New Eastern Europe journal's review of The Pages of Jewish History of Ukraine

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The recently released book The Pages of Jewish history of Ukraine is an important achievement. Despite the fact that it was written as a textbook for high schools, it is accessible to readers from different backgrounds and gives a comprehensive overview of the 2,000 years of Jewish presence in Ukraine.

In May 2018 the Kyiv city council passed a decision to commemorate the 250th anniversary of Koliyivshchyna – a peasant revolt which spread through right-bank Ukraine in 1768 – 1769 and was a response to the Bar Confederation (a political and military revolt of the Polish nobility against the politics of King Stanisław August Poniatowski, a protégé of Catherine the Great which took place partially on Ukrainian territories resulting in victims among Ukrainian orthodox civilians).

The Koliyivshchyna rebellion could be seen thus as an episode of Ukraine’s religious wars. Rebels committed a series of mass murders targeting Catholics, Greek Catholics and Jews. The revolt saw a large number of civilian casualties, many of whom were brutally suppressed by the Russian Imperial army and assisted by Polish forces. The events of Koliyivshchyna laid the foundations for the poem “Haidamaky” by Taras Shevchenko.

Thus, the author of the proposal to the Kyiv city council – a member of the council representing the nationalist Svoboda party Yuriy Syrotiuk – to celebrate the Koliyivshchyna rebellion stated that the decision to commemorate the “…events of the Koliyivshchyna are a warning to all the enemies of the Ukrainian nation: the invaders, aggressors and Ukrainophobes who encroach upon the aspirations of Ukrainians to live peacefully on their own, God-given land.” The phrase “to live on our own God-given land” is a known slogan of Svoboda.

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The decision of the Kyiv city council was criticised by historians, public figures, members of the Greek Catholic Church and the Association of Jewish Organizations and Communities of Ukraine (VAAD Ukraine). The main point of the criticism was the particular interpretation of history that the city council members supported their decision on. In its official statement, VAAD Ukraine noted that Syrotiuk’s proposal represented a Soviet interpretation of history and emphasised the ethnic view of the unity of the Ukrainian people, noting that Taras Shevchenko, whom Syrotiuk referred to in his comments, saw Koliyivshchyna as a barbaric tragedy. Critics proposed to commemorate KoliyivsMost people currently hchyna with memorial events instead of celebrations.

The events surrounding the commemoration, once holding a political office again, illustrated a well-known fact. Most people in Ukraine still seem currently holding a political office in Ukraine still to have an old Soviet seem to have an old Soviet way of thinking when it way of thinking when comes to history. In this Marxist-communist scheme, it comes to history. Ukrainians have been struggling since the “beginning of time” under all kinds of foreign and domestic oppression, and only managed to liberate themselves after Ukraine became a part of the Soviet Union. This way of representing Ukraine’s history resonates quite often with the public, as Ukraine, being a young state, has long been under the influence of more powerful, neighbouring states. And, moreover, Ukraine’s history is rich in revolts, military operations and wars. This way of looking at history is also reinforced by current events as Ukraine continues to fight against Russian aggression in Donbas and the Crimean peninsula that continues to be occupied by Russia. At the same time, this simplified version removes all the nuances and more noticeable facts of the multifaceted history of Ukraine. In circumstances like this, the books which look at the multifaceted nature of Ukraine’s history are more than welcome.

In this context the recently released textbook, The Pages of Jewish history of Ukraine is an important achievement for the young authors Natalia Ryndiuk and Tetiana Borodina and their publisher Dukh i Litera. It is accessible to readers of different backgrounds and it gives an overview of the two thousand years of Jewish presence in Ukraine. According to Leonid Finberg, one of the reviewers and confessed mastermind behind the publication, the idea to write the book arose when he was approached by a teacher of the Jewish school in Kyiv who was hoping to get him interested in publishing a Ukrainian translation of one of the existing titles on the history of Jews in Central and Eastern Europe. Instead of publishing the book which dedicated only some attention to Ukraine, Dukh i Litera decided to com-

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mission a volume to local authors. Ryndiuk and Borodina are both connected with the Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry at the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy and are thus qualified to examine Jewish history of Ukraine.

