History


The Faina Petryakova Science Center for Judaica and Jewish Art was founded on March 23, 2005. The Center is based in Lviv, Ukraine, where it acts as one of the main centers for the preservation of Jewish heritage.

The Petryakova Center has been set up to commemorate the life of Faina Petryakova, a distinguished professor at the Lviv Academy of Arts, recognized figure in the field of ethnography in Ukraine and beyond, and a senior researcher of the Insitute of Ethnography at the Lviv branch office of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine. Doctor Petryakova passed away in 2002, leaving behind a remarkable scientific legacy worthy of her stature as a renowned scholar in such fields as Ukrainian glass, porcelain, ceramics and Ukrainian Judaica.

Legacy of Dr. Faina Petryakova

In the1990s, Doctor Petryakova, with the help of a highly regarded history professor Yaroslav Dashkevych and several of her good friends, was the first to initiative a display of a unique Judaica collection at the Museum of Ethnography and Art Crafts in Lviv. Doctor Petryakova meticulously studied every item in the collection. In doing so she approached her work both from the point view of comprehending the intrinsic meaning of each art piece and that of understanding its artistic value. What she was after was to study the mutual interconnectedness of the Jewish and Ukrainian cultures, the centuries-old history of relations between them, particularly in the area of folk art. The exhibition that Faina Petryakova fought relentlessly to organize and the collection that she wanted to make available to the public, was an unique undertaking in the 90s following the collapse of the Soviet Union, a political system that forbade and supressed an open display of Jewish collections.

Doctor Faina Petryakova's legacy is manifold. She was a passionate defender and promoter of art, including Jewish art, and a great scholar. Among her greatest scholarly accomplishments is the in-depth analysis of Maximilian Goldstein's art collection. At the moment, numerous artciles written by Doctor Petryakova are being prepared for publication.

Founding Members

Yaroslav Dashkevych - Honorary Scientist of Ukraine, doctor of history, full professor, director of the Lviv branch of the Hrushevsky Institute of Archeography and Source Study at the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine

Association of Museums and Galleries

Meylakh Sheykhet,director of the Jewish Revival Charitable Organization, country director for Representation to Ukraine of the Union of Councils for Jews in the Former Soviet Union (UCSJ)

Iryna Kalynets - community activist.