Staliūnas, Darius Enemies for a Day: Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Violence in Lithuania under the Tsars (review)

Abstract

SEER, 94, 2, APRIL 2016 356 himself has visited some of the cities in question and provides his own photos to boot. Chapter six considers some of the many technologies which have been employed in northern development, the problems to which they have given rise, and the consequences for the region’s environment and its residents. Chapter seven, the final chapter, considers the north since the fall of Communism and particularly under Putin and Medvedev. After an interlude of retreat under El´tsin, when the region suffered massive population loss, the Russian government has recently rekindled its interest, activities and investment. The author argues that this has occurred as a consequence of the growing significance of the region’s natural resources and of competition from other states eager to make the most of Russia’s quiescence under El´tsin. The author quite rightly worries about the future of the Arctic’s fragile environment since, as he points out, neither Russia nor other Arctic states have shown too much concern about the possible consequences of frenetic resource exploitation. Altogether this is a very good book. The author was able to spend several months in the region, using archives and libraries, having discussions with scientists and local peoples, and undertaking field excursions. He has used an impressive range of sources — archival holdings, scientific publications, online sources, memoirs, photographs, film, novels and other literary materials. Despite the occasional hyperbole, the account is on the whole a balanced one and Russian and Soviet experience is mostly appropriately placed in a comparative context. Here and there the style becomes somewhat wordy with tiresome lists and overlong sentences. The book would therefore have benefited from some editing. But this does little to detract from the solid scholarship which clearly underpins this volume. School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences Denis J. B. Shaw University of Birmingham Staliūnas, Darius. Enemies for a Day: Antisemitism and Anti-Jewish Violence in Lithuania under the Tsars. Historical Studies in Eastern Europe and Eurasia, 3. Central European University Press, Budapest and New York, 2015. xii + 284 pp. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $60.00: €45.00: £38.00. This new work on pogroms in Lithuania in the late-tsarist period by the well-respected historian, Darius Staliūnas, has much to offer. The author describes little-known pogroms and disturbances in rural Lithuania, using first-hand accounts, rare documents, newspapers and memoirs in five languages (Lithuanian, Polish, Russian, Hebrew and Yiddish). With this material, Professor Staliūnas tries to reconstruct why a pogrom started, REVIEWS 357 what actually occurred, and retrieve the various reactions at the time. This method is successful because we get enough pieces to visualize the outlines of the puzzle picture and sometimes even more. Additionally, Staliūnas asks whether Lithuania was more or less antisemitic than other parts of the Pale of Settlement and whether Lithuanians were more prone to violence against Jews than others. The author is interested in historiographical issues, especially the problem of evidence. He writes: ‘It would be easy if we could completely trust in the information presented by each of these groups: the evidence of the attackers or their advocates in the broad sense as presented to interrogators or the press; official data presented by officials in their reports to their superiors; or the accounts in the Jewish press, evidence given by Jews to investigators, or appeals and complaints addressed to the authorities. Unfortunately, each of these sources has its own defects. Attackers rarely admitted participating in violence, and if they did, they often blamed other people for their actions or even the Jews themselves. In general, ordinary people’s motivations seem to be more reliably explained by their actions than by their writings or by others who acted in their name. Likewise, we must also view Jewish sources critically, because as time went on, Jews tended more and more to blame the authorities for the pogroms, and Jewish advocates had their own political agenda’ (p. 13). Oftentimes historians raise doubts in their introductions about whether ‘history’ can be known, but then ignore these circumspections and act as though you can trust sources. Staliūnas belongs to the rare few who relentlessly challengesourcesinordertoassesswhatcanbeknownatwhatlevelofcertainty...