Description

This talk will address the complex issue of memory of the Holocaust in Ukrainian society after the fall of communism. After a brief overview on the main tendencies in the politics of remembrance, the talk will primarily focus on wider societal attitudes and beliefs. Anna Chebotarova will consider the place that Jews occupy in collective memory in Ukraine, which was home to one of the largest pre-war Jewish communities in Europe and became one of the major Holocaust killing fields during the WWII. She will analyze the dynamics of the attitudes of Ukrainians toward Jews and memory of the Shoah in the context of recent debates on antisemitism in Ukraine and in East-Central Europe. As many researchers have repeatedly stressed, the subject of contemporary antisemitism is often not real Jews, but the images of them, including those transmitted through collective memory frameworks. The presentation will explore the multilevel and multidirectional relations between (trans)national and local Holocaust memory and the social distance towards Jews in Ukraine today. Anna Chebotarova will apply mixed method research – the perspective that combines both data from previously conducted research, nationwide representative surveys as well qualitative data. She will explore how the (trans)formation of historical memory influences the perception of the Holocaust and, more broadly, the attitudes towards Jews in post-Soviet Ukraine and the main factors influencing these phenomena.

Anna Chebotarova is a research fellow at the School for Humanities and Social Sciences, St. Gallen University (Switzerland), and the coordinator of “Ukrainian Regionalism: a Research Platform” initiative. She is affiliated with Polish Academy of Sciences, and with the Center for Urban History in East-Central Europe (Lviv, Ukraine). She obtained MA in Sociology and Social Anthropology from the Central European University (Budapest, Hungary) and MA in History and Sociology from Ivan Franko Lviv National University (Lviv, Ukraine). Her research interests include collective memory, Jewish heritage in East-Central Europe, Holocaust memory, heritage studies, qualitative methods of sociological research.