Expert meeting: "Voices of War"

This expert meeting seeks to deepen our understanding of individual armed actors—soldiers, conscripts, and volunteers—by examining their personal testimonies and life stories. It addresses the unique challenges of studying these individuals, whose fragmented and subjective narratives often hinder the reconstruction of comprehensive biographies. The event focuses on motivations, influences, and moral conflicts, particularly among those involved in wartime violence.

Researchers at all career stages, journalists, and other interested participants are warmly invited to join this event. It will be held in a hybrid format, with a participation link provided upon invitation by the organizer.

Presentation highlight

The event will begin with a presentation Alyona Bidenko, researcher at the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History in Potsdam, Germany, titled Marching Offbeat: Insights from Interviews with Russian Deserters During the Full-Scale Invasion.

Alyona`s study examines Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine and the large-scale mobilization of military personnel in its wake, which has revived Soviet-era draft evasion strategies alongside the emergence of new ones. Focusing on Russian military deserters, the paper explores their motivations for defying the war and the cultural stigma surrounding desertion, shaped by traditional views of cowardice and betrayal.
Based on in-depth interviews with servicemen who avoided deployment to Ukraine, this research analyzes their pre-war collective identities, along with their perspectives on the war and the Kremlin’s propaganda narratives. In doing so, it addresses the methodological challenges of dealing with potentially unreliable narrators who may employ self-preservation strategies. These challenges are further compounded by
personal subjectivity, the influence of state propaganda, and trauma-induced memory fragmentation, which can obfuscate efforts to reconstruct accurate historical accounts.

Expert meeting objectives

1. Addressing Gaps in Personal Data: Exploring strategies to assemble cohesive biographies by filling in missing aspects of a person’s background, such as youth, family, and education.
2. Diverse Sources and Methods: Discussing the use of letters, diaries, oral histories, trial records, and more, to analyze individual experiences in war, while weighing the strengths and limitations of each.
3. Complex Motivations and Duality: Examining how to interpret the dual roles of individuals, such as violent actors on the front versus caring family members at home, and addressing potential biases in these analyses
4. Navigating Fragmented Archives: Considering strategies to locate and analyze limited records, especially for regular soldiers and volunteers whose testimonies are often scattered across archives.
5. The Role of Digital and Social Media: Investigating how social media shapes self-representation and its implications for studying testimonies, with attention to privacy, accessibility, and the subjective staging of personal experiences. 

Key Questions

• How can fragmented data from diverse sources be synthesized to create well-rounded biographies?

• How do sources like letters, diaries, social media posts, and videos influence the understanding of personal narratives?

• What unique challenges arise when studying the experiences of regular versus volunteer soldiers?

• How do digital platforms and social media add new dimensions to the study of individual wartime testimonies?

Context and Significance

This event serves as a platform for exchanging ideas, refining methodologies, and addressing ethical considerations in studying individuals' lives during warfare. By bridging historical contexts—such as WWI, WWII, and the Vietnam War—with modern conflicts, the meeting highlights how emerging digital technologies, including social media and video platforms, provide fresh insights into personal accounts and testimonies. Ultimately, the goal is to enrich our understanding of the human experience within war and conflict.

Schedule 

2:00 PM – 2:10 PM
Welcome and Introduction

2:10 PM – 2:40 PM
Presentation Alyona Bidenko (Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History) Marching Offbeat: Insights from Interviews with Russian Deserters During the Full-Scale Invasion

2:40 PM – 2:50 PM
Q&A Session

2:50 PM – 3:20 PM
Session: "From Letters to Tweets: The Evolution of Soldier Testimonies"

3:20 PM – 3:30 PM
Break

3:30 PM – 4:00 PM
Round Table Discussion: "Microhistories of War: Personal Accounts from the Battlefield"

4:00 pm – 4:30 pm
Reception

To register, please contact the organizer, Nina Janz, at n.janz@niod.knaw.nl, providing your name, affiliation, and research interests by February 12, 2025.