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LATVIJAS UNIVERSITÂTES RAKSTI. 2004. 666. sçj.: LITERATÛRZINÂTNE, FOLKLORISTIKA,
MÂKSLA, 180.–187. lpp.
Lithuania and Lithuanians in the Yiddish Literature of
Inter–war Lithuania
Lietuva un lietuvieði jidiða literatûrâ starpkaru Lietuvâ
Tina Lunson (USA)
Bkivin kovne, 7218 Central Avenue
Takoma Park, MD 20912 USA
e–mail: tlunson@ix.netcom.com
The era of Independent Lithuania between the two World Wars was a complex period for the
Jewish communities there. The era began with an idealistic autonomy for the Jewish community,
and enthusiastic Jews worked to create their Utopia within Lithuanian society, contributing
to the national economy and social life; developing in their communities institutions for
secular and religious learning, cultural associations, social and support organizations, an outstanding
Yiddish and Hebrew press, and sports activities.
Politically in the ensuing decades, Jews proceeded from a heady pro–Lithuanianism to attempts
to alter their apparent economic fate, to efforts to recreate a more insular autonomy or to escape
from the country itself. Jews were an intensely active minority in internal and co–communal
transition, within a new–old country struggling through its own transitions.
To the end of Independent Lithuania, some Jews continued to believe in a version of historian
Shimen Dubnow’s “doikayt” [“here–ness”] that would allow them to live full Jewish lives as
full citizens in an integrated Lithuania. One such figure was Leyb Garfunkl, an attorney, a
member of the Lithuanian Sejm, a writer and social organizer.
Literature in Yiddish often reflects these various ideals, with writers looking to create a distinctive
Jewish culture while being totally cognizant of their Lithuanian environment. Among
young Yiddish writers who wrote of Lithuania—her bountiful countryside, her antiquity, her
peoples living alongside each other, her struggle to recover from years of occupation and relative
stagnation—are the three Gotlib brothers; Eliezer Heyman; Yisroel Kaplan; and the brothers
Mayer and Khaym Yelin, all working and publishing in Kaunas/Kovne.
What does this special notice, this incorporation of the two worlds connote? How did it affect
the Jews who read it, and did it affect the Lithuanian majority that lived alongside? Fresh interpretations
of several works of the above–mentioned authors, and others, illuminate a shadowed
area of Jewish literature and reveal sentiments that a dreadful history has blocked out
for many years.
Keywords: Yiddish literature; Lithuanian Jews; inter–war Lithuania.
Lithuania emerged after World War I independent, idealistic, and determined, after
generations of occupations. When the new state of Lithuania was declared, many of the
Jewish families who had been expelled by the Russian army, returned to re–establish their
homesteads and small businesses, and they invested themselves in the heady dream of
an independent Lithuania that would be home to political and religious freedom, to prosperous
business networks, and to hopeful education and social goals.
Lithuania created a very generous minority treaty, of which the Jewish community
was one beneficiary. Yiddish—the thousand–year–old European language of the
Jews—was one of three official languages, and the reports to the community from
the Ministry of Jewish Affairs were printed in Yiddish. Enthusiastic Jews worked to