Sorry, the title may sound a little too specific and my English is not the best. Please let me know if this is the wrong subreddit for my questions. I am currently working on a book project about the life of a Jew from Bukovina in the second half of the 19th century in Austria-Hungary. Even though I researched much about the life there, many questions still remained unanswered. The protagonist, who grows up in a traditional Hasidic household in a small Carpathian village, makes friends with Christians and even develop sympathies for Christianity. Now I wanted to ask what Jewish-Christian relations in Galicia/ Bucovina looked like in the 19th century? What influence did Austria-Hungary's politics have on them? Which non-Jewish nationality was the most tolerant? Germans, Romanians, Lipovans, Ukrainians, Rusyn? How tolerant were the Jews towards them? How, when and where did Jews and non-Jews meet? How was the religious harmony? And how did Jewish life and ethnic relations differ in rural and urban areas? I would be very happy to receive answers to my (hopefully not too many) questions!
Hi there - we're happy to approve your question related to your creative project, and we are happy for people to answer. However, we should warn you that many flairs have become reluctant to answer questions for aspiring novelists and the like, based on past experience: some people working on creative projects have a tendency to try to pump historians for trivia while ignoring the bigger points they were making, while others have a tendency to argue with historians when the historical reality does not line up with what's needed for a particular scene or characterization. Please respect the answers of people who have generously given you their time, even if it's not always what you want to hear.
Additionally, as amazing as our flair panel is, we should also point out that /r/AskHistorians is not a professional historical consultation service. If you're asking a question here because you need vital research for a future commercial product such as a historical novel, you may be better off engaging a historical consultant at a fair hourly rate to answer these questions for you. We don't know what the going rate for consultancy work would be in your locality, but it may be worth looking into that if you have in-depth or highly plot-reliant questions for this project. Some /r/AskHistorians flairs could be receptive to working as a consultant in this way. However, if you wish for a flair here to do this work for you, you will need to organize this with them yourselves.
For more general advice about doing research to inform a creative project, please check out our Monday Methods post on the subject.