BEER, TOBACCO AND ALCOHOL IN THE LIFE OF UKRAINIAN EMIGRATION IN INTERWAR CZECHOSLOVAKIA (1921–1939)

Abstract

This article contains information about the harmful habits that were characteristic of the Ukrainian anti- Bolshevik emigration community in interwar Czechoslovakia –smoking and drinking. Note that drunkenness also includes the so-called “light alcohol” - beer. Consideration of these harmful habits of Ukrainian emigration is carried out through the prism of everyday history, because it is the everyday perspective that allows us to “humanize” the image of the Ukrainian emigrant-hero, who on the one hand was the initiator of social change, and on the other – the hostage of historical events.

Historical-anthropological approach – strictly criticism of the source base: archives, reminiscences, memoirs, diaries.

Emphasis is placed on the fact that the interwar period coincided with the so-called period of Interbe- lum – the time of innovation in technology; the period when, for the first time in human history, everyday life really improved. Thanks to “Ruská pomocná akcia” the emigrants had a more or less confident financial position for eight years, it was clear why Ukrainian fugitives adopted the negative with the positive.

There were subjective reasons for acquiring the negative too: age, advertising, the search for optimal options for social-labor adaptation, the desire to try all the pleasures of life, the crisis of self-identification.

Keywords: Ukrainian emigration, interwar Czechoslovakia, everyday life, harmful habits, tobacco, vodka, beer.