“Jewish Agrarian Settlements in the Kherson Province: Between Soviet Modernization and the Holocaust, 1921-1947.”
Professional Background
Dr. Yurii Kaparulin is currently Associate Professor of History at Kherson State University (Ukraine). As the Initiative on Ukrainian-Jewish Shared History and the Holocaust in Ukraine Fellow, at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Kaparulin will be conducting research for his project, “Jewish Agrarian Settlements in the Kherson Province: Between Soviet Modernization and the Holocaust, 1921-1947.”
Dr. Kaparulin is fluent in Russian, Ukrainian, and English.
Dr. Kaparulin teaches courses related to 20th Century Eastern European History, Global Military History, Museum Studies, and History of Ukraine in The Second World War. He works with the Jewish community center in Kherson, Hesed-Shmuel, to organize various educational events, which aim to inform the public about regional Jewish history. Dr. Kaparulin is the author of numerous publications, including, “In Search of a Better Destiny: Kherson House of Settlers of the Society for Settling Working Jews on the Land,” which was published by Scriptorium Nostrum. He is also the author of the recent book, Intellectual Biography of a Historian: Oleksandr Ryabinin-Sklyarevsky, 1978-1942 (2014).
Fellowship Research
While in residence at the Mandel Center, Dr. Kaparulin plans to explore the social history of Jewish agrarian settlements in the Kherson province, and how this was destroyed during World War II. His research will connect this social history to Holocaust history in the South of Ukraine. He seeks to question how Soviet policies affected Jewish agrarian life, what Jewish and gentile responses to the Holocaust were, and how Soviet authorities responded to the Holocaust. Through his work, Dr. Kaparulin will also explain how Jewish history of the south is remembered today, and how the Holocaust is remembered throughout the Ukraine.
Dr. Kaparulin will be in residence through July 31, 2019, and can be contacted at his museum email ykaparulin@ushmm.org.