The publication includes a rich selection of photographs, maps, cartoons and a reproduction of historical documents. From the perspective of a reader whose knowledge of Ukraine’s Jewish history is not very deep, the book provides a short glossary of terms as well as a good recommended reading list for those who might want to dive a bit deeper. The majority of the included titles are books published in Ukrainian and Russian (including translations of titles originally published in other languages). The selected bibliography is specifically for Ukrainian readers and takes possible language and title accessibility into account. A glance at the recommended reading list shows that the authors have not omitted any controversial or tragic pages from the common history of Ukrainians and Jews.

3UHVHQWLQJ KLVWRU\ Even though the book is formatted as a textbook for high schools, Finberg hopes it finds readers beyond high school students. And this may be the case. The material is presented in a simple and clear manner while the book’s volume is not too long or overwhelming. The publication presents, in a concise form, the elements of Jewish history of Ukraine that a person interested in history of the region may be mostly aware from different sources. The authors also provide details on the cultural and social life of Jews in Soviet times before the Second World War. However, the material presentation seems to be a bit over-simplistic. The authors followed a simple outline of events in a chronological order. History textbooks in Ukraine traditionally present material this way. While covering the end of the 17th century onwards, the book addresses events in parts of Ukrainian territory which belonged to different states at that time. Thus The Pages of Jewish History of Ukraine maintains the old style of presenting history.

Due to the nature of The Pages of Jewish History of Ukraine, it might not be as appealing to readers as another publication with a similar idea behind it – Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence by Paul Robert Magocsi and Yohanan Petrovsky-Stern whose Ukrainian translation was published in 2017. This book also provides an easy to follow and concise history of Jews and Ukrainians. Jews and Ukrainians also provides a chronological overview of the history of Ukraine, presenting the situation of Ukrainians and Jews in different periods of history and respecting the geographical area (covering the territories which belonged to different states at a given period). In addition to this, the book presents chapters which

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cover specifically different aspects of the two groups: economics, music, traditions, religion, etc. In fact, The pages of Jewish history of Ukraine recommend Jews and Ukrainians in its bibliography list.

*RLQJ HYHQ IXUWKHU It is after reading both titles that the ideas inspired by such publications spring into the reader’s mind. If a faithful reader of Dukh i Litera books could make a respectful request to the publisher, she would suggest that future editions of the book be supplemented with materials that could contribute to the creation of a 3D image of sorts. The additional “story boxes” in Jews and Ukrainians provide a look into such aspects of Jewish life in Ukraine as the mutual influence of the Yiddish and Ukrainian languages, the differences between the everyday life of Jews and their neighbours, etc. Yet, in addition, such elements – like the excerpts from Sholem Aleichem, Bernard Melamud, Isaac Bashevis Singer or other less known authors’ literary works – could provide descriptions of the Jewish towns or relations between the Jews and their Ukrainian, Romanian or Polish neighbours.

The dedicated biographical notes of Jewish historical figures mentioned in the book could provide additional illustrative material to demonstrate the life trajectories of Jews in Ukraine and their interaction with their neighbours. Such additions could activate the reader’s imagination and hopefully promote reflection on the possible role of ethnicity and religion in the modern day project of Ukraine.

However the requests of a dreamy commentator should not avert the reader from the book. The Pages of Jewish history of Ukraine is a short, concise and readerfriendly book – it should be recommended to those who wish to familiarise themselves with the Jewish aspects of Ukrainian history.

Kateryna Pryshchepa is a PhD candidate at the Institute of Political Studies (Polish Academy of Sciences) and a project officer at the College of Europe Natolin Campus.