Confronting Catastrophes: The Art of Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern

This exhibition catalog presents a collaborative work of Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, scholar and artist, and the key Ukrainian and Jewish writers, art scholars, politicians, educators, journalists, and poets, who unravel the visual mysteries of his artwork on display at the Ukrainian Institute of America in the fall of 2025. Together they address in real time the catastrophic events of nowadays, including ideological brainwashing, imperial aggression, political hypocrisy, cultural genocide, and the immensity of human suffering. The artworks and essays ponder the question of resilience and survival of a nation-in-the making in the situation of a global crisis of humanity.

The volume’s contributors are Alex Averbuch, Rory Finnin, Amelia Glaser, Olena Grozovska, Anna Gruver, Borys Gudziak, Yuriy Gurzhy, Tamara Hundorova, Rodger Kamenetz, Mykola Kniazhytsky, Serhii Kvit, Oksana Lutsyshyna, Vasyl Makhno, Oleksandra Matviichuk, Joel Mokyr, Myroslava Mudrak, Mykhailo Nazarenko, Oxana Pachlovska, Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern, Katja Petrowskaya, Ilia Rodov, Edward Serotta, Anastasiia Simferovska, Benjamin Sloan, Edjan Westerman, and Marcin Wodzinski.

Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern (Author)
Yohanan Petrovsky-Shtern is the Crown Family Chair of Jewish Studies and a Professor of Jewish History in the History Department at Northwestern University, Evanston, Illinois. He focuses on political, cultural and multiethnic interference in comparative literature, early modern and modern Jewish history, and East Europe with a focus on Ukraine. Petrovsky-Shtern is or was also a Fulbright Specialist on Eastern Europe, Fellow at the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, Professor at the Free Ukrainian University in Munich, Recurrent Visiting Professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Lady Davis Professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem, Kosciuszko Visiting Professor at Warsaw University, and honorary doctor of the National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy in Kyiv. He has published more than 150 articles, seven books, and seven edited volumes, four of these award-winning, including The Jews in the Russian Army: Drafted into Modernity (2008, 2nd ed. 2014); The Anti-Imperial Choice: the Making of the Ukrainian Jew (2009); Lenin’s Jewish Question (2010); Jews and Ukrainians: Polin, vol. 26 (2011, co-edited with Antony Polonsky); Cultural Interference of Jews and Ukrainians: a Field in the Making (2014); The Golden-Age Shtetl: a New History of Jewish Life in East Europe (2014, 2nd ed. 2015); Jews and Ukrainians: a millennium of coexistence (2016, co-authored with Paul Robert Magocsi; 2nd ed. 2018). His Anti-Imperial Choice was a book winner of the American Association for Ukrainian Studies and Canadian ＂Encounter＂ Prize. His Golden Age Shtetl was nominated for Pulitzer Prize and won a National Jewish Book Award. His essays, books, and chapters have appeared in Greek, Spanish, Ukrainian, Polish, Russian, French, Hebrew, and German. As an artist, Petrovsky-Shtern combines the traditions of European avant-garde, Polish political poster, and Ukrainian folk art. He enjoyed a dozen international and national shows, exhibiting his artwork in Kyiv, Lviv, Greenwich (CT), Chicago, and New York, including solo shows at Spertus Gallery, National Ukrainian Museum, and Ukrainian Institute of America. His work was featured at Crosscurrents, Antikvar, Ukrainian Weekly, The New York Jewish Week, and Arts Illustrated.

Anastasia Simferovska (Edited by)
Anastasia Simferovska holds a PhD in art history from Lviv National Academy of Arts, and is a PhD candidate in Slavic Studies at Northwestern University. In her research, Dr. Simferovska explores cultural, artistic, and literary relations among Jews, Poles, Russians, and Ukrainians in the 19th and 20th centuries, with a specific focus on national and cultural identity, the idea of otherness, and the reaction to and representation of war and violence. Her publications appeared in Holocaust Studies: the Ukrainian Focus, Dapim Journal for Holocaust Research, Judaica Ucrainica, and Ars Judaica. She also published a monographic catalog of the Polish-Armenian artist Kaetan Stefanowicz. Currently, Anastasia Simferovska is a Kurt and Thea Sonnenmark Memorial Fellow at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Previously she has been a Fellow at the Holocaust Educational Foundation Regional Institute, a Fellow at Gaude Polonia, a visiting professor at the Ukrainian Catholic University in Lviv, Ukraine, and a scholar-in-residence, researcher, and curator at the Voznytsky National Art Gallery in Lviv, Ukraine.