Olga Petrova

Research Description

This project explores the transnational Ukrainian–Jewish dialog that developed between the 1950s and 1970s and involved Ukrainian and Jewish émigré intellectuals in Europe, the United States, Canada, and Israel. It examines how the conversation on Ukrainian–Jewish relations developed in these decades, which main problems and questions guided this dialog, and what outcome this conversation resulted in. Petrova’s hypothesis is that these at times sporadic personal connections led to milestones in scholarship that were building, step by step, the basis for re-considering the long-held view of Ukrainians and Jews as inherently hostile toward each other.

Bio

Olga Petrova is a PhD candidate in Comparative History at Central European University (CEU). Her dissertation deals with Ukrainian–Jewish affinities and practical cooperation within the larger context of the revolutionary period of 1917–1920, focusing on ideologies and discourses of Ukrainian and Jewish political parties and the experiment of national-personal autonomy. Olga is interested in Ukrainian–Jewish relations, the history of East European Jewry, nationalism and national idea(s), territorial and non-territorial autonomy.