Antisemitism in Lithuania

• Academia: straipsnio tekstas

ENAny attempt to discuss the phenomenon of Antisemitism in Lithuania, as part of the relationships between ethnic Lithuanians and the „Litvaks” throughout the last eight hundreds years, requires two preliminary definitions: 1. The geographical area: what do we mean by the term „Lithuania“? Historically, during the period under discussion Lithuania's borders were changed frequently as a result of wars, political treaties and conquests. Thus, one has to decide to which geographical area to refer: to the borders of Lithuania of the Grand duke Vytautas (1401-1430), which stretched from the shores of the Black sea in the south to the coasts of the Baltic sea in the north? To the territory of the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth following the Union of Lublin (1569), in which, the unique Lithuanian ethnic and cultural identity became, to a significant extant, quiet indistinct? To the narrowing borders of interwar Lithuania (excluding Vilnius and the nearby environment), or to the borders of what is known today as the republic of Lithuania? 2. The local non-Jewish population: what is the exact national, ethnic and religious definition of the non-Jewish population which we refer to? This dilemma arises from the unique multi-national (Lithuanians, Poles, Byelorussians, Latvians, Roma and Germans), multi-ethnic (Lithuanians, Samogitians, Ruthenians,) and multi-religious (Pagans, Catholics, Lutherans, Uniates, Baptists, Russian Old believers) nature of the population in the discussed area (cf. Postašenko 2002; Kaubrys 2002). Considering the different attitudes toward the Jews, prevalent in each of the above mentioned groups, in and outside Lithuania, this question seems crucial in regard to the current discussion.Under these circumstances, it seems that the only way to draw a mostly reliable historic picture of the antisemitism in „Lithuania”, is to limit this paper to the inter-relationships between Jews and ethnic Lithuanians lived in the regions which, due to the dominancy of the autochthonic Lithuanian culture and the prevalence of different dialects of the Lithuanian language, can be considered as „original Lithuania”: Žemaitija, Aukštaitija, Suvalkija and Dzūkija, and, to a limited extent, also to the region known as „Lithuania Minor“.