in Ukrainian digital media since 2014 is promising not only in terms of value for the development of historiography but may be useful for identifying gender stereotypes towards servicewomen that are constructed, in particular, through the media, as well as for developing recommendations to change public discourse about female soldiers in order to overcome the existing biased attitudes towards them.