Jews in Lithuania between the Two World Wars

Author(s):  
Antony Polonsky

This chapter addresses the position of Jews in Lithuania between the two world wars. Although the history of inter-war Lithuania reveals many political failures, it is clear that, even during the authoritarian period, civil society continued to develop. Illiteracy was largely eradicated and impressive advances were made in social and intellectual life. In addition, land reform created a prosperous farming community whose products made up the bulk of the country's exports. The first years of Lithuanian independence were marked by a far-reaching experiment in Jewish autonomy. The experiment attracted wide attention across the Jewish world and was taken as a model by some Jewish politicians in Poland. Jewish autonomy also seemed to be in the interests of Lithuanians. The bulk of the Lithuanian lands remained largely agricultural until the First World War. Relations between Jews, who were the principal intermediaries between the town and manor and the countryside, and the mainly peasant Lithuanians took the form of a hostile symbiosis. This relationship was largely peaceful, and anti-Jewish violence was rare, although, as elsewhere, the relationship was marked by mutual contempt.

2019 ◽  
pp. 49-62
Author(s):  
Joshua Cole

The First World War was an important turning point in the history of French Algeria because many Algerians—both citizens and colonial subjects—participated in the war effort. The participation of Muslim Algerians in this national emergency created pressures for reform, resulting in a new law in 1919 that gave many Algerian Muslims the right to vote and run for office in local elections. This chapter explores the immediate consequences of this development along with an episode of anti-Jewish agitation in 1921 in Constantine when Muslim residents of the city refused to respond to attempts by settler anti-Semites to incite violence against the city’s Jews.


2016 ◽  
Vol 96 (3) ◽  
pp. 346-369
Author(s):  
Ulrich Wyrwa

The dispute between social versus religious interpretations of anti-Semitism pervaded the whole history of scholarly research. Whereas socio-historical interpretations had underlined the social aspects, current studies on anti-Semitism focus on religious motifs. The thesis that anti-Semitism was a result of a religious conflict, however, is far more alleged than substantially proved by the sources. So it seems necessary to go back to the sources. Therefore this paper analyzes the language of the Venetian Catholic newspaper Il Veneto Cattolico/ La Difesa from the foundation of the newspaper in 1867 up to the First World War. Just a few years before the term anti-Semitism was coined, Catholic journalists of Venice had created the new semantic of secular anti-Semitism. They turned back to religious issues when they tried to systematize their anti-Jewish sentiments. Thus one can observe in the coverage of the Venetian Catholic journals the invention of an anti-Semitic tradition.


1992 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 239-253 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gordon Cox

This paper traces the relationship between music and national feeling which permeated popular education during the latter part of the nineteenth century, culminating in the publication ofThe National Song Book(Stanford, 1906). By the First World War there was hardly a school in the country which did not possess a copy. The roots of the idea of national songs are traced back to Herder and Engel, and in particular to William Chappell'sPopular Music of the Olden Time(1858–9). The paper argues that music educationists developed distinct theories about the educative value of such songs in developing notions of nationhood, patriotism and racial pride. Specifically a line of development is traced in the development ofThe National Song Bookthrough Charles Stanford, W. H. Hadow and Arthur Somervell, while taking cognisance of the dissenting views of John Stainer and Cecil Sharp. The paper concludes thatThe National Song Bookproclaimed the hegemony of the literate tradition as opposed to the oral, and considers the view that national songs contained within them the danger of the manipulation of patriotism.


Zutot ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 39-48 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilse Josepha Lazaroms

This essay presents a close reading of testimonies of Jewish victim-narrators in the wake of the White Terror, the counter-revolutionary violence that terrorized Hungary in the years following the First World War. It takes a narrative perspective to this remarkable set of sources by looking at how the immediate experiences of violence were narrated and placed into a larger discourse of Jewish national belonging to the Hungarian nation. As such, it brings to light the voices of unknown historical actors in the specific context of post-war Jewish Hungary, as well as in the larger history of anti-Jewish violence in the European diaspora.


