Žydų ir lietuvių abipusio pažinimo ir kultūrinio bendradarbiavimo atspirtys tarpukario Lietuvoje: priemonės ir rezultatai

Santrauka

More solid preconditions and orientations for better mutual cognition of Lithuanians and Jews were established for the first time in the history of Lithuanian society in the independent state of the interwar period. The process designated as mutual cognition is two-directional and embraces the Jewish efforts to understand and absorb Lithuanian culture or its segments, as well as the readiness of Lithuanians to accept their Jewish compatriots and adapt their culture as part of their own. While discussing the ideal Lithuanian-Jewish relations, contemporaries used several concepts of similar meaning to specify the means of their achievement: “rapprochement”, “cognition”, and “making friends”, which gradually developed into a form of cognition that acquired a new quality – cultural cooperation. The aim of the research presented in the article is to define the situation of mutual cognition in the interwar Lithuanian society, the preconditions of formulating this need, the most adequate means applied to encourage mutual cognition and cultural cooperation, which means turned out to be the most effective and attractive, and who took the initiative to popularize Jewish culture among Lithuanians and correspondingly Lithuanian culture in the Jewish community. For the discussion of the process of cognition in interwar Lithuania, two newspapers published by Jews in Lithuanian – Mūsų garsas (Our Voice, 1924–25) and Apžvalga (Review, 1935–40), – as well as the works of various contents by Lithuanian and Jewish authors addressing the research of mutual cognition (translations of fictional works, reviews and memoirs about the activities of similar nature) have been used. Documents held in the archive of bibliographer and teacher of the Lithuanian language Isidor Kissin (1904–58) revealing the circumstances of preparing an anthology of Lithuanian literature in Hebrew, as well as the documents and publications of the Union of Jewish Soldiers who Participated in the Struggle for Lithuania’s Independence are introduced into scholarly circulation; while referring to the statute of the Society for Lithuanian and Jewish Cultural Cooperation and the documents of the Society’s liquidation, the scanty information about the activity of this organization contained in historiography is supplemented.
The Lithuanization of Jews that took place in interwar Lithuania affected different generations of Jews not equally: the generation of Jews of interwar independent Lithuania was Lithuanized, the process of acculturation took place by mastering the language, getting to know Lithuanian literature and culture, and agreeing upon the common shifts of national histories and their hardly differing interpretations, and the types of Jewish heroes of outstanding merit to the state were distinguished. Manifestations of cognition and recognition of Jewish culture and its adaptation to the Lithuanian contexts began to appear among Lithuanians, and the rhetoric of discourse about the coexistence of the two nations and its crucial moments was formed; however, time was too short for Jewish integration into society, which was also hindered by social and economic problems and the traditionalist view. The Lithuanian majority was not ready to assimilate the Jews who had experienced rapid acculturation and were building a new identity of “Lithuanians of the faith of Moses”.