#Archive

LIW Magazine Interview

By ArnasTraveler87

Time does not Stop A historian of Yiddish culture has his work cut out

Author:
Tassos Coulaloglou

The conversation on one of Vilniusโ€™s busiest streets would have been common enough 60 years ago. Two men are sitting over coffee, and discussing old times in Yiddish.

 

Before the Second World War and the Holocaust, it was hard to walk ten steps in Vilnius without hearing Yiddish. Back then, the city was roughly half Jewish, and one of the most vibrant centers in the world for Yiddish and Jewish scholarship.

 

But today, with so few Yiddish speakers left alive, the discussion is being recorded for posterity.

 

It is for this reason that Dovid Katz, a renowned professor of Yiddish, moved to Lithuania permanently in 1998. His mission is
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#Archive

The Roads to Independence – LIW History Archive

By ArnasTraveler87

From The Lithuania News Today History Archive: Maintaining the integrity of the nation state has been a long and continuing process

 

The three Baltic States, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia, declared their wish to be independent almost at the same time in 1918, when at the end of the First World War supranational European empires started to crumble. Their roads to sovereignty were very different. Because of an unfavorable historical situation and the specific geographical location (on the great route from West to East), the Lithuanians faced the greatest difficulties. However, on 16 February 1918, Lithuania was the first to declare independence. Estonia did so on 24 February the same year, and Latvia on 18 November.

 

Founding the state

 

Historians still disagree over when the Lithuanian state appeared.
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