INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDIES OF GALICIA
MEMORY IN ACTION: EMBRACING PAST FOR THE FUTURE
Institute for the study of Galicia
NO MYTH OF EASTERN GALICIA: MODERN HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE
Austrian Galicia: Ruthenian (Ukrainian), Polish, and Jewish Political and Social Discourse, 1890 -- 1918
Interdisciplinary Projects: Ukrainian, Jewish and Polish Subjectivities in
Interwar Eastern Galicia, 1918 – 1939
Digitization, cataloguing, and indexing of the
interwar Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish periodical press.
- The Idea of Galicia in Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish Perspectives: Religious, Cultural, and Political Self-Identification
- Historicizing Eastern Galicia from post-Holocaust Historical Perspective
- The Future of Ukraine and the Future of Europe: always a Russian Factor. Geopolitics of Uncertainty.
Dr. Volodymyr Melamed
Interwar Eastern Galicia: Political and Cultural Discourse, 1918 – 1939
Selected Essays
The idea of this Project lies with the delineation of political, social, and cultural historical episodes unfolded in Interwar Eastern Galicia. It is a narrative of the three Subjectivities: Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish presented in real time of historical parallels. The interwar period was distinctively different from the traditionally perceived phenomenon of Austrian Galicia in the 19th century. Although some social and cultural vestiges of old Austrian Galicia still could be seen overall the geopolitical realities have been irreversibly changing. By the end of the First World War, Polish and Ukrainian communities found themselves on a political edge of existential transformations. Poland officially proclaimed independence on November 11, 1918 while the question of Eastern Galicia, the territories in west and south-west, as well as the status of the former borderlands remained unresolved. The Ukrainians proclaimed the independent state in East Galicia with the capital in Lviv on November 1, 1918.
By October-November of 1918, the Jewish community of Eastern Galicia could no longer rely on once suitable for them Austrian parliamentary order and had to balance between the allegiance to the new Polish state and the national striving of the Ukrainian ethnic majority of the region. It was a challenging political choice between the unconditional loyalty to the Polish State or the solidarity with the just proclaimed Ukrainian National Republic on the ethnic Ukrainian territories. Even the National-Jewish (Zionist) political establishment, not to speak about the religious orthodoxy and assimilationists, could not take a definitive stance in upcoming Polish-Ukrainian conflict over Eastern Galicia. At least a most progressive part of the Zionist party, notably the students, former officers and soldiers of the Austrian Army were supportive to the Ukrainian statehood during the Polish-Ukrainian war and in its aftermath. Later on, most notably in the first half of the 1920s, the Ukrainian and Jewish societies become evocatively engaged in objectification of their nationally crafted political narratives.
Aspiring to overall opposite ideological goals, Ukrainian and Jewish societies faced and grappled with the strongly determined administrative and political apparatus of the Polish State. Conducting independent from each other political courses vis-à-vis the Polish State, Ukrainian and Jewish political establishments would often face mutually unacceptable outcomes and therefore the loss of mutual solidarity. On the other hand, the common challenges caused by the politics of the Polish state could also contribute to development of a lesser apprehensive approaches between the two communities.
The new geopolitical realities of the interwar period could explain the rise of hardly imaginable for the Austrian period political forces. Political radicalization characterizes Ukrainian society and engulfing authoritarianism becomes a typical characteristic of the Polish state since the earlier 1930s. In Jewish politics the Zionist parliamentary representation continued winning substantial support during the elections but did not dominate in communal leadership. The latter remain a prerogative for the Orthodoxy and Assimilationists. On the other hand, noticeable becomes influence of Jewish left-wing, namely the communists and social-democrats (BUND) especially on the local level.
While Polish and Jewish societies would become politically more polarized in the course of the interwar period, it was the Ukrainians who produced a most radicalized nationalist underground, namely the Ukrainian Military Organization (Ukrainian acronym UVO) and its heir the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (Ukrainian acronym OUN). The latter created and implemented in the Ukrainian politics the new ideological narrative of integral revolutionary struggle (intrinsic for all Nationalism) as the only plausible objective for attaining of an independent Ukrainian state. It should be noted that this political narrative of the Ukrainian Nationalist overlived the interwar period and continued well beyond after the end of the Second World War.
