Papers by Vladyslava Moskalets
Euxeinos 14 (36), 2024
This article examines the Jewish imagination of the Carpathians in 20thcentury literature. Non-Je... more This article examines the Jewish imagination of the Carpathians in 20thcentury literature. Non-Jewish observers who discovered the Carpathians at this time typically saw the Jews as an alien symbol of urban civilization that disturbed the authenticity of mountain life. The article analyzes essays from various Jewish intellectuals, whose aim was to rediscover the Carpathians as a Jewish space through the figure of the Hasidic leader Baal Shem Tov, who lived in the area during the 18 th century. By connecting his life with the mountain landscape, they created a Jewish figure embedded in nature and not alienated from it.
"Komparatistische Forschungen zu österreichisch-ukrainischen Literatur-, Sprach- und Kulturbeziehungen. Band 11. , 2024
Стаття аналізує форму і тематику основної єврейської газети Дрогобича „Drohobyczer Zeitung”, яка ... more Стаття аналізує форму і тематику основної єврейської газети Дрогобича „Drohobyczer Zeitung”, яка виходила в 1883-1913 роках під редакцією Арона Зупніка. Газета була прикладом пізнього вияву єврейського просвітництва – Гаскали у Галичині, що виявилося, зокрема, у мовному форматі газети – німецька мова написана івритськими літерами. Стаття розглядає газету як продукт, що відображав погляди та інтереси середовища єврейських нафтових підприємців Дрогобича і Борислава, зокрема їхнє уявлення про свою роль у єврейському просвітництві та економічній модернізації євреїв Галичини. Значення газети, редактор якої був пов’язаний з міжнародними єврейськими організаціями у Відні та Парижі, виходить за рамки місцевого видання і дозволяє зрозуміти важливий етап у становленні галицького єврейства.
Ukraine's Many Faces Land, People, and Culture Revisited, 2023
The 19th century was a period of crucial transformations for Polish Jews. During this century, th... more The 19th century was a period of crucial transformations for Polish Jews. During this century, these communities entered an era of secularization, encountered economic modernization, and appropriated modern ideologies, such as nationalism and socialism. At the end of the 18th century, the Jews of the former Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth were divided between the Russian and Austro-Hungarian empires, following of the partitions of Poland, with the majority living in the Ukrainian provinces of the Russian Empire. In 1772, following the first partition, the Habsburg Monarchy established a new province on its northeastern border and named it the Kingdom of Galicia and Lodomeria, alluding to the medieval Ruthenian state which had previously existed on those territories. Three main ethnic groupings dominated the population of Galicia: Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews, who also constituted the three main religious groups, namely, Greek Catholics, Roman Catholics, and those adherents of the Judaism. The territory also included various smaller minority communities, such as Germans, Armenians, Hungarians, and Romani. According to some estimates the Jewish population in 1772 was between 150.000 and 200.000, constituting 6-7% of the general population. Despite representing the smallest of the main groups, the number of Jews residing in this area of the Habsburg Monarchy was already unprecedented, and continued to grow during the next century. In 1849, the Jewish population of Galicia had more than doubled, rising to approximately 328.000, or 6.7 per cent of the populace. Later in the century, this had reached 11.7 per cent. In both empires, Jews mainly lived in the cities, though there were attempts to promote Jewish agricultural settlements, while smaller Jewish communities continued to perform some essential intermediary functions in the villages. Differences between these two empires made Jewish experiences in each unique. Political participation, opportunities for integration, censorship, and exposure to state and localized violence manifested in different ways.
How to Teach about Ukraine during the War: Notes in the Syllabus Margins
Ab Imperio, 2023
Vladyslava Moskalets shares her experience of teaching Ukrainian history at the University of Ill... more Vladyslava Moskalets shares her experience of teaching Ukrainian history at the University of Illinois Chicago during Russia's aggression. She notes the fundamental difference between students in Ukraine and students in America, who take a class in Ukrainian history having little to no prior knowledge about the country. So, whereas in Ukraine, critically thinking university lecturers concentrate on deconstructing the simplified national historical narrative that has been interiorized by students in secondary school, in American classrooms professors have to offer a coherent historical narrative that includes advanced methodological considerations. Another challenge is the dearth of reading materials. The available collections of primary sources translated into English are Russo-centric both in terms of document selection and the translation of key terms and concepts. Moskalets identifies the task of translating Ukrainian primary sources into English as part of "syllabus decolonization" and offers a sample selection of primary sources for the teaching module on the history of migrations at the turn of the twentieth century.
Ukrainian-language Books Published in 2018–2021
East European Jewish Affairs, 2022
Jewish Lviv: History of the Community in the Space of the City
Lviv Interactive, 2022
https://lia.lvivcenter.org/en/themes/jewish-city/
This text is an attempt to look at Lviv thro... more https://lia.lvivcenter.org/en/themes/jewish-city/
This text is an attempt to look at Lviv through the prism of its Jewish history and to understand how the Jewish community and the city space mutually influenced each other.
