walking around the town. Zhovkva and its Inconspicuous Trajectories
8.11.2026, 14:00
Zhovkva
The town (містечко/miasteczko/שטעטל) is made up of the many daily, often hurried routes taken by its residents. Amid the daily worries, responsibilities, and small pleasures—trips to school, work, the market, the church, or a coffee shop—it takes some effort to find a little time for a simple stroll. Yet a leisurely walk through town is important. It helps you slow down and notice the things that are easily overlooked. It allows you to discover new places, take a closer look at the tapestry of the town's memory, and reflect on the processes and events that reshape people's lives through often subtle, long-term influences.
During our walk through Zhovkva—a former shtetl—we'll discuss its long 1940s: the transformations that took place in the town and the trajectories of its residents during World War II and the protracted postwar period. In particular, we'll try together—using materials from private, community, and state archives—to trace changes in the urban landscape, in the realms of memorialization, private and communal property, production and administration, leisure, and culture.
How did Żółkiew/זשאלקווע/Zhovkva become Zhovkva, and Zhovkva become Nesterov and then Zhovkva again? How did suitcases full of personal stories—carried away and brought back—change the town's daily life? What layers of unspoken experiences are embedded in the places we pass through every day—such as the castle park, Vicheva and Yevhen Konovalets Squares, Zaporizka, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, and Lviv Streets, and the "Roztochchia" Stadium?
Language of the walk: Ukrainian
To participate, please register via this link. We will notify you of the meeting location after registration.
Historian, works at the Ivan Krypyakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, as well as at the Central State Historical Archive of Ukraine in Lviv, where she is the curator of the collection of ancient documents. She is writing her dissertation on the sociocultural and historical aspects of the formation of urban space in Zhovkva from 1945 to 2017. Her research interests include urban, visual, and oral history. Historian, she works at the Urban Media Archive of the Center for Urban History, where she curates the collection of visual documentation of the war. She is currently writing her dissertation at the UCU—an intellectual biography of the historian Ivan Krypiakevych. She has been organizing walking tours of Zhovkva with neighbors since 2021. Her research interests include intellectual history, oral history, digital humanities, the role of volunteering during wartime, digital archiving, interwar education in Galicia, and the contested heritage of World War II.
Vasylyna Pasternak
Ivan Krypyakevych Institute of Ukrainian Studies
Liana Blikharska
Center for Urban History
The event will take place as part of the public program "Weaving the Heritage" and exhibition "From Place to Place: Stories from Scattered Archives," which is part of the "REHERIT 2.0: Common Responsibility for Shared Heritage" project. The "REHERIT 2.0" project is implemented by the Center for Urban History and the Center for Regional Development of the PPV Economic Development Agency with financial support from the European Union.
This publication was produced with the financial support of the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the partners of the "REHERIT 2.0" project and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.
Credits
Cover Image: Zhovkva by Andrii Symonenko