This Project comprised selected essays that reflect and analyze a series of eventful and existentially marked developments, in which all three communities were more or less engaged. To this end the Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish daily press serve as our primary source allowing to determine and interpret those remarkably substantial and mutually corresponding situations. By no means the interwar realities leave little room for mythologizing of Eastern Galicia according to the Austrian patterns of the 19th century Galician history. For example, the Eastern Galician mission of a Ukrainian Piedmont unfortunately has not been realized owing to the completely new and different geopolitical situation. A myth Galicia as a cross-cultural mutual home for Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews that also originated in Austrian era and if viewed realistically would not be warranted even in the 19thcentury, has become illusory and disintegrated in the interwar period. Once progressive and promising process of Jewish emancipation, acculturation and building of national awareness in the course of interwar time becomes deterred on one side by the unresolvable mistrust and antagonism within the Jewish society and on the other by the growing inter-ethnic tensions with the Poles and to a lesser degree with the Ukrainians. Cultural and social controversies between all of the Jewish political parties, namely the Assimilators, Religious Orthodoxy (largely pro-government groups), the National-Democratic block (Zionists), and Jewish left-wing (communists, socialists, social-democrats) were vividly exhibited in social sphere and well reflected in the periodical press of time.
There is a common thread, a sort of a common denominator, connecting these essays together, notably the narratives of existential situations, relevant to all national and political entities of Eastern Galicia. Traditionally, the literature on the subject presents a singular macro historical narrative of the region within either Polish, Ukrainian or Jewish frameworks. Another larger group of works focuses on Lviv in historical and cultural contexts. Our Project also is focusing on Lviv the locus where the history was being made, but not at the expanse of the region and not in the context of the bygone world. We are presenting the history as it was seen by the contemporaries.
This Project comprises six themes in the form of essays. Five essays take up and analyze the eventful historical terms episodes that are also remarkable in conveying the existential messages. In most instances the selected historical episodes have inflicted long-lasting negative effect at least on one of the three communities. The last sixth essay somewhat steps aside from the direct historical developments. It deals with the Jewish and Ukrainian literary and cultural pursuits viewed through the prism of Polish cultural influence. In particular we present literary patterns from the works of Ivan Franko, Joseph Roth, and Bruno Schulz, in which Polish and Austrian heritage was undeniably present.
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Archival indexing of digitized collections of Galician press, 19-20th centuries.
Selected essays reflecting existentially marked for all three communities developments.
Interwar realities leave little room for the myth of Galicia according to Austrian historical patterns, but the Idea of Galicia re-emerged again.
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDIES OF GALICIA
THE IDEA OF INTERWAR EASTERN GALICIA
A forthcoming monograph
Nowadays historical writings about Ukrainian past serves to the purpose of educated and unbiassed understanding of the current geopolitical situation in Eastern and Central Europe. The Ukrainian Question is truly relevant to the changing in front of our eyes world order. The ongoing Russian aggression and Ukrainian precarious situation brings up the same, unfortunately unresolved ages-long issues caused by the Russian imperial and then the Soviet claims on its sovereignty. Nowadays we can see a new imperial edition vigorously applied against Ukraine by the Putin regime.
The idea of this monograph Eastern Galicia in Interwar Period, Political and Cultural Discourse lies with the re-interpretation of Ukrainian, Jewish, and Polish subjectivities in interwar Polish Eastern Galicia (modern Ukraine). In a way I pursue the goal of de-construction and de-mythologizing of often applied populist stereotypes seen in relatively recent post-Holocaust historiography.
These selected essays reflect on eventful and existentially marked developments in the life of all three communities. In this regard the Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish daily press serves as our primary historical source allowing determine and trace the evocatively influential and mutually affective situations.
There is a unifying thread, a sort of a common denominator connecting all these essays together in a singular narrative, notably the narrative of existential situations, relevant and related to all ethno-national and political entities of the time. Traditionally, the literature on the subject presents a singular macro-history of the region within either Polish, or Ukrainian or Jewish frameworks. Oppositely, in my case, drawing on the microhistories I am attempting to re-create a broader, interconnected discourse.
Dr. Volodymyr Melamed
INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDIES OF GALICIA
Ukrainian and Jewish Cultural Vicissitudes or the Open Cultures. Always the Polish Factor
Reflections and Analysis of Polish-Ukrainian and Polish-Jewish cultural and political interactions. The word Polish in both instances precedes Ukrainian and Jewish cultural denominations. It implies a factual reality of Polish cultural influence on Jewish and Ukrainian literary pursuits. Perhaps nowhere else as in the Literature and Art, Jewish and Ukrainian cultural collegiality was evidently noticeable.
Albeit being tempted Ukrainian literati largely had not directly incorporated modernistic Polish literary models. On the contrary, Jewish intelligentsia remained quite open to charms of Polish cultural edifice. Jewish acculturated circles saw it as a primary literary standard, not, however, being completely driven away from the core of Jewishness. This chapter compares Ukrainian and Jewish literary trends according to the scale of their subsequent association or disassociation with the contemporary Polish literature and culture. It also analyzes the extent of cultural openness in relation to the influence of the always present ‘Polish cultural factor’.
Neither Ukrainian nor Jewish intellectuals were fully satisfied with the forms and contents of their own literatures. Ukrainian literati (Rudnytskyi, Bodnarovych, Antonych) were skeptical about a traditional cultural canon for its disproportional simplification and adherence to a rural societal discourse. This content continued to dominate in interwar Ukrainian literary narrative meant for mass readership. Modern and modernistic European literary forms remained largely unclaimed by the interwar Galician literary mainstream. The proponents of traditional people’s literature argued about its educational practicality and transient validity for the sake of autochthonous cultural unity.
There were also works in Ukrainian poetry and small prose painted in colors of personal drama, dismal ambivalence and sadness. For the young Ukrainian literati it was difficult to avoid ideologically association with either with a nationalist or a communist camps. Although they were skeptical enough not to become proponents of extreme ideologies. On the other hand, tot many from the new generation were eager to be aligned with an ‘old-school’ of Ukrainian ‘Demo-Conservatives raised in the tradition of Austrian parliamentarism. Subtleness and self-inhibition were quite distinctive personal characteristics of this generation. We should not, however, ignore the writer affiliation along the political parties’ lines: Nationalism and Communism both were the powerful ideologies of the Time.
For the mass Ukrainian readership the patterns of European literary modernity were not essential for every-day newspaper-like reading. Overall, Polish artistic cafes define trends and directions in the new literary works. These were milieus of mixed national composition including Jewish and Ukrainian literati. For the time being, Ukrainian reading public remained customary to the literary level of news coverages, reportages, small prose and editorial political opinions published in dailies and weeklies. The literary supplements to these editions also offered novellas, poetry and literary criticism. If compared to the prose, Ukrainian poetry featured elaborated patterns of individuality, subtleness and of European modernity. Indeed it is always the nature of the poetry. Ukrainian prose was largely social and politically oriented and less engaged in literary searches and experimentations. The imposition of social anti-Polish stance deterred Ukrainian literary creativity from beneficial borrowings and apolitical collaboration with then quite a European contemporary Polish literature. The latter was not entirely and purely Polish in ethnic sense for it amalgamated the outstanding writers of Jewish origin. In political dimension, under the pressure of the enforced introduction of Polish language and culture in public and private education, Ukrainian community at large had been becoming demonstratively estranged from all things Polish.