In the history of the Jewish community, there has been a search for a balance between autonomy and inclusion in the political, economic, and cultural structures of the non-Jewish city. Over the centuries, this balance and the boundaries of possible integration expanded, and the Jewish community became a more complex and heterogeneous entity. The text examines these changes in various areas — the place of Jews in the city, relations with the authorities, religious transformations, education, and also tries to show the social structure of the Jewish community and its place. An integral part of the history of the Jews of Lviv is violence, which occurred on various scales throughout history and culminated in the almost complete extermination of the community during the Holocaust. The memory of the ancient Jewish community among the modern Jewish and non-Jewish residents of the city is a separate important topic.
The story is built around an interactive map of the city as part of the Interactive Lviv project. Reading the text is a kind of guide and an invitation to further study the map
Descubriendo Ucrania Su pueblo, su historia y su cultura, 2022
Exploration of the oil resources at the middle of 19th century stimulated development of Drohobyc... more Exploration of the oil resources at the middle of 19th century stimulated development of Drohobych and Boryslav, previously small and not influential Galician towns. Jewish entrepreneurs were active in different spheres of oil and wax extracting business during the 1860-1880. At that time Jewish entrepreneurs and people related to them formed network, connected by business and marriage relations. The group of middle-size and large entrepreneurs became influential as in economical as well in the political and social life of the city. The reconstruction of this network and analysis of it's activity will help to understand Jewish modernization processes, transformations of Jewish elites, role of common family, religious and ethnic ties in Jewish economic life and hierarchy of priorities of these ties. The case of Jewish communities of Boryslav and Drohobych challenges traditional vision of Galician Jewry as backward and deeply traditional, showing how industrialization of the citie...
Author analyses philanthropic activity of the Jewish community in Drohobych and Boryslaw, focusin... more Author analyses philanthropic activity of the Jewish community in Drohobych and Boryslaw, focusing on entrepreneurs in the second half of the XIXth century. The article aims to demonstrate charitative strategies and directions of the activity both of organizations and private philanthropists. Another point is to understand the role of Western European organizations in change of these strategies.
«Штучна краса»: використання косметики в Галичині на початку ХХ століття
У статті проаналізовано поширення практики макіяжу у 1920-х роках у Галичин на прикладі жіночої п... more У статті проаналізовано поширення практики макіяжу у 1920-х роках у Галичин на прикладі жіночої пресиі. Визначено основні причини та шляхи популяризації звички і з’ясовано норми вживання косметики та її ролі у модернізації жінок.
Jews and Slavs, Volume 27, 2022
Since the end of the eighteenth century, writers, philosophers, and politicians of various ethnic... more Since the end of the eighteenth century, writers, philosophers, and politicians of various ethnic and social backgrounds discovered and rediscovered Austrian Galicia. After Galicia officially ceased to exist in the interwar period, it remained important both for those who longed for an Austrian Empire and those who tried to envision the future of the new Polish state. It remained a distinct region in the public consciousness, somehow exotic and in- triguing. Historian Larry Wolff called this moment “Galicia after Galicia” and focused his research on the texts written in German. At the same time, there appeared Yiddish literary works, which dealt with the concept of Galicia and the distinctiveness of its Jewry. One of the first authors who started the Yiddish genre of “Galician” travelogues was S. An-sky with his book “1915 Diary.” In the 1920s, Jewish writers and journalists, such as Yoel Mastboym, Chone Gottesfeld, Leibush Draikurs, Nachman Meisel, and Israel Joshua Sing- er, traveled to Galicia. They wrote Yiddish reportages for major newspapers, such as Der Moment, Literarishe Bleter, and Forverts. They were looking for “traditional Jewish life,” inspired by Hasidic culture, whereas becoming disappointed with the most evident misery, everyday struggle, and neglect of Jewish material culture. The destruction of Yiddish life is the motive that repeats in the texts. These authors, often non-Galicians in their origins, have observed distinct Jewish communities, including Hasidim, Jewish workers, Jewish peasants, late adherents of the Frankist movement, and broken Jewish nobility. Unlike such German writers as Joseph Roth or Alfred Doeblin, Polish Yiddishists considered the region an ethnographic curiosity and a possibility to use their activism for an organization of Galician Jewish life. They criticized Germanized version of local Jewish culture but saw promise in the new generation of Jewish people interested in Yiddish theatre or literature. Some local Galician writers, such as Leibush Draykurs, shared this approach as well.
