Home / The John Batchelor Show / S8 Ep301: SHIFTING BORDERS AND THE FIGHT FOR GALICIAN IDENTITY Colleague Professor Eugene Finkel. Finkel shares the story of his grandfather, Israel (Lev), a Jew from Galicia who was drafted into the Red Army despite growing up in Poland without speaking Russian. T

S8 Ep301: SHIFTING BORDERS AND THE FIGHT FOR GALICIAN IDENTITY Colleague Professor Eugene Finkel. Finkel shares the story of his grandfather, Israel (Lev), a Jew from Galicia who was drafted into the Red Army despite growing up in Poland without speaking Russian. T

The John Batchelor Show

Jan 12, 2026

6 min

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SHIFTING BORDERS AND THE FIGHT FOR GALICIAN IDENTITY Colleague Professor Eugene Finkel. Finkel shares the story of his grandfather, Israel (Lev), a Jew from Galicia who was drafted into the Red Army despite growing up in Poland without speaking Russian. This illustrates the complex history of we...

SHIFTING BORDERS AND THE FIGHT FOR GALICIAN IDENTITY Colleague Professor Eugene Finkel. Finkel shares the story of his grandfather, Israel (Lev), a Jew from Galicia who was drafted into the Red Army despite growing up in Poland without speaking Russian. This illustrates the complex history of western Ukraine, which experienced Austrian tolerance regarding language compared to Russian repression and forced assimilation elsewhere. Finkel notes that Russian fear of Ukrainian nationalism in Galicia was a key driver for World War I. Following the 1917 Russian Empire collapse, a short-lived Ukrainian state emerged, but the region was eventually partitioned between the Soviet Union and Poland in 1939. NUMBER 2
1863 UKRAINE

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