The European Humanities University has been a venue for the development of Jewish culture and heritage studies for Belarus for many years. In 2024, we became partners with the remarkable initiative Zemelah.online — an electronic archive of ego-documents — memoirs, diaries, and letters written by Jews or individuals associated with Judaism living in the national republics that were part of the USSR. The goal of the Zemelah.online project is to collect and preserve the memory of people and introduce their autobiographical writings into scholarly circulation, as well as to create the most representative corpus of texts describing the history of Jews through the prism of personal experience.
The school will focus on how Jewish history of the Soviet period is reflected in various forms of heritage—from household items to photographs, memoirs, and oral recollections, how interviews fundamentally differ from ego-documents (memoirs, diaries, letters), what filters are used by individuals and institutions involved in preserving Jewish heritage, and how the Soviet period in Jewish history can become a “usable past.”
The summer school program includes:
Lectures:
- Ilya Barkussky. Jews of City “K”: Past and Present of the Jewish Community of Eastern Prussia;
- Dmitry Shevelev. Belarusian Jewry: Invention of Traditions and Cultural Heritage;
- Valery Dymshits. Shadow Economy and Shadow Religion in Oral Testimonies of Jews from Podolia;
- Galina Zelenina. “I am profoundly internationalist, but I implore you, children, not to forget”: What is Jewish in the ego-documents of Soviet Jews?;
- Lara Lempert. ‘The Yiddish Ministry. IWO Institute as a Centre of Jewish Cultural Life in Vilnius (1925-1941)
- Ilya Lensky. Jewry of the Baltic States during the Soviet Era;
- Misha Melnichenko. “If I survive all this, it will be very interesting to remember”: The Soviet Union in the mirror of personal diaries;
- Julia Oreshina. From Korenization to Aliyah: Jews of the South Caucasus during the Soviet period;
- Fredi Rotman. The final stage of the pre-war Zionist right movement in the USSR.
Document Workshops:
- Anastasia Glazanova. Thematic Markup of Texts;
- Sergey Gurbich. Automatic Recognition of Manuscript Texts in Yiddish and Hebrew;
- Ilya Lensky, Fredi Rotman. J-Doc Project: Jews in KGB Documents.
Presentation and discussion of school participants’ projects dedicated to Jewish heritage in the post-Soviet space, including but not limited to ego-documents.
Excursion program to objects of Jewish heritage in Vilnius.
Working languages of the school: Russian (lectures and workshops) with possible discussion in English.
The summer school will take place in a hybrid format, combining in-person and online components, from July 22 to 26. The in-person part will be organized at the European Humanities University in Vilnius.
To participate in the school, please fill out the form by May 20.
Presenting your own project (including a presentation of autobiographical texts from a family archive) is not a mandatory condition for participation but will be an advantage.
Limited participants will be offered accommodation in a hotel, as well as compensation for transportation expenses. Organizers do not provide Lithuanian visa support.
For additional questions, please contact stsiapan.stureika@ehu.lt (Stepan Stureiko).
The event is organized with the support of the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund, Nadav Foundation.