History as a Story without an End
Ab Imperio, 2019
Vladyslava Moskalets reads Omer Bartov’s Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Call... more Vladyslava Moskalets reads Omer Bartov’s Anatomy of a Genocide: The Life and Death of a Town Called Buczacz (New York, 2018) from her perspective as a social historian of Galicia. She commends the author for returning agency to historical actors but questions his nondiscriminating and generalizing approach to constructing social groups. Moskalets believes that the book is more a longue durée synthesis than an “anatomy” of the complex society of Buczacz. Although it describes the actions of the homogenized “neighbors,” the book avoids explaining them.
The Importance of Connections: The Rise of Jewish Business Elites in Galicia
Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte , 2019
The article explores relations within the milieu of Jewish elites involved in the oil industry of... more The article explores relations within the milieu of Jewish elites involved in the oil industry of two towns in Eastern Galicia-Drohobych and Bo-ryslav-in the second half of 19th century. The oil industry, one of the unique examples of early industrialization in Galicia, attracted numerous Jewish participants , especially in the initial stages. They became workers, overseers and entrepreneurs, less or more successful. The Jewish communities of both cities were socially and culturally diverse. This article examines the formation and structure of Jewish economic elites, arguing that kin relations and connections with elites in a non-Jewish environment helped a group of oil entrepreneurs to distinguish themselves from others and sustain business. Though 19th-century industry in Galicia inspired writers with the idea of the oil magnate gaining wealth overnight, the formation of Jewish elites in Drohobych and Boryslav was a long process, which required the ability to connect with different networks. JEL-Code: N 8
Galizien in Bewegung: Wahrnehmungen–Begegnungen–Verflechtungen Magdalena Baran-Szołtys (Hg.), Olena Dvoretska (Hg.), Nino Gude (Hg.), Elisabeth Janik-Freis (Hg.), 2018
During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Galician oil industry became an important p... more During the second half of the nineteenth century, the Galician oil industry became an important part of Austrian economics and the object of rapid change. The industrializa- tion of the region caused different changes in social life, among them, the formation of new Jewish elites who dominated the business in its first stages. The other result was the emergence of Jewish workers. The situation attracted the attention of numerous observers who perceived and used its Jewish character in their own way. Mining inspectors con- demned the Jewish industry as backward but Polish economists, Jewish Western philan- thropists and Viennese Zionists tried to find in the Boryslav example possibilities for overcoming the “unproductiveness” of the Jews. Socialist observers did not share this optimistic approach to the Galician oil industry, but regarded it as a double oppression for the Jewish workers, for both class and ethnic reasons. An analysis of this case will elucidate how the true example of the Jews participating in this new economic branch was influ- encing conceptions and the creation of the image of Galician Jewry.
Abstract: This article analyzes the rescue campaign of unemployed Jewish workers in 1898-1899 in ... more Abstract: This article analyzes the rescue campaign of unemployed Jewish workers in 1898-1899 in the Galician oil industrial area. The professionalization of the oil industry and reforms, connected with new safety requirements in the last decades of the 19 th century, led to mass unemployment of unskilled, mainly Jewish workers. The catastrophe of the workers aroused the attention of prominent Vienna political leaders, including Theodore Herzl and Saul Raphael Landau. An analysis of the information campaign in the Galician and Vienna Jewish press shows how its leaders , mainly Vienna philanthropists and intellectuals, used the case of Boryslav's Jewish workers to support socialist or Zionist theories about the Eastern European Jewry. At the same time, the campaign exposed a lack of understanding of the local Galician context and the inability of local elites to react adequately, which led to utopian and non-effective aid projects. At the Second Zionist Congress in Basel in 1898, the head of the Zionist movement Theodore Herzl spoke as the representative of unemployed Jewish workers in Boryslav. The catastrophic situation of a few thousand workers, who had lost the possibility of finding a job, attracted the attention of various philanthropists and activists from numerous Jewish organizations. In particular, the situation of the Jewish workers allowed Zionist organizations to demonstrate the capabilities of the movement and try to bring its ideas to life. This article attempts to show how a wide range of newspapers and philanthropists assigned identities to the workers, constructed on the basis of new ideologies, and to demonstrate the balance between the national and social variants of the rescue campaign, based on the example of attitudes toward the workers. 1 The problem of the unemployed workers of Boryslav has previously been a matter of interest for research on the socioeconomic history of the oil region, for example in Yaroslav Hrytsak's doctorate (1986) and Alison Fleig Frank's Oil Empire (2005). The German researcher Teresa Andlauer (2001) was one of the first to try to explore the issue from an ethnic perspective. Robert Wistrich (2007) wrote about the connection of Zionism in its early stages with socialism and about the relations between Saul Raphael Landau and Theodore Herzl, which is related to the issue of workers in Bo
У статті розглядається історія створення, структура та тематика єврейської газети в Дрогобичі ... more У статті розглядається історія створення, структура та тематика єврейської газети в Дрогобичі “Дрогобичер Цайтунг”. Проаналізовано роль газети, як економічного вісника, зокрема в контексті інших місцевих видань. Особливу увагу приділено спробам переосмислення ролі євреїв у економіці Галичині та пошукам шляхів реформи через професіоналізацію освіти і раціональне підприємництво.
