London: "Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence": Book launch and talk by Paul Robert Magocsi

"Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence": Book launch and talk by Paul Robert Magocsi, University of Toronto, 3 May 2018, 7pm

Date: Thursday, 3 May 2018
Time: 7pm
Venue: University College London, Institute of Advanced Studies Common Ground (room G11, ground floor, South Wing), Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT

Admission: The event is free, but registration is required. Please register here.

There is much that ordinary Ukrainians do not know about Jews, and much that ordinary Jews do not know about Ukrainians. As a result, those Jews and Ukrainians who may care about their respective ancestral heritages usually view each other through distorted stereotypes, misperceptions, and biases. This book sheds new light on controversial moments of Ukrainian-Jewish relations and argues that the historical experience in Ukraine not only divided ethnic Ukrainians and Jews, but also brought them together.

The story of "Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence" is presented in twelve thematic chapters. Among the themes discussed are geography, history, economic life, traditional culture, religion, language and publications, literature and theater, architecture and art, music, the diaspora, and contemporary Ukraine. The book’s easy-to-read narrative is enhanced by 335 full-color illustrations, 29 maps, and several text inserts that explain specific phenomena or address controversial issues.

"Jews and Ukrainians: A Millennium of Co-Existence" was co-authored by Paul Robert Magocsi, Chair of Ukrainian Studies at the University of Toronto, and Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Professor of Jewish history and culture at Northwestern University.

You can find the book on Amazon here.

Professor Magocsi will deliver a talk in conversation with Dr Joanna Beata Michlic, a social and cultural historian, Honorary Senior Research Associate at the UCL Centre for the Study of Collective Violence, the Holocaust and Genocide.

The event will be opened by Marina Pesenti, Director of Ukrainian Institute London.

The book’s publication and the event is sponsored by Ukrainian Jewish Encounter and organised in partnership with Ukrainian Institute London.

Speakers’ bios: 

Paul Robert Magocsi
Paul Robert Magocsi is professor of history and political science at the University of Toronto, where since 1980 he also holds the John Yaremko Chair of Ukrainian Studies.  He completed his education at Rutgers University (B.A. 1966; M.A. 1967), Princeton University (M.A. 1969; Ph.D. 1972), and Harvard University (Society of Fellows 1976).

Professor Magocsi is the author of over 800 works, including 39 books primarily in the fields of political, cultural, and religious history, sociolinguistics, bibliography, cartography, immigration and ethnic studies. Among the most prominent of these publications are: The Shaping of a National Identity:  Subcarpathian Rus’, 1848-1948 (Harvard University Press, 1978); Galicia: A Historical Survey and Bibliographic Guide (University of Toronto Press, 1983); Historical Atlas of East Central/ Central Europe (University of Washington Press, 1993/2002); A History of Ukraine: The Land and Its Peoples  (University of Toronto Press, 1996/2010); Of the Making of Nationalities There is No End, 2 vols. (Columbia University Press, 1999); The Roots of Ukrainian Nationalism (University of Toronto Press, 2002); Ukraine: An Illustrated History (University of Toronto Press, 2007); This Blessed Land: Crimea and Crimean Tatars (University of Toronto Press, 2014); With Their Backs to the Mountains: A History of Carpathian Rus’ and Carpatho-Rusyns (Central European University Press, 2015); Jews and Ukrainians: Millennium of Co-Existence, co-author (University of Toronto Press, 2016); and Carpathian Rus’: A Historical Atlas (2017). He is also the editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Canada’s Peoples (University of Toronto Press, 1999) and co-editor and main author the Encyclopedia of Rusyn History and Culture (University of Toronto Press, 2002/2005).

Professor Magocsi has taught at Harvard University, the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Prešov University in Slovakia, and on five occasions was historian-in-residence at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany. In 1996 he was appointed a permanent fellow of the Royal Society of Canada—Canadian Academies of Arts, Humanities, and Sciences, and has been awarded honorary degrees from Prešov University in Slovakia (doctor honoris causa, 2013) and from Kamianets-Podilskyi National University in Ukraine (pochesnyi profesor, 2015).

Dr Brendan McGeever
Brendan McGeever is the Acting Associate Director of the Pears Institute for the study of Antisemitism, Birkbeck, University of London. He is a specialist on racism, antisemitism and the former Soviet Union. His monograph The Bolsheviks and Antisemitism in the Russian Revolution will be published by Cambridge University Press in 2019.