2015 ◽  
Vol 45 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 279-306 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reuben Loffman

This article charts the history of a White Fathers’ mission in a challenging rural milieu on the margins of the Christian ‘kingdom’ they established in southeastern Congo. It follows the Society from their arrival in the town of Sola in 1909 to the end of the colonial period. The history of this mission contradicts Jan Vansina’s claim that missionaries in general were part of an ensemble of actors able to shatter a millennia-old political tradition in Central Africa. Their position on the margins of their Christian ‘kingdom’ meant that the White Fathers in Sola were not powerful enough to fully enforce their will on the population of the town. Rather, they struggled to gain converts before the First World War because they were unfamiliar with Sola. Afterward they had to compete with waged labour, Protestantism, and traditional ‘secret societies’ for Africans’ attention.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-24
Author(s):  
ALEX MAYHEW

Abstract Popular perceptions of 1914–18 focus on the trenches. Yet, much of soldiers’ time was spent in rear areas and many men never reached the frontlines. By studying life behind the lines it is possible to offer new perspectives on the experience of the Great War. In August 1917 and 1918, the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) took over the usually quiet paths and lawns of Le Havre's Jardin St Roche, which the mayor of the town had agreed to loan to the base commandant. Rather than engaging in battle with the enemy, BEF servicemen and Belgian military personnel, alongside French civilians, were displaying the fruits (and vegetables) of their more peaceful labours. As part of a programme encouraging the cultivation of unused land around the surrounding camps, a vegetable competition was organized in which it was onions, beets, and kale rather than bullets, grenades, and shells that were the produce of war. This article explores the ways in which the organization of these events can throw light on the broader history of the British Army during the First World War. In doing so, it provides novel insights into the functioning of the BEF and the experiences of the men serving in it.


2000 ◽  
pp. 67-75
Author(s):  
R. Soloviy

In the history of religious organizations of Western Ukraine in the 20-30th years of the XX century. The activity of such an early protestant denominational formation as the Ukrainian Evangelical-Reformed Church occupies a prominent position. Among UCRC researchers there are several approaches to the preconditions for the birth of the Ukrainian Calvinistic movement in Western Ukraine. In particular, O. Dombrovsky, studying the historical preconditions for the formation of the UREC in Western Ukraine, expressed the view that the formation of the Calvinist cell should be considered in the broad context of the Ukrainian national revival of the 19th and 20th centuries, a new assessment of the religious factor in public life proposed by the Ukrainian radical activists ( M. Drahomanov, I. Franko, M. Pavlik), and significant socio-political, national-cultural and spiritual shifts caused by the events of the First World War. Other researchers of Ukrainian Calvinism, who based their analysis on the confessional-polemical approach (I.Vlasovsky, M.Stepanovich), interpreted Protestantism in Ukraine as a product of Western cultural and religious influences, alien to Ukrainian spirituality and culture.


2020 ◽  
pp. 65-80
Author(s):  
Magdalena Strąk

The work aims to show a peculiar perspective of looking at photographs taken on the eve of the broadly understood disaster, which is specified in a slightly different way in each of the literary texts (Stefan Chwin’s autobiographical novel Krótka historia pewnego żartu [The brief history of a certain joke], a poem by Ryszard Kapuściński Na wystawie „Fotografia chłopów polskich do 1944 r.” [At an exhibition “The Polish peasants in photographs to 1944”] and Wisława Szymborska’s Fotografia z 11 września [Photograph from September 11]) – as death in a concentration camp, a general concept of the First World War or a terrorist attack. Upcoming tragic events – of which the photographed people are not yet aware – become for the subsequent recipient an inseparable element of reality contained in the frame. For the later observers, privileged with time perspective, the characters captured in the photograph are already victims of the catastrophe, which in reality was not yet recorded by the camera. It is a work about coexistence of the past and future in the field of photography.


