Шесть историй: еврейские музеи в Литве

ENThe article is a result of the Postdoctoral fellowship which is funded by European Union Structural Funds project “Postdoctoral Fellowship Implementation in Lithuania”. The author focuses on the development of Jewish museums in Lithuania. The article gives a brief overview of the development of the first Jewish museums in Europe and the Russian Empire. She mentions efforts of Emanuel Kan and Cemach (Tsemakh) Shabad to establish Jewish museum in 1912 in Tsarist Vilna. The Jewish museum was opened in Vilna by the Society of Jewish Antiquity in 1913. The World War I interrupted the activity of the Museum. Then S. An‑sky’s Museum was established in 1919 in the Polish Vilna. The Museum had an impressive collection, which was ravaged during the World War II. The author also describes the activity of the Jewish Ethnographic Museum, which was opened in 1931 in Kaunas – the capital of the independent Republic of Lithuania. The author reveals the attempts of writers Herman Kruk, Abraham Sutzkever, Shmerke Katsherginski and many others, to save the unique and invaluable items of the Jewish museum in Vilna ghetto. The article describes the Jewish Museum and its exhibitions in the Soviet Vilnius from 1944 till 1949. The author also mentions the fact that the Jewish State Museum was rebuilt in the independent Lithuania of 1989. The article is based on archival documents and the press, on memoirs and recollections of S. An‑sky, Chaikl Lunsky and Herman Kruk, as well as on interviews of survivors recorded by Dr. Gradinskaite.