Quite the opposite was the state of affairs in Polish-Jewish literature that is the Jewish literature in Polish language. For the Jewish acculturated intelligentsia, it was the Polish language that served as a driving force and the vehicle for upholding and manifesting Jewish national consciousness and for actualization and enactment of the subsequent cultural and political ideations. Ukrainian and Jewish societal approaches towards the applications and implications of high Polish literature in national cultural pursuits bore quite different inclinations. If a Ukrainian socio-cultural narrative claimed a warranted for the national cause estrangement from the Polish cultural mainstream, there was no correspondent Jewish literati did not appeal for the separation from Polish culture. Its creative milieu centered on Polish literature and language that served well to Jewish cultural, political and social discourse. In other words, for the sake of effective functioning in politics and social spheres, Jewish intelligentsia (literary circles and political establishments) adopted Polish language and culture admitting that there were no feasible alternatives to linguistic Polonization per se.
Overall, the Jewish literature in Polish language was by far more Polish by form and style than the Ukrainian literature for this matter. Ukrainian literati in Galicia, elsewhere in Poland and in emigration did not see the necessity to employ Polish language as a more effective tool to express, improve or upscale the Ukrainian fictional narrative. The Ukrainian creative trend rather demonstrated aspirational efforts of developing the forms of High Ukrainian and that was largely related to the poetry. Being mutually apart and contextually different, both Ukrainian and Jewish cultures remained nevertheless the open cultures with a Polish factor always present.
It is not a paradox but the phenomenon that the two most outstanding Ukrainian and Polish writers of the interwar period were not engaged in the search of ethno-national identities, namely Bohdan Ihor Antonych and Bruno Schulz. Antonych wrote in Ukrainian and Polish, experimented with the modernistic literary forms and by far has been the most creative source for the present day Ukrainian literature. His creative legacy lay not in political or ethno-national spheres but remains highly artistic and philosophical.
Bruno Schulz, Polish writer-philosopher, almost deliberately avoided the Jewish motifs in his creativity. It was not an attempt to erase Jewishness in himself but his inward literary approach, which even the signs of pure Polishness were also limited. And yet nowadays Schulz is the most iconic persona of the interwar Polish literature. Perhaps it is true that high literary works supersede philosophy and politics of the entire epoch.
About INSTITUTE FOR THE STUDIES OF gALICIA (HALYCHYNA)
Our Directors and Advisors
Directors:
Rabbi Dr. Norbert Weinberg, President and CEO of Research and Education, Rabbi of Hollywood Temple Beth El
For his background go to:
Dr. Vladimir Melamed, Director, Institute for the Studies of Galicia, noted Historian and Researcher of Modern European History
For his background:
Bill J. Greenberg, Director for Technology
and Marketing , who brings his experience in web technology and archiving documents.
President of Net Data Systems, Inc.
Advisors:
Richard Hirschhaut-expert on Jewish communal affairs
Regional Director, American Jewish Committee, Los Angeles
https://www.ajc.org/bio/richard-s-hirschhaut
Edward Melamed, Content Manager
He graduated from Columbia University with degree in Psychology. His work experience includes applied research at Children's Hospital Los Angeles and University of Southern California
Alex Holt, Consultant on advanced education, literature, and film
Bohdan Futala, Member of the Advisory Board, former Director of Ukrainian Cultural Center in Los Angeles
Archives and Collections
The Online Archives will be available for research and education. We will be cataloguing, indexing and digitizing the documents for our Projects: official records, daily press, literary work, personal correspondences, memoirs and family photo-documents.
We are focusing on the documented history in the regions of interest: Los Angeles, East-Central Europe, Middle East and on the oral histories of a broader personal experience.
