Jewish Agrarian Settlements in the Southern Ukraine

Dr. Kaparulin explores the social history of Jewish agrarian settlements in the Kherson oblast, 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. Yurii Kaparulin is Director of Raphael Lemkin Center for Genocide Studies, Associate Professor in Department of National, International Law and Law Enforcement of Faculty of Business and Law of Kherson State University. He studies the history and law of Eastern Europe, in particular, he is interested in Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Human Rights and Crimes against Humanity, Political repression in the Soviet Union and World War II. The results of his research have been published in such publications as the The Ideology and Politics Journal, Colloquia Humanistica, City History, Culture, Society, as well as the popular media BBC News Ukraine. In 2018-2019 he was on research fellowship at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (Initiative on Ukrainian-Jewish Shared History and the Holocaust in Ukraine), and later in 2019 in Yahad-In Unum (Paris, French Republic). Dr. Kaparulin is currently working on a monograph "Between Soviet Modernization and the Holocaust: Jewish Agrarian Settlements in the Kherson Region, 1924-1948." In 2021, he continued his research work during a fellowship in Bucharest, Romania (New Europe College). Also, Yurii Kaparulin together with Les Kasyanov (photographer, director, member of the Yahad-in Unum expeditions) is a co-author of the documentary films "Kalinindorf" (2020) and "Unknown Holocaust" (2021).