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Essays Remembering Vilcha A twice abandoned villa
This essay examines the fate of Vilcha, a village that was forcibly abandoned twice within a single generation. Originally located in Polissia, the village was evacuated after the Chornobyl disaster. Its inhabitants were resettled to a newly built village in the Kharkiv region. This second village of Vilcha was occupied and subsequently destroyed during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Based on three waves of oral interviews conducted between 2016 and 2025, this essay explores the experiences of forced displacement, memory, and loss. Vilcha emerges as a poignant example of repeated forced migration caused by both technological disaster and war.
Published in the printed edition of Baltic Worlds BW 2026:1, pp 32-36
Published on balticworlds.com on April 23, 2026
abstract
This essay examines the fate of Vilcha, a village that was forcibly abandoned twice within a single generation. Originally located in Polissia, the village was evacuated after the Chornobyl disaster. Its inhabitants were resettled to a newly built village in the Kharkiv region. This second village of Vilcha was occupied and subsequently destroyed during the Russian-Ukrainian war. Based on three waves of oral interviews conducted between 2016 and 2025, this essay explores the experiences of forced displacement, memory, and loss. Vilcha emerges as a poignant example of repeated forced migration caused by both technological disaster and war.
KEYWORDS: Vilcha, forced displacement, repeated resettlement, Chornobyl disaster, Russian-Ukrainian War, oral history, memory.
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