See also articles by our staff on Academia.edu and Academia and Academia Letters in this regard: https://www.academia.edu/50926698/UKRAINIAN_AND_JEWISH_VICISSITUDES_EAST_GALICIA_1918_1923_OBJECT_SUBJECT_RELATIONSHIPS_AND_INTERSUBJECTIVITY_Existential_Analysis
Article and Essays
History of Jews in Los Angeles, 19th --20st century century
From Academia Letters
ACADEMIA
Letters
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Keywords: Eastern Europe; Ukraine; Austro-Hungary; collective memory; historical narrative
Other Articles and Essays
https://independent.academia.edu/VMelamed
History of Jews in Los Angeles, 19th --20st century century
History of Jews in Los Angeles, 19th --20st century century
History of Jews in Los Angeles, 19th --20st century century
A Pre-history of Los Angeles Jewry
https://pastfuturememory.org/a-pre-history-of-la-jews
Hollywood's Start
https://pastfuturememory.org/hollywoods-start
Hollywood's First Synagogue
https://pastfuturememory.org/hollywoods-1st-synagogue
HTBE's Movie Studio
https://pastfuturememory.org/htbes-movie-studio
Escaping the Third Reich
https://pastfuturememory.org/escaping-the-third-reich
Survivors Rebuild
https://pastfuturememory.org/the-survivors-rebuild
Escape from the Gulag
https://pastfuturememory.org/escape-from-the-gulag
From Tehran to LA
https://pastfuturememory.org/from-tehran-to-la
Sephardic and Mizrahi
https://pastfuturememory.org/sephardic-and-mizrahi-jew
Beyond Yiddish and Ladino
https://pastfuturememory.org/beyond-yiddish-and-ladino
This is the History to be written yet
https://www.mappingjewishla.org/current-exhibitions/
Literary and Arts Section
History of Jews in Los Angeles, 19th --20st century century
Literary and Arts Section
Literature of European and American Modernism: literary and comparative analysis
Polish-Jewish Literature: Literature in Polish written by Jews
Polish modernist literature by Jewish-Polish authors
Existential Central European Literature in German before and after the First World War
The Art of Weimar Republic and the European reflections
Bruno Schulz, Polish-Jewish writer and artist. Explore his inner circle of the non-ordinary world
https://www.washingtonpost.com/books/2023/05/02/bruno-schulz-nocturnal-apparitions-benjamin-balint/
Joseph Roth, writer and philosopher. He was a man of few possessions and a haunted, lonely mind, whose life stands out for unrepentant self-destruction.
Hans Fallada, modernist literature in the Third Reich
https://lithub.com/hans-fallada-the-anti-nazi-writer-who-reluctantly-served-the-reich/
Albert Camus, Existential philosopher and author
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1958/05/albert-camus-a-good-man/640286/
Cinematic Discourse
History of Jews in Los Angeles, 19th --20st century century
Literary and Arts Section
Independent
Cinematic Representation of Existential Pages of Human Experience in the 20th century
Ida, Drama, 2014, Director Pawel Pawlikowski, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeaXwufbOlc
Son of Saul, Drama, 2015, Director Laszlo Nemes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_ktMOyfD8k
Wolyn (Hatred), Drama, 2016, Director Wojcech Smarzowski
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iY-zOOjTO7U&t=246s
Pianist, Drama, 2002, Director Roman Polanski
https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Pianist+film+
Ashes and Diamonds, Drama, 1958, Director Andrzej Waida
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kuqhCAZSo3Y
The Zone of Interest, Drama, 2024, Director Jonathan Glazer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-vfg3KkV54
Golda, 2023, Biographical Drama
Director Guy Nativ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJETvSNa178
Support Our Institute and Our Sponsors
Support Our Institute and Our Sponsors
Support Our Institute and Our Sponsors
We want to thank our sponsors. For more information, follow the links
Justin Jampol and A-Mark Foundation for a grant that will enable us to pursue our archivies and research project
Rabbi Dr Norbert Weinberg blog at
and recorded discussions:
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxjc3h0xSwvPyfOCfgEFAcPhqz1frLijK&si=bQvT40RpBV9UB_HN
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
https://independent.academia.edu/VMelamed
https://huri.harvard.edu/people/vladimir-melamed
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Online archive: Holocaust Museum LA
Dr. Vladimir Melamed
Online Archive: New Center for Psychoanalysis, Los Angeles
Hollywood Temple Beth El
follow us for events on
https://www.facebook.com/htbel
and on YouTube for recordings and livestream of our services and activities
https://www.youtube.com/@templehtbel5978/streams
Geopolitical Observer
Support Our Institute and Our Sponsors
Support Our Institute and Our Sponsors
Image from Photo by DAVID ILIFF. License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/"
Russo-Ukrainian War.
