New Approaches to Cultural Identity Research: Changing Self-Perception of Lithuanian Jewish and Karaite Communities in the Process of Emancipation

Session Submission Type: Panel

Brief Description

This panel examines the emancipation processes within Jewish and Karaite communities in the territory of present-day Lithuania in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The main focus is on new approaches to the study of the communities’ cultural identity that have been emerging in recent decades.

Lara Lempert’s presentation is focused on changes in the culture of reading within the Jewish community of Vilnius that were crucial in forming unique communal identity. Specifically, she analyzes the cultural transformation of the readership with regard to gender and age. The presentation is based largely on new research in the Judaica collection of printed and manuscript documents at the National Library of Lithuania.

Dovile Troskovaite’s paper aims to examine the role of the Nazi persecutions and the Holocaust in entrenching non-Jewish national self-identity among Karaites and answers the question whether and how the Karaite elites used the atmosphere of suppression, fear and uncertainty during the Nazi rule to foster the development of non-Jewish identity within Karaite community.

Jurgita Verbickiene in her report raises the questions of how the process of Lithuanization of Jews took place in 20-th century, how the Jews became involved in it and how they perceived the changes taking place in their community.

Sergii Gurbych discusses the use of neural networks to recognize archival handwritten documents (personal letters and diaries) written in Yiddish and Hebrew and their subsequent processing using Digital Humanities tools to analyze the markers of cultural identity of their authors, members of the Lithuanian Jewish community.

Sub Unit

• Jewish Studies

Chair

• Marina Filipovic, Bates College

Papers

• Formation and Strengthening of the Karaite Collective Identity in the Face of the Holocaust - Dovile Troskovaite, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

• The Transformations in the Culture of Reading among Lithuanian Jews in the 2nd Half of the 19th Century to the 1st half of the 20th Century - Lara Lempert, National Library of Lithuania (Lithuania)

• Digital Humanities Approaches in Archival Researches: Study on Mixed Cultural Identity of Lithuanian Jews in Early XX Century - Sergii Gurbych, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

• Lithuanization of Jews in the Interwar Lithuania: Integration or Pragmatically Approach to the New National State - Jurgita Verbickiene, Vilnius U (Lithuania)

Discussant

• Sara Feldman, Harvard U