Nadia Skokova

Historian, Ph.D. dissertation about the formation of the modern identity of Eastern Galicia Jews (Ukrainian Catholic University, 2023). She researches the social and political history of Central and Eastern Europe, the development and implementation of national minority rights, the transformation of traditional society, modern processes, and the development of political consciousness of non-historical nations.

She is a participant in international research, archival, and educational projects and has also experience in journalism and publishing (2020-2023). She took part in summer schools and scholarly internships at the House of the Wannsee Conference in Berlin, Tel Aviv University, the University of Wrocław, the Polish Academy of Sciences, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and the Vienna Wiesenthal Institute.

In 2023, she received a fellowship from the Center for Urban History, supported by the Foundation for Jewish Studies in Wrocław, to research the history of the Jewish ghetto in Lviv.

Her new research projects focus on the following topics: Jewish politics and public space in Austrian Lviv; self-government as an instrument of civil society in the dialogue with state authorities; the perception of the Ukrainian question in Jewish public discourses of the interwar period; and reconsidering the institution of violence and prehistory of the Lviv ghetto.

Materials:

Related sources:

Documents (4)

Excerpt from Chone Gottesfeld’s travelogue ‘My Trip to Galicia’, dedicated to Galician town of Skala (1937)

Returning three decades after his emigration, journalist Chone Gottesfeld of the New York Yiddish newspaper Forverts (פֿאָרווערטס) found his hometown of Skala—today known as Skala-Podilska—in a state of prolonged decline. According to the 1900 census, the town had 5,638 inhabitants, of whom Jews made up nearly half (2,494). By the time of the last census in 1931, Skala’s population had fallen to 4,017, with just 1,460 Jews remaining. More broadly, towns across Galicia never recovered from the devastation of the First World War. During the interwar period, their main source of income—trade with the Russian Empire—had become impossible. As Gottesfeld’s account makes clear, the local population now had virtually no means of subsistence....

Excerpt from Chone Gottesfeld’s travelogue My Trip to Galicia (1937): “The shtetl is dying out. And this is not the only shtetl in Galicia.”

This excerpt continues journalist Chone Gottesfeld’s reflections on his hometown of Skala, which he left thirty years earlier when he emigrated to America. After visiting Galicia in 1936, he wrote a travelogue whose impressions were first published in the newspaper Forverts (Forward, official Yiddish title: פֿאָרווערטס) and later released as a separate book. It is clear that one of his implicit aims was to encourage financial support for Galician Jews, which is why he focuses primarily on describing their hardships in detail. In this passage, the author highlights the main factors behind the town’s decline, particularly demographic changes driven by economic hardship and recurring epidemics. The head of the Jewish community explains...

Excerpt from Chone Gottesfeld’s travelogue ‘My Trip to Galicia’, dedicated to Ternopil (1937)

This excerpt is taken from a travelogue of impressions and experiences by the renowned journalist Chone Gottesfeld of the New York Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts (Yiddish: פֿאָרווערטס, English: The Forward), published in New York in 1937. In it, the author recounts a journey to his hometown of Skala, which he had left in 1907. At the time, Skala was an atypical Galician town that had flourished during the Austrian period due to the large number of Hasidic pilgrims visiting local tzaddikim in nearby Chortkiv. However, the town fell into decline during the interwar years. Gottesfeld, known for his humorous newspaper stories and for plays performed in both New York and Warsaw, offers in this...

An excerpt from Chone Gottesfeld’s travelogue ‘My Trip to Galicia’, dedicated to Lviv (1937)

Chone Gottesfeld, a well-known journalist for the Yiddish-language newspaper Forverts (Yiddish: פֿאָרווערטס [Forward]) in New York, visited Galicia and documented his impressions in a detailed travelogue, My Trip to Galicia, published by the Association of Galician Jews in America in 1937. His journey was a return to his native land, which he had left three decades earlier, in 1907. The travelogue offers a rich tapestry of comparisons between social life during the Austrian and Polish periods, based both on Gottesfeld’s personal memories and the testimonies of those he encountered. This excerpt also sheds light on the formation of collective memory among Galician Jews during the interwar period. It explores how they recalled the...

Show more Collapse all