"In Search of an Internal Enemy": Espionage in Bukovyna during the First World War
Mykola Hlibishchuk
Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University20.2.2025, 18:30
Conference Room of the Center for Urban History
We are pleased to invite you to a lecture by Mykola Hlibishchuk, which continues the public program "Let’s Have a City."
The turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was not only a time of Belle Époque achievements in various spheres of society, but also a time of flourishing espionage. Each of the major states of the time suspected each other of seeking to undermine the other. During the First World War, this phobia became so widespread that it even affected countries that were far from the theater of operations (for example, the United States).
The historiographical heritage of this topic is extremely rich, but usually, when studying this phenomenon, researchers focus on the capitals of the empires of the time, iconic figures associated with espionage, etc. However, what can we say about espionage in multicultural border regions during the First World War, when the military administration in these territories changed with the change of the front line? And who was suspected of spying for the enemy?
During the lecture, Mykola Hlibishchuk will focus on the Eastern Front of the Great War of 1914-1918 through the example of Bukovyna, will refer to archival materials on espionage stored in Chernivtsi, and will consider how the personal factor influenced this phenomenon during the war.

Mykola Hlibishchuk
Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National UniversityAn assistant professor at the Department of World History at Yuriy Fedkovych Chernivtsi National University. As part of his residency at the Center supported by the Institute of Human Sciences (IWM), Mykola will work on the spy mania in Bukovyna during the First World War