2012
info:eu-repo/semantics/OpenAccess
Akvilė Grigoravičiūtė, « Jidiš literatūra tarpukario Lietuvoje (1918–1940): savasties paieškos », HAL-SHS : histoire, ID : 10670/1.lep7rc
This article serves as an introduction to Yiddish literature of the interwar period (1918-1940) in Lithuania, a region heretofore neglected by most studies of interwar Yiddish culture, most of which still generally concentrate only on the most important Yiddish cultural centres of that time, such as Poland, the Soviet Union, or the United States. Various literary and essayistic texts by Lithuanian Jewish authors are explored through their most pronounced themes: the total break with life before the First World War; the alienation, isolation, and loneliness felt during the post-war years; and feeling of rootedness in Lithuania. The article argues that these texts reflect the broader, complicated process of identity (re)construction of Lithuanian Jews in the period under discussion. Perceptions of an acute identity crisis – caused by painful war experiences such as the forced expulsions of 1915, or by complicated relations with the newly emerged Lithuanian state – were common during the 1920s, but were gradually replaced by affirmations of a new Lithuanian-Jewish identity in the 1930s. The influence of sociocultural and political pressures on the development of Yiddish literature in Lithuania is therefore emphasized.