Iryna Skubii is the inaugural Mykola Zerov Fellow in Ukrainian Studies and the Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne. Dr Skubii is also a researcher with the Ukrainian History Global Initiative, where her work focuses on the social history of the 1932–1933 famine, the Holodomor.

She earned a PhD in History from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, and a Candidate of Science Degree in History from V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University (Ukraine). She has taught in Ukraine and Canada and held visiting research positions in Germany, Poland, Austria, and Canada. Her research examines the history of consumption, materialities, and human–environmental relationships during the Soviet famines in Ukraine, as well as Soviet social and economic history more broadly, with particular attention to times of crisis.

Her first monograph, Trade in Kharkiv in the Years of NEP: Economy and Everyday Life [Torhivlia v Kharkovi v roky NEPu (1921–1929): ekonomika ta povsiakdennist’] (2017), explored the economy, trade networks, and everyday life in early Soviet Ukraine.

Her doctoral thesis received the 2024 PhD Dissertation Prize at Queen’s University, Kingston, and was a finalist for the 2025 Philippa Hetherington Prize (Australian Historical Association) and the Tallinn Dissertation Prize (European Society for Environmental History). In 2025, she was awarded the American Association for Ukrainian Studies prize for the best article in Ukrainian studies, recognizing her research on food waste and survival practices during the Soviet famines in Ukraine.

Dr Skubii is currently working on two books: one based on her dissertation, Survival Under Extremes: Human, Environmental, and Material Relationships Amidst the Soviet Famines in Ukraine, and another on the history of consumption and material culture in early Soviet Ukraine.

Iryna also writes and speaks widely on famine, food security, the environment, and decolonisation of the Ukrainian and Soviet studies. She frequently comments on Ukraine’s political developments, Russia’s war against Ukraine, and its environmental and societal impacts for ABC News, BBC News, and SBS Ukrainian. Her essays have appeared in Inside Story, The Interpreter, and Griffith Review.

In 2025, I received the American Association of Ukrainian Studies award for the Best Article, ‘Food Waste and Survival in Times of the Soviet Famines in Ukraine,’ published in the Journal of Contemporary History in 2024.

The Prize Committee described the article as:

“[…] an extraordinary piece of interdisciplinary research linking famine studies, waste studies, environmental history, and survival strategies in scrutinizing the complex and rapidly changing relationship(s) to food waste during the three consecutive Soviet famines in Ukraine. The meticulous and empirically rich study of the relationship(s) between humans and food, humans and waste, humans and nature – and between the state and food waste – in times of extreme (state-instigated) famine works as a metaphorical “slap on the face” for the reader. By approaching the Soviet famines through the original prism of food waste, this article sheds new light on the scale of violence, pain and damage incurred upon the people of Ukraine at the time – and the lasting legacies of the survival strategies developed in response (as acknowledged by members of the selection committee when reflecting on the relationship to food waste cultivated in their own families decades later).”

What I work on?

Extremes of Famine Survival in Soviet Ukraine

My recent doctoral project, Survival Under Extremes: Human, Environmental, and Material Relationships Amidst the Soviet Famines in Ukraine (Queen’s University in Kingston, 2024), explored how Ukrainians coped with the devastating Soviet famines of the twentieth century — using survival practices, material valuables, and the environment to survive under extreme conditions. The thesis has been shortlisted for The Philippa Hetherington Prize by the Australian Historical Association (2025) as the best postgraduate thesis in general history (excluding Australian history). I am currently preparing a manuscript based on this research for publication with an academic press.

Early Soviet Ukrainian Consumption and Material Culture

Drawing on nearly a decade of research and numerous publications, this project explores the early decades of Ukrainian Soviet consumption and material culture. I am currently finalising the manuscript for publication with a Ukrainian academic press.

For publications on this project, see my Google Scholar or Academia.edu profiles.

The Environmental History of the Sunflower and Monocultures

My most recent project traces the sunflower’s journey from an unfamiliar plant on Ukrainian soil to a dominant monoculture and a powerful postcolonial symbol. It is a story of land, agriculture, food, and meaning — deeply rooted in Ukraine, yet resonating globally.

In October 2024, I gave the inaugural Mykola Zerov lecture at the University of Melbourne titled “The Tale of the Sunflower and Its Travels in Ukraine.”

In September 2025, I will give a public lecture “From an Exotic Plant to a Symbol of Modern Culture: A Brief History of the Sunflower in Ukraine” at the Centre of Urban History of Eastern Europe (Lviv, Ukraine).

Oral History of the Ukrainian Community in Australia Through the Memory of the Descendants