Author(s):  
Felix S. Kireev

Boris Alexandrovich Galaev is known as an outstanding composer, folklorist, conductor, educator, musical and public figure. He has a great merit in the development of musical culture in South Ossetia. All the musical activity of B.A. Galaev is studied and analyzed in detail. In most of the biographies of B.A. Galaev about his participation in the First World War, there is only one proposal that he served in the army and was a bandmaster. For the first time in historiography the participation of B.A. Galaev is analyzed, and it is found out what positions he held, what awards he received, in which battles he participated. Based on the identified documentary sources, for the first time in historiography, it occured that B.A. Galaev was an active participant in the First World War on the Caucasian Front. He went on attacks, both on foot and horse formation, was in reconnaissance, maintained communication between units, received military awards. During this period, he did not have time to study his favorite music, since, according to the documents, he was constantly at the front, in the battle formations of the advanced units. He had to forget all this heroic past and tried not to mention it ever after. Therefore, this period of his life was not studied by the researchers of his biography. For writing this work, the author uses the Highest Orders on the Ranks of the Military and the materials of the Russian State Military Historical Archive (RSMHA).


2011 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
pp. 276-289
Author(s):  
Luc Vandeweyer

Het wordt in de historiografie van de Vlaamse beweging aanvaard dat Hendrik Conscience door de Brusselse progressieve vereniging ‘De Veldbloem’ in 1872 werd gevraagd om te kandideren voor de parlementaire verkiezingen. Conscience zou dat geweigerd hebben. Dit is uiteraard geen onbetekenend feit in de biografie van de man die ‘zijn volk leerde lezen’.Dit gegeven is terug te voeren op de geschriften van Antoon Jacob (°1889) van na de Eerste Wereldoorlog. Jacob werd beschouwd als een autoriteit inzake Conscience. Maar waar is het bewijs? Hij verwees daarbij naar “uitvoerige correspondentie” maar die is niet te vinden. Het ADVN slaagde erin om de archivalische nalatenschap van de in 1947 gestorven Jacob te verwerven. Daarin bleken heel wat brieven van en aan Conscience te zitten. De briefwisseling met ‘De Veldbloem’ was onderwerp van deze bijdrage. Daarin is geen spoor te vinden van de poging om Conscience op het politieke strijdtoneel te brengen in Brussel. Daarbij moet de vraag gesteld worden hoe Jacob deze archiefstukken verzamelde en wat ermee is gebeurd tijdens zijn turbulente leven en talrijke omzwervingen. Het is best mogelijk dat er een en ander is verloren gegaan. Toch is deze nalatenschap een belangrijke aanwinst voor de studie van de geschiedenis van de Vlaamse beweging en die van Conscience in het bijzonder. ________ The Brussels association ‘De Veldbloem’ seeks contact with Hendrik Conscience. Two recently discovered letters It is an accepted fact in the historiography of the Flemish Movement that the Brussels progressive Association ‘De Veldbloem’ [=the Wildflower] asked Hendrik Conscience in 1872 to be their candidate for the parliamentary elections. It is said that Hendrik Conscience refused the request. This is of course a very significant fact in the biography of the man ‘who taught his people to read.’ This information may be inferred from the writings of Antoon Jacob (°1889) from the period after the First World War. Jacob was regarded as an authority on Conscience. But where is the evidence of this? In his claim, he referred to ‘extensive correspondence’, but that correspondence is not extant. The ADVN managed to acquire the archival legacy of Jacob who died in 1947. It turned out that it included quite a number of letters to and from Conscience. The exchange of letters with ‘De Veldbloem’ was the subject of this contribution. It contains no trace of the attempt to bring Conscience into the political arena in Brussels. It raises the question how Jacob collected these archival documents and what happened to them during his turbulent life and his many peregrinations.  It is certainly possible that some documents have been lost. However, this legacy is still an important acquisition for the study of the history of the Flemish Movement and of Conscience in particular.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document