Jewish Community in the Space of an Imperial City: Kharkiv in 1859-1923

We are pleased to invite you to a lecture by Artem Kharchenko on Jewish community in Kharkiv as part of the public series "Let’s Have a City."

On April 28, 1915, the Hauchberg couple, Solomon and Rebecca, applied to the Kharkiv governor for permission to live in the city in order to take the medical exams. A letter to the governor's office was a common procedure for anyone who practiced Judaism in the Russian Empire and wanted to get beyond the Pale of Settlement, the border drawn in the late eighteenth century. 

The story of how Jewish communities were formed in cities outside the Pale of Settlement is an important component of migration movements, the process of urbanization, and the formation of multicultural urban spaces in the second half of the nineteenth and first quarter of the twentieth centuries. Kharkiv, with the advantages of a large city, became a significant center on the path of many Jews who found themselves outside the Pale. The Jews of Kharkiv became co-creators in the formation of the modern city, and for a long time were one of its most numerous communities. 

The lecture will focus on stories from below and will allow us to see Kharkiv Jews not only in elegant shops, hospitals, or legal institutions, but also in search of them in local markets and police stations. Imperial policy constantly demanded that Jewish subjects assimilate. But despite this pressure, the "hidden community" preserved itself even on the eve of the empire's end. Let's also try to think together about whether we should put an end to this story in 1917.

Credits

Cover Image: Talmud Torah building / photo by Yevhen Schneider / My Shtetl