Jews and Ukrainians: An Entangled History
Tuition: $480 | YIVO members: $375**
Students: $240 (Must register with valid university email address)
Registration for this class is closed.
This is a live, online seminar held weekly on Zoom. Enrollment will be capped at about 15 students. All course details (Zoom link, syllabus, handouts, etc.) will be posted to Canvas. Students will be granted access to the class on Canvas after registering for the class here on the YIVO website. This class will be conducted in English.
Instructor: Kathryn David
Course Description:
Russia's invasion of Ukraine has led to a renewed interest in the complex and rich history of this region. The region of present-day Ukraine is one that many Jews can trace their heritage back to, but also a region associated with violence, tragedy, and antisemitism. But is this the whole story? A closer look at the history of Jews and their Ukrainian neighbors reveals a more complicated tale. Beyond these critical moments of violence and antisemitism, there have also been moments of solidarity, tolerance, and cultural exchange. As this war has shown, Jews who live in today’s Ukraine feel an overwhelming sense of patriotism to their country as full members of Ukrainian society, a society that happens to be led by a President with Jewish heritage.
In this course, students will explore the history of Jews and Ukrainians in the 19th and 20th centuries, focusing on the moments when Jewish history and Ukrainian history became entangled and intertwined. The course will introduce students to new topics and provide original and overlooked perspectives on familiar ones. Relying exclusively on primary and literary sources from Jewish and Ukrainian authors, the course will explore topics including Jewish and Ukrainian encounters in the shtetl, Jewish life under the short-lived Ukrainian independent state in 1918, the world of the Jewish and Ukrainian revolutionaries who forged the Soviet Union, Jewish and Ukrainian tragedies under Stalin, untold stories about the Holocaust in Ukraine, and the life of Ukraine’s Jewish community in today’s wartime Ukraine.
Who should take this course?
This class is open to anyone interested in the topic as outlined in the course description. The class discussion will be conducted in English, and all course materials will be read in English or in English translation. No previous background knowledge or specific education level is required.
Course Materials:
The instructor will provide all course materials digitally throughout the class on Canvas.
Kathryn David received her PhD in history from New York University. Her research examines questions of religious and national belonging in Ukraine and how these questions have been shaped by Ukraine's entangled and complex relationship with imperial Russia and later the Soviet Union. From 2012-2013, Kathryn lived and conducted research as a Fulbright scholar in Odesa, Ukraine. As a graduate student from 2014-2020, Kathryn continued to travel to Ukraine and Russia to conduct original archival research, spending time in L'viv, Kyiv, and Moscow as a recipient of a Title VIII grant from the U.S. Department of State and as a Cohen-Tucker Dissertation Research Fellow through the American Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies (ASEEES). From 2020-2022 she served as the Mellon Assistant Professor of Russian and East European Studies at Vanderbilt University.
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