In a forested land bordered by the Carpathian Mountains to the south, the Dniester River to the north, and the Bistritz River to the south-east, lies Bukovina. This region, traversed by rivers and trade routes, travelers often described it as the easternmost point of the west and the westernmost point of the east. Due to its location, Bukovina frequently became a borderland between the prevailing great powers. Once a diverse and culturally rich region of the Habsburg Empire, Bukovina has been divided between Romania and the Soviet Union after the Second World War and today is split between Romania and Ukraine. The region holds a unique place in Jewish history and memory where various Jewish communities lived alongside Romanian and Ukrainian Orthodox Christians, Lutheran Germans, Roman Catholic Poles, Seklers from Andrásfalva, Armenian Christians, Russian Lipovans, and Hutsuls.
The origins of the Jewish presence in Bukovina remain obscure, though it likely dates back to the fifteenth century. During this period, trade routes traversed the region and Jewish merchants were encouraged to establish themselves in the Principality of Moldavia. By the time of the Austrian occupation in 1774, Jewish communities were already part of the local population. In the years following the occupation, the Austrian administration displayed hostility towards the Jewish population. This was rooted not so much in stereotypes and antisemitism but rather in the Enlightenment-era belief that saw local Jewish communities as impediments to modernization, presenting a problem to be resolved. A Toleration Edict was enacted in 1789 and from 1849, liberalization and emancipation policies fostered an atmosphere of tolerance and cultural assimilation. This marked the beginning of what became known as the Jewish Golden Era. Austrian and German influences profoundly shaped Jewish life in Bukovina during this period. While keeping Yiddish in the private sphere, Jews embraced the German language and became pivotal in advancing German-language culture in the region. By 1914, Jews had integrated fully into Bukovina’s society, viewing Austria as their homeland, a process that historian David Rechter called “becoming Habsburg.” How did emancipation expand Jewish opportunities for mobility? What controversies did Jewish emancipation bring about? How did emancipation change the everyday lives of Jewish communities and how did Jewish life shape Bukovina? To what extent was daily life ethnicized, and how did the inhabitants of the region navigate between diversity and homogenization? How did this experience vary between urban and rural areas?
After the First World War, Bukovina became part of the Kingdom of Romania. This posed a challenge for the mostly urban, German-speaking Jewish communities loyal to Austria. The change in sovereignty and efforts to Romanianize the region affected the relationships between Jews and non-Jews. What stayed the same, and what changed? In the 1930s, as far-right movements gained momentum across Europe, Romania saw an increase in nationalist policies and antisemitism. Bukovina was ceded to the Soviets in 1940, then reclaimed by Romania in 1941, during its alliance with Germany. The deportations to Transnistria, displacement, and extermination of Bukovinian Jews during the Holocaust decimated the Jewish community, with two-thirds of Bukovina’s prewar Jewish population not surviving. The survivors, numbering around 50,000, mostly emigrated to Israel. How did Ukrainians, Romanians, Poles and Germans interact with their Jewish neighbors during this time? How did the experience of the Holocaust shape the memory cultures of these groups?
Despite no longer existing as a geopolitical entity, Bukovina remains an important reference point for displaced Jewish Bukovinians in their new homelands. Bukovina has been nostalgically mythologized as an emblem of a lost east-central Europe, where Jewish communities thrived. Today Bukovina is divided between Ukraine and Romania, and its Jewish communities are dispersed all over the world. What did it mean in the past, and what does it mean today, to be a Bukovinian Jew?
The 2026 volume of Danubiana Carpathica: Yearbook for History and Culture in the German Settlement Areas in South East Europe, published by De Gruyter Oldenbourg Verlag, calls for manuscripts focusing on Jewish experiences of Bukovina. The editors of the volume aim to create an inter- and pluridisciplinary account of Jewish perspectives on Bukovina. We not only encourage future authors to transcend disciplinary boundaries but also urge them to navigate beyond the confines of national historiographies to offer an entangled (hi)story of Jewish Bukovina. Contributions from the fields of anthropology, art history, cultural studies, digital humanities, ethnography, environmental history, geography, history, Jewish studies, legal history, literature, museology, social and economic history, sociology, translation studies, and related fields are welcome. We invite studies that delve into this complex topic, offering insights from theoretical, methodological, and historiographical perspectives.
Prospective authors should address at least one of the following topics:
- Changes in sovereignty and Jewish loyalty patterns
- Administrative and legal frameworks of Jewish and non-Jewish cohabitation: perspectives from above and below
- The sociology of nostalgic representations of Bukovina in fiction and non-fiction
- Modernization, the “Jewish question,” and antisemitism
- Individual biographies and narratives of Jewishness
- The social and economic life of Jewish Bukovina
- Border experiences
- The mental construct of East and West, including the controversies around the concepts of “Ostjude” and “Westjude”
- The Holocaust in Bukovina
- Geography and the continuities and discontinuities in the mental mapping of Jewish Bukovina
- Jewishness as a group and individual experience in Bukovina
How to Apply:
Please submit your abstract, with a maximum length of 500 words, and a short bio of approximately 250 words, to adorjani[at]bukowina-institut.de by October 1, 2024. Authors will receive feedback by November 1, 2024.
Following positive feedback, please submit full contributions, with a length of approximately 30,000 characters, no later than February 3, 2025.
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