The East-Central European Jewish Homeland in Historical Perspective

Speaker: Patrice Dabrowski, PhD,  Harvard Professor and Historian

Dr. Dabrowski, a historian of Central and Eastern Europe, will present the region’s history over a period of about four centuries with an eye to the lived Jewish experience. If you are researching Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Latvia, Ukraine, Prussia/Germany, Austria, Hungary and Russia this scholar series is a must. 

Dabrowski will begin with the history of Jewish life in the extraordinary polity that was the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, its territory comprising today’s Poland, Lithuania, and Belarus as well as parts of Ukraine, Latvia, and Russia. After the partitions at the end of the eighteenth century, Jews suddenly found themselves subjects of the three Central and East European empires of Prussia/Germany, Austria, and Russia, each with its own unique approach to the Jews in their midst. 

It is worth noting that not only did Jews in the Commonwealth have their own self-rule, they also played key roles within the broader economy. Dabrowski will discuss the new situation of Jews within these empires as well as how they and their neighbors encountered modernity during what has been called the long nineteenth century—this period of imperial rule.

Her story will end in the twentieth century, with the demise of the region’s empires and birth of numerous (some short-lived) nation-states in their wake.

About Patrice M. Dabrowski:

Patrice M. Dabrowski is a prize-winning, Harvard-educated historian. She has taught and worked at Harvard, Brown, the University of Massachusetts Amherst, and the University of Vienna. Dabrowski has authored three books: The Carpathians: Discovering the Highlands of Poland and Ukraine (2021), Poland: The First Thousand Years (2014) and Commemorations and the Shaping of Modern Poland (2004). In 2014 she was awarded the Knight & Cross of the Order of Merit of the Republic of Poland. Dabrowski’s prizes include the Mary Zirin Prize (2021) as well as two honorable mentions for her books in 2022.

Non-members pay $5.00. Zoom link will be sent the week of the event. Members automatically receive a Zoom link.  

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