Relacje chrześcijańsko-żydowskie w modelu antagonistycznej tolerancji. Od wspólnoty religii do wspólnoty pamięci
Christian-Jewish Relations in a Model of Antagonistic Tolerance: from a Religious Community to a Community of Memory

Summary/Abstract: This article was written upon the basis of ethnographic field studies conducted in Ukraine in the Vinnyts’ka oblast (the locality of Sharhorod) and the Cherkessk oblast (the locality of Uman). Before the Second World War Sharhorod, Murafa, and Uman were populated by a large Jewish community. During the war the Jewish inhabitants of Uman were murdered by the Nazis, but in Sharhorod and Murafa the Jewish population survived. In all three localities the last 25 years brought essential changes of the social and national structure – an outcome of political transformations and the collapse of the Soviet Union. During the 1980s and 1990s the entire Jewish community of Sharhorod and Murafa emigrated for economic reasons, but Uman witnessed a revival of a Hassidic pilgrimage movement and the establishment of a local Hassidic community. These changes affected the space of the examined communities, which, in turn, became the reason for social tension. The article discusses two disputes concerning Christian sacral objects in territories connected with the Jewish heritage of the given locality. By comparing a controversy concerning the Calvary in Sharhorod and a conflict surrounding a cross placed in direct proximity of a tzaddik’s grave in Uman the author attempted to demonstrate functional similarity between a religious community and a community of memory.

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