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With the support of UNESCO NaUKMA will implement a large interdisciplinary project to preserve the Jewish cultural heritage in Ukraine

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Published on Saturday, 18 October 2025 11:29

In 2025-2026, NaUKMA will implement an important one-year research project "Jewish Heritage in Ukraine: Interdisciplinary Reflections Through the Lenses of Archival Documents, Culture, History and Literature" supported by United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

These efforts are part of a larger UNESCO initiative to preserve Ukraine’s Jewish documentary heritage, honour collective memory, enhance knowledge and access to archives while promoting intercultural dialogue, which is implemented with the support of the European Union.

The project will represent a unique interdisciplinary approach to the study of Jewish heritage in Ukraine from the perspective of different subject areas and will be realized through the joint efforts of the NaUKMA Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry, Volodymyr Morenets Department of Literature, Omeljan Pritsak Research Center for Oriental Studies and History Department, allowing to study and feature the Jewish heritage under different angles and through the different lenses, as well as provide complex comprehension of its contribution to Ukraine’s multicultural past.

Implementation of this project can also be considered as a turning point for intensification of the interdisciplinary studies examining Jewish history in Ukraine and Ukrainian-Jewish relations, as well as a platform for coordinating the efforts of researchers, who focus on this topic, which in its turn, will contribute to the formation of a conceptual framework for a broader Ukrainian-Jewish dialogue at the level of communities, institutions, and media discourse.

More importantly, the project raises the topic of high priority in the development of Ukrainian society within the frameworks of a modern political nation. Work on the topic has also special added relevance, as it is one that was forbidden to be addressed in Soviet times, and has been slow in developing in the past decades, thus its popularization requires additional attention.

To achieve the set goals within the framework of its activities, the project envisions:

• Study and systematization of the data on available archival collections in the project’s target cities and regions making them available and popularized for further extensive interdisciplinary research;
• Preparation of a series of academic research publications, Interdisciplinary Collective Monograph “The Jewish Heritage in Ukraine: Culture, History, Literature and Beyond”, Anthology “Ukrainian-Jewish Relations in the Dissident Movement” and a Textbook “Chrestomathy of Jewish Literature in Ukraine”, featuring various aspects of Jewish heritage in Ukraine;
• Enriching the Jewish Heritage Virtual Museum of the NaUKMA Center for the Studies of History and Culture of East European Jewry with new research and archival findings providing further free public access to them;
• Popularization of knowledge about the Jewish heritage in Ukraine among experts and the wider general public through a series of conferences, roundtables, blogs and online-discussions.

In this way, the project will contribute to an enhanced academic discourse of the phenomenon and ensure that valuable heritage is preserved, analyzed and made available for future research and general public. Furthermore, it will also create the ground for a frank and productive interethnic dialogue on the traumatic pages of our common history.

As highlighted by Prof. Chiara Dezzi Bardeschi, Head of UNESCO Antenna in Ukraine, “The partnership agreement with NaUKMA is a part of UNESCO’s broader efforts to preserve and digitize the Jewish documentary heritage in Ukraine. This scientific research of unique materials related to Judaica will make a significant addition to this important initiative.”

NaUKMA President Serhiy Kvit and the Project Lead, Associate Professor of the Volodymyr Morents Department of Literature and Vice President for Research and Academic Studies, Olha Poliukhovych shared their vision of the project:

Serhiy Kvit: “The project, supported by UNESCO, is of strategic importance for Ukraine, which is struggling in a war for survival. Often, in war, the cultural argument is used to strengthen one or another side, and we see how it is actively and manipulatively utilized by Russia in its aggression against Ukraine. Therefore, when Ukraine is now fighting for its cultural identity, it is extremely important to explore and show it in all its diversity. Sincere gratitude to UNESCO for trusting this mission to the researchers of the Kyiv-Mohyla Academy!”

Оlha Poliukhovych: “Our new research project consolidates the efforts of NaUKMA researchers from various fields to achieve an important and ambitious goal — to study the Jewish heritage in Ukraine through the lenses of different subject areas, to show Ukrainian-Jewish relations, which have long been distorted and overgrown with propaganda narratives, in their historical perspective, and to draw the attention of a wider research community and Ukrainian society to the Jewish cultural heritage in Ukraine. The project will not only contribute to strengthening the academic debate on Jewish heritage in Ukraine, as well as enhancing the preservation and accessibility of valuable heritage for future research, but will also have a strategic impact on strengthening Ukraine’s profile as a multicultural state”.

This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of partner and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.