Dr. Sofiya Grachova

Professional Background

Sofiya Grachova earned her PhD in history from Harvard University in 2014. She previously held a Max Weber Postdoctoral Fellowship at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy. While in residence at the Jack, Joseph and Morton Mandel Center for Advanced Holocaust Studies, Dr. Grachova conducted research on her project, “Science and Inter-ethnic Relations in Galicia/Western Ukraine (1937-1947)”. She possesses language skills in Russian, Ukrainian, English, Polish, German, and Yiddish.

Dr. Grachova’s papers and publications include “'Counter-revolutionary Agitation' in the Soviet Union during the Great Patriotic War: The Politics of Legal Prosecution,” as in Cahiers du Monde russe vol. 52 (2011); “Chuzha istoriia zi svoieiu moralliu” [The History of Others Used to Our Own Ends] in Krytyka (2008); and “Oni żyli wśród nas?" [They Lived among Us? - translation and revision of the 2005 Ukrainian publication], in OUN, UPA i zagłada Żydów [OUN, UPA and the Extermination of Jews] (forthcoming). Some of her academic presentations include “In Search of Jewish Blood: Sero-Anthropology and the Quest for the Ethnic History of Soviet Jews,” 45th Annual Conference of the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies in Boston (2013); “Jewish Health and the Politics of Race in the Russian Empire,” 44th Annual Conference for the Association for Jewish Studies held in Chicago (2012); and “Beyond the Jewish Type: Physical Anthropology, Jewish Bodies, and Citizenship in the Russian Empire and the USSR,” 44th Annual Conference for the Association for Slavic, East European and Eurasian Studies in New Orleans, Louisiana (2012). 

Fellowship Research

During her tenure as the Initiative on Ukrainian-Jewish Shared History and the Holocaust in Ukraine Fellow, Dr. Grachova studied the experiences of Jewish scientists during both the German and the Soviet occupations of Galicia. Specifically, she delved into the archival holdings and oral histories of those survivors from the Lviv/Lwów and Krakow regions of Poland.

Dr. Grachova was in-residence at the Mandel Center from September 1, 2015 to April 30, 2016.