If Ukraine have reliable allies
European Union and NATO: if there will the new leaderships
Institute for the Study of War
https://www.understandingwar.org/
Israel-Hamas War
Israeli and Geopolitical Perspective
American Politics, or American Political Business
Bloomberg Politics
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics
The Economist
Discussions and Discourses
Support Our Institute and Our Sponsors
Inside the founding synagogue of Hollywood's film makers
Themes for the future pennels and discussions:
Anticipatory Anxiety: Literary and Cinematic Models
Does anti-semitism stands for anti-Jewishness: social and political dimensions
Collaboration in the Holocaust:
Everlasting existential discourse
DISCOURSE AND PERSPECTIVES
https://www.facebook.com/reel/1149584349412544
Inside the founding synagogue of Hollywood's film makers
Inside the founding synagogue of Hollywood's film makers
Enjoy a Tour of Historic Hollywood Temple Beth El
In 1851, the new Jewish settlers organized in Los Angeles a congregation Beth El, but they did not have neither a cantor or Rabbi and assembled for religious services only on New Year and the day of Atonement (I.J. Benjamin, Three Years in America, 1859 - 1862, trans. Charles Reznikoff (Philadelphia, 1956), II, 101.
Hollywood Temple Beth El, the first synagogue of Hollywood, was founded just as the burgeoning film industry was setting roots in Los Angeles in 1922.
In 1952, the members of Hollywood Temple Beth El built the magnificent edifice at the corner of N Crescent Heights and Fountain, in the heart of what would become the City of West Hollywood.It was designed by noted architect, Harry Hiller, and it has since been on the tour route of the Art Deco Society of Los Angeles for its unique design. It seems to have been influenced by artist depictions of the ancient Temple of Solomon in JerusalemThe structure also houses three sets of stained glass windows depicting the twelve tribes. The large windows in the Main Sanctuary were crafted by Francis J. Dunham in 1967. The most recent set, on the doors to the sanctuary lobby, were designed by Joe Young, architect of the Holocaust Memorial in Pan-Pacific Park.The magnificent structure now serves as the headquarters of the Iranian American Jewish Federation.
This historic building has served as a social and communal home for people in the West Hollywood and Hollywood Hills environs for over a century.
For a stunning 360 degree visual of our Main Sanctuary, go to:https://synagogues-360.anumuseum.org.il/gallery/hollywood-temple-beth-el/
Holocaust and Genocide Studies: Research and Discourse of what remains beyond and forgotten
Holocaust and Genocide Studies: Research and Discourse of what remains beyond and forgotten
THEMES OF RESEARCH AND EDUCATION
Architecture of the Final Solution
Collaboration with Nazi-German administration and the role of Local administrations
Judenraete (Jewish Councils) and Jewish order police in the ghettos: phenomenon of survival
To survive or to resist?
Oral Histories of the Holocaust
The Genocides: Memories and Politics
OUR OTHER PROJECTS:
DOCUMENTED HISTORY OF JEWISH EXPERIENCE:
RETROSPECTIVE ANALYSIS OF THE AMERICAN AND JEWISH CENTURY, 1920'S TO 2020'S AND BEYOND
-Documenting and Analyzing Jewish - Gentile Discourse in the Context of Ethno-National, Political and Economic Developments in Los Angeles from the Civil War through to the post Cold War era, a period that has been described both as the American Century and the Jewish Century
-The impact of Jews on contemporary American civilization in the hard sciences and the social sciences, film and entertainment culture, business and industry, political culture, with a highlight on Los Angeles as the hothouse for America's cultural and economic development
- Periodization of Jewish historical experience in the greater Los Angeles area
- Social integration and disintegration: centripetal and centrifugal tendencies
- Stages of Jewish immigration: social and cultural compositions, counterbalancing and adverse effects
- Public perception of the Jews: decoding mythologies and stereotypes
- Translating Jewish History to the LA functional narrative
-Historicizing LA Jewish Experience: Creating Online Archive and Thesaurus of Subject Matters.
