Galyna Kutsovska Awarded 2025-2026 Greenberg Virtual Research Fellowship

The USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research has awarded the 2025–2026 the Margee and Douglas Greenberg Virtual Research Fellowship to Galyna Kutsovska, a PhD candidate in History at Uppsala University in Sweden. The fellowship will support her in conducting her research in Sweden with full remote access to USC resources and the Center’s mentorship, scholarly community, and support.

In her dissertation, entitled “Jewish Responses and Survival Strategies of Families, Women, and Children during the Holocaust in Kharkiv,” Kutsovska investigates how Jewish individuals and families in Eastern Ukraine navigated persecution, displacement, and mass violence under Nazi occupation. Focusing on the Kharkiv Oblast – an understudied region – Kutsovska explores survival strategies through the lenses of Jewish and intermarried families, women, and children. She examines themes such as hiding, passing, evading, and escaping, among others.

As the Greenberg Virtual Fellow, Kutsovska will analyze testimonies from the Visual History Archive, focusing on interviews conducted in Russian and Ukrainian. These testimonies offer essential insights into the lived experiences of Jewish families in Kharkiv. Kutsovska will be in residence in the Fall 2025 semester and will give a lecture about her research in early Spring 2026.

Kutsovska holds a BA and MA in Philology (English and French Languages and Literature) from V.N. Karazin Kharkiv National University in Ukraine. She earned a second Master’s degree in Ethnic and Migration Studies from Linköping University in Sweden, where her award-winning thesis explored the politics of memory and commemoration of the Holocaust in Ukraine, centered on Babyn Yar. In the past, she pursued additional research training as a visiting student at the University of Toronto.

A multilingual scholar and accomplished researcher, Kutsovska has earned multiple fellowships, including the Sosland Foundation Fellowship from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum (USHMM), the Conny Kristel Fellowship from the European Holocaust Research Infrastructure (EHRI), the Yad Vashem Research Scholarship for PhD Students, and support from the European Association of Jewish Studies (EAJS). She has authored articles in the journal Baltic Worlds and two special journals.

Awarded for the first time this year, the Margee and Douglas Greenberg Virtual Research Fellowship enables an outstanding advanced-standing Ph.D. candidate from any discipline and anywhere in the world to conduct dissertation research with full remote access to the Visual History Archive and related unique USC research resources. The fellowship enables the recipient to spend a period in virtual residence at the USC Dornsife Center for Advanced Genocide Research during the academic year and to deliver a public lecture about their research.