Am Planetarium 7
phone: +49 3641 944082
e-mail: Lada28@ucu.edu.ua
The project reimagines Jewish cultural life in the Eastern Carpathians during the 19th and 20th centuries. The project explores how the liminal space of the mountains fostered the everyday coexistence of Jews and Gentiles. Examples of Carpathian villages where Jews and Christians lived in close proximity offer a complex picture of coexistence that is neither separate nor antagonistic, nor entirely idyllic. A deep study of these relationships will help develop a new model of relations within a peasant Carpathian community that is distinct from the urban model. Many Jewish writers and intellectuals came from the Carpathian area, including the writer Ber Horowitz (1895–1941), the ethnologist and YIVO member Jochaim Chajes (1902–?), and the writer and politician Reuven Fahn (1878–1939). They displayed a deep knowledge of the Ukrainian language and culture and formed political alliances with Ukrainians, though dominant direction for Galician Jews was Polish.
The hierarchical relationships between different cultures, embedded in the original concept of hybridity, became complicated in the case of rural Jews. On the one hand, their economic position in the villages was one of power; they were often perceived as similar to the local nobility. On the other hand, in the religious worldview, they were considered inferior to Christians. This religious hierarchy was always present, as evidenced by jokes and examples that attempt to transcend it. Though the presence of Jews in villages was heavily politicized, careful critical reading of the sources helps identify situations which open the new interpretations of one of the region’s Jewish cultures, fostering better understanding of its complex dynamics.
Jewish history
Researcher of Center for Urban History of East-Central Europe, Lviv
Associate professor at Department of History at Ukrainian Catholic University
Director of Jewish Studies Program at Ukrainian Catholic University
Member of Executive Committee at European Association for Jewish Studies
Vladyslava Moskalets, ‘Jenseits der Universität: Erforschung und Gedenken des Holocaust inmitten des Kriegs in der Ukraine‘ in »Hijacking Memory« – Zur Instrumentalisierung des Holocaust durch die Neue Rechte edited by Susan Neumann. (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2026), 351-361.
Vladyslava Moskalets, ‘Unit 6 Nationalizing the Landscape – Ukraine as a Migration Nexus.’ In Ukraine as a Migration Nexus Subtitle: Perspectives on Historical and Current Population Movements Edited by Oleksii Chebotarov, Viktoriya Sereda (CEU Press, 2025).
Vladyslava Moskalets, ‘The Roads of Baal Shem Tov: Reimagining the Carpathians as a Jewish Space in the 20th Century’. Euxeinos no 14 (36) (2024): 76–94.
Review of Mirja Lecke and Efraim Sicher eds. Cosmopolitan Spaces in Odesa: A Case Study of an Urban Context, in Ab Imperio 2024, no. 1 (2024): 215-219.
Vladyslava Moskalets, ‘Jews in Habsburg Galicia: Challenges of Modernity‘ in Ukraine’s Many Faces: Land, People, and Culture Revisited edited by Palko, Olena and Férez Gil, Manuel (Bielefeld: transcript Verlag, 2023). 91-100
Vladyslava Moskalets, Ukrainischer Jude. Eine Geschichte, Die Eigentlich Nicht Hätte Passieren Können in Die Ukraine in Europa: Traum und Trauma einer Nation edited by Davies, Franziska (Wbg Theiss in Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 2023), 248-261.
Vladyslava Moskalets, ‘How to Teach about Ukraine during the War: Notes in the Syllabus Margins‘ in Ab Imperio, no. 1 (2023): 234-242.
Vladyslava Moskalets, ‘Looking for Yiddishland: Galicia in the Interwar Yiddish Travelogues‘ in Jews and Slavs vol. 27, Jewish-Slavic Cultural Horizons: Essays on Jewish History and Art in Slavic Lands edited by Wolf Moskowitz and Sergei Kravtsov (Jerusalem-Ljubljana, 2022), 439-452.
Vladyslava Moskalets, ‘The Importance of Connections: The Rise of Jewish Business Elites in Galicia‘ in Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte, Volume 60, Issue 2 (2022), 473–496.
Vladyslava Moskalets, Review article “History as a Story without an End”. Review on "Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz", Ab Imperio, vol. 2 (2019): 115-122.