The End of the glorious years: YIVO under the Soviet regime, 1940-1941
ENWhile the general history of the YIVO Institute, which was established in Vilnius in 1925, and its afterlife in New York have been widely discussed, the fate of its collections under Soviet rule has attracted considerably less attention. This article delves into thousands of pages of YIVO-related materials that were recently rediscovered in several institutions in Vilnius. Even though the documents have been accessible for years, they were virtually untouched by scholars and thus constitute an interesting case of under-researching. Preserved in the Lithuanian National State Archives, these documents relate to the YIVO Institute in Vilnius in 1940 and 1941 – a period during which Vilnius was under Soviet occupation, but at the same time underwent processes of lithuanization. Located at an interface of Jewish, Lithuanian, and Soviet history, these materials offer an insightful glimpse into the state of the YIVO structure, the content of its archival collections, the museums, and the library immediately before the Nazi occupation and the subsequent plundering. [From the publication]
