In July 1989 coal miners throughout the Soviet Union engaged in a massive strike that briefly captured world headlines and inaugurated a movement of strike committees that persisted across the Soviet/post-Soviet divide. In this collection of interviews and essays based on encounters over a three-year period, the voices of industrial workers and their families in the eastern Ukrainian city of Donetsk, the coal capital of the Donbass, are heard. The stories collected here allow Western readers to "hear" these people describe their struggles for survival and identity in conditions of economic, political and social disintegration/transformation; and to analyze their testimonies and other kinds of texts in terms of changing meanings of work, gender, and national identity. Included are an examination of the "older generation" that came of age during the Stalin era; an analysis of the miners' movement and the trade union politics that emerged out of the strike of 1989; and a focus on the social crises and cultural disorientations accompanying Ukrainian independence.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Maps Chronology The Kuibyshev Raion A Note on the Organizational Structure of Ex-Soviet Mines Introduction Part One Worker Stories: The Older Generation, 1989 Introduction to Part One 1. Narsis Melikian, Retired Mining Engineer 2. Ivan and Gennady Kushch, a Miner's Dynasty 3. Marfa Ivanovna Limonets, Retired Mineworker and Her Daughter, Olga Nikolaevna Bondarenko 4. Viktor Mikhailovich Ignatov, Retired Steelworker 5. Evgenia Feodorovna Zilova, Retired Steelworks Employee 6. Vladimir Feodorovich Pogorelov, Miner-electrician 7. Feodor Skripai, Retired Miner Part Two Labor Politics, 1989-1992 Introduction to Part Two Survival Strategies: The Miners of Donetsk in the Post-Soviet Era Stephen F. Crowley and Lewis H. Siegelbaum I. August 1989 8. Valery Vladimirovich Samofalov, Chair, Strike Committee, Kuibyshev Mine, August 2, 1989 9. Kuibyshev Mine Trade Union Conference, August 5, 1989 II. May 1991 10. Discussion—Kuibyshev Mine Leaders Gennady Kushch, Chair, Council of Labor Collectives, Kuibyshev Mine Valery Samofalov, Vice-Chair, Council of Labor Collectives, Kuibyshev Mine Gila Tengizovich Alizaev, Director, Kuibyshev Mine 11. Discussion—City Strike Committee: Nikolai Volynko, Member, Yuri Leonidovich Makarov, Co-Chair, Mikhail Krylov, Co-Chair III. June-July 1992 12. Discussion—SNOP Delegates Yuri Timofeevich Pivovarov, Chair, Donetsk Regional Federation of "Solidarity" Trade Unions of Ukraine Olga Pavlovna Samofalova, Chair, Independent Trade Union of Textile Workers of Donetsk Cotton Mill Sergei Gurovich Ignatov, Chair, Trade Union of Police and Judicial Personnel Sergei Ivanovich Sobchakov, Chair, Union of Aviation Controllers in Donetsk 13. Evgenii Grigorevich Belous, Chair, Kuibyshev Mine Trade Union Committee 14. Giia Alizaev, Director, Kuibyshev Mine 15. Valery Samofalov, Miner, Kuibyshev Mine 16. Yuri Makarov, Co-Chair, Donetsk City Strike Committee 17. Mikhail Krylov, Co-Chair, Donetsk City Strike Committee Part Three Survival and Identity, 1992 Introduction to Part Three "Normal Life": The Crisis of Identity Among Donetsk's Miners Daniel J. Walkowitz 18. The Kushch Family Gennady, Driver, Kuibyshev Mine Nadezhda, Housing Administrator, Kuibyshev Mine Marina, Nadezhda's Daughter Liudmilla (Gennady's ex-wife), Clerk, State Hardware Store Ivan, Mechanic at Kuibyshev Mine and Pensioner 19. The Samofalov Family Valery, Miner, Kuibyshev Mine Tatiana, Laboratory Assistant, Chemical Reactive Plant Svetlana Zaguliaova, Their Married Daughter 20. The Mezhinskii Family Vera Aleksandrovna, Packer, Chemical Reactive Plant Aleksandr, Miner, October Mine 21. The Zadorozhnyi Family Viktor Andreevich, Accountant, Doka-TV; Former Komsomol Organizer, October Mine Irina, Bank Economist on Maternity Leave 22. Vladislav Nikolskii, A New Entrepreneur, Director, Intertour Travel Agency 23. The Varevoda Family: Intellectual Workers Yuri, Mining Engineer Svetlana, Physicist at the City Planetarium Viktor Yatsenko, Their Son-in-law, A Physicist Aleksandr Yatsenko, Viktor's Father, A Professor Vera, Svetlana's Mother, A Pensioner Index