У статті проаналізовані конфлікти другої половини ХІХ століття в нафтовій індустрії Борислава та ... more У статті проаналізовані конфлікти другої половини ХІХ століття в нафтовій індустрії Борислава та Дрогобича та з'ясовується як їх дослідження може продемонструвати динамічні зміни та кризи в промисловості. Як і робітничі конфлікти, так суперечки між єврейськими підприємцями виявляють схожі тенденції до конкуренції між місцевим, „галицьким” та „західним” бізнесом.
Teaching Documents by Vladyslava Moskalets
Ukraine as a Migration Nexus Subtitle:Perspectives on Historical and Current Population Movements (Beta Version). Ed. by Chebotarov, Oleksii, Sereda, Viktoriya, 2025
This project examines Ukraine as a central hub in global migration and mobility, offering critica... more This project examines Ukraine as a central hub in global migration and mobility, offering critical perspectives on both historical and contemporary population movements. The volume brings together case studies focused on the migration dynamics within Ukraine and its surrounding territories, integrating these with broader global migration processes. The authors critically engage with migration studies methodologies, offering fresh, empirical insights into issues like displacement, migration governance, and identity formation in the context of Ukraine's socio-political landscape. By combining historical narratives with modern theoretical approaches, the book explores how migration has shaped and continues to shape, the region’s cultural, political, and social fabric. It provides an innovative contribution to migration research, highlighting the intersection of mobility, belonging, and political contexts, particularly within East Central Europe. This collection challenges traditional migration frameworks and invites a reevaluation of established migration paradigms through the lens of Ukrainian lands.
This unit is part of the thematic cluster Contested Belonging: Mobility, Nationhood, and Representation examining the interplay between movement and return, as well as visual representations of migration. Welcome to the second unit of this module, where we explore tourism as a form of non-migratory mobility and its significance within the nationalizing state.
The aim of this seminar is to explore the history and memory of Galicia - a truly multicultural r... more The aim of this seminar is to explore the history and memory of Galicia - a truly multicultural region in East Central Europe. Although artificially created by the Habsburg partition of Poland in 1772, Galicia has become an important reference point for different groups of people within and outside the region, and continues to inspire shared views of East Central Europe as a whole. In the first part of the semester, we will study the history of Galicia during the long 19th century: starting from the late 18th century, when Galicia became part of the Habsburg Empire, we will look at the main processes that shaped the political, economic and sociocultural history of this province until 1918. In the second part of the term, we will look at what Galicia meant to whom and why, across time and space, with a particular focus on Austrian, Jewish, Polish and Ukrainian memories. The range of topics covered in this seminar includes: class, collective imagination, heritage, migration, political mobilisation, public space, religion, violence and urban history.
The teaching module with primary sources: The Great Migration of the 19th and early 20th Centuries: The Personal Experience of Eastern European Migrants in Folklore and Memories
Reesources - Rethinking Eastern Europe, 2023
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Papers by Vladyslava Moskalets
This text is an attempt to look at Lviv through the prism of its Jewish history and to understand how the Jewish community and the city space mutually influenced each other.
In the history of the Jewish community, there has been a search for a balance between autonomy and inclusion in the political, economic, and cultural structures of the non-Jewish city. Over the centuries, this balance and the boundaries of possible integration expanded, and the Jewish community became a more complex and heterogeneous entity. The text examines these changes in various areas — the place of Jews in the city, relations with the authorities, religious transformations, education, and also tries to show the social structure of the Jewish community and its place. An integral part of the history of the Jews of Lviv is violence, which occurred on various scales throughout history and culminated in the almost complete extermination of the community during the Holocaust. The memory of the ancient Jewish community among the modern Jewish and non-Jewish residents of the city is a separate important topic.
The story is built around an interactive map of the city as part of the Interactive Lviv project. Reading the text is a kind of guide and an invitation to further study the map
Teaching Documents by Vladyslava Moskalets
This unit is part of the thematic cluster Contested Belonging: Mobility, Nationhood, and Representation examining the interplay between movement and return, as well as visual representations of migration. Welcome to the second unit of this module, where we explore tourism as a form of non-migratory mobility and its significance within the nationalizing state.
Teaching module consisting of annotated Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish primary sources testifying to the Great Migration at the turn of the century. The sources include autobiographical writings (ego-documents), newspaper publications, letters, and visual materials. Although the sources were created in the environments of the respective diasporas, common motifs, themes, and contexts of creation make it possible to consider texts in different languages together.