Galicia Jewish Museum, Jewish Art Institute / Yidisher Kunst-Institut, and Czarne Publishing House would like to invite you to a conversation on the book “Tales from the Borderlands: Making and Unmaking the Galician Past” by Omer Bartov. Adam Musiał, who translated the book, and Ishbel Szatrawska will discuss Omer Bartov’s latest publication.

Is it possible to observe in the fate of a single town the echoes of Europe’s history, encompassing its customs and faiths, along with the weight of nationalism, conflicts, fascism, and the Shoah?

Buchach, which is now in Ukraine, suffered pogroms, the Khmelnytsky Uprising, a siege and destruction by the Turks in the 17th century, and experienced reconstruction and revival in the following centuries. It was the witness of the partition of the 1st Polish Republic, the development of Hasidism and Jewish Enlightenment, the birth of Zionism, as well as Polish and Ukrainian national movements.

The grand history was the background of the fates of Jews, Poles, Kossacks, Ruthenians, and Ukrainians. Those living in the borderlands are much more interesting for Bartov than rulers and generals. He wants to understand their dilemmas, aims, and beliefs. He searches for traces of these people in diaries, literature, poetry, and finally, in the memories of his mother born in Buchach.

The town described in this book doesn’t exist anymore. It was changed forever during the Second World War. Nonetheless, remnants of it can be discovered in the ancient Galician tales, which, as Bartov convinces us, can “escape the limitations of events and the logic of history, allowing us, therefore, to find out more about the human spirit and the inevitable loss of what once existed.”

In Polish. Free admission.

The publication of this book was supported financially by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland from the Fund for Promoting Culture.