A newly published story by Dawn Promislow, SLS 09 participant, set in Vilnus.
Enjoy.
March 16, 2010
THE YOUNG WRITE DIFFERENTLY IN THE NEW EUROPE AND IN RUSSIA
Antanas Sileika (SLS-Lithuania), in an extended online conversation with Kathryn Kuitenbrower, makes some incisive points with regards to the differences between the work done by the new generations of writers emerging in Eastern/Central Europe and in Russia, as exemplified by two recently released anthologies: Best European Fiction 2010, edited by Aleksandar Hemon, and Rasskazy, edited by Jeff Parker and Yours-Truly.
February 13, 2010
YUSHCHENKO AND ANTI-SEMITISM IN EASTERN EUROPE
A strongly worded, rather perceptive Mark Ames’s article in The Nation, on the steady rise of anti-Semitism in Eastern Europe and, specifically, the detrimental effect on the overall situation in that respect of some of outgoing Ulraine President Victor Yushchenko’s latest ur-nationalistic moves, with this bracing quote from Dovid Katz:
Dovid Katz, a professor of Yiddish at Vilnius University in Lithuania, said, “This is a plague over the entire anti-Soviet, anti-Russian part of Eastern Europe, this adoration of fascists and racists. It’s an ultranationalism that is anti-Russian and anti-Semitic, that is a social illness.” Katz said that in Lithuania, for example, the government has been moving to prosecute only Jews among surviving veterans of the anti-Nazi Soviet partisans for alleged ‘war crimes’ against Lithuania–but they have yet to punish a single Nazi collaborator, despite the mass extermination of Jews by the Lithuanian units that enthusiastically carried out most of the killing.
February 9, 2010
BALTIC REPORT UPDATES
Via SLS’s Laima Sruoginis — new, and very interesting and powerful, updates from Vilnius, Lithuania, on Baltic Reports:
February 5, 2010
SLS-LITHUANIA VIDEO
SLS-Lithuania-09 video, shot by SLS’s Ken Calhoun: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QTFS6becUQ0
February 3, 2010
DOVID KATZ’S DRAFT OF A NEW UNIVERSITY-GRADE PROGRAM IN LITVAK STUDIES SYLLABUS
From Professor Dovid Katz:
An early draft of a syllabus for a new university-grade program in Litvak Studies appears at:
http://www.holocaustinthebaltics.com/297923.html
Comments, suggestions and additions are most welcome. It is obvious that it needs intellectually speaking to be ‘tied together’ which is the next step and one on which various authorities are being consulted.
Note that the ‘historical Jewish territory’ covered by the concept includes today’s Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, plus chunks of Northeastern Poland, northern and eastern Ukraine down to a far southeastern tip at Kherson, and small bits of westernmost Russia. Some comparative maps are provided in section I of my atlas-in-progress at:
http://www.dovidkatz.net/WebAtlas/AtlasSamples.htm
January 25, 2010
RE-LIVING GULAG IN LITHUANIA
Terrific, in-depth article by Nerijus Adomaitis, here: http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKTRE60J4AJ20100120?sp=true
January 24, 2010
IN MEMORIAM: ABRAHAM SUTZKEVER
In memory of the great late Lithuania-born Abraham Sutzkever: http://www.jewishideasdaily.com/content/detail/abraham-sutzkever-in-memoriam.
Last hour, when you come, bring strength enough
For me to see a palace in ruined masonry,
To drive my final moments to their given end,
To tap a message to my prisoner soul: Be free!
(trans. C.K. Williams)
Here’s Sutzkever’s testimony at the Nuremberg Trial: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cMDa7OcXthw&feature=related
January 23, 2010
A FEW MORE LITHUANIA PHOTOS
A few more black-and-white Lithuania photos by SLS’s Julia Blaukopf:
January 21, 2010
LITHUANIA PHOTOS
Several among the great many photographs taken by SLS-Lithuania participant, the writer, artist and photographer Julia Blaukopf <www.juliablaukopf.com>:
