As 2023 rounds off to a close, and the festivities for Vilnius\u2019 700th birthday abate, it seems to be the right time for quieter contemplation of the past, a chance to reflect on the less joyous yet no less significant facts from Vilnius\u2019 history. The famous Vilnius photographer Jan Bu\u0142hak, whose artistic merits to Vilnius are on par with Alfred Stieglitz who photographed New York, or Josef Sudek without whose images we would not be able to fully appreciate Prague, left us with poetic, somewhat melancholic images of Jewish Vilnius, which today remind us more of a faded dream than a reflection of reality. Chronologically, these are photographs taken between 1912 and 1944, a period during which the Vilnius Jewish community\u2019s situation, expectations, hopes and conditions for human existence changed dramatically a number of times, before ultimately ending in catastrophe.<\/p>\n
In the 15 photographs selected by the curators of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art collections, we see the faintly illuminated streets and architecture of the Jewish quarter established in Vilnius back at the beginning of the 17th century; people are visible in barely two images. Jan Bu\u0142hak\u2019s choice of employing an empty quarter depiction strategy, whether consciously or intuitively, proved to be hauntingly prophetic: after the Holocaust that ravaged the Vilnius Jewish community during the World War II years, people had truly been erased from this neighbourhood and these streets. The community numbering around 60 thousand people was simply swept off the face of the earth, traces of its memory were earnestly destroyed. One of the most painful losses was the Great Synagogue of Vilnius, the centre of spiritual life in Vilnius \u2013 the Jerusalem of the North \u2013 having suffered severe damage during Nazi Germany\u2019s bombing raids, was totally demolished upon Stalin\u2019s orders well after 1945, a kindergarten of repugnant architecture being constructed at the site in a final act of cynicism. The densely inhabited territory surrounding the former Great Synagogue \u2013 Jewish Street and its courtyards, this enigmatic atmosphere which drew the talented Jan Bu\u0142hak\u2019s attention, underwent radical transformation. Those living in this territory today are largely not even aware that the community and cultural life of the Vilnius Jews was still thriving in their neighbourhood just a little over 80 years ago, while the city itself was considered the undisputed capital of the East European Jewish religious world.<\/p>\n
Jan Bu\u0142hak\u2019s photographs and the images of the destroyed world of Jewish Vilnius captured therein resonate with current events unfolding today. Having fled from Europe after the terrors of the Holocaust and founding their own state with immense persistence and creative enthusiasm, today, in the third decade of the 21st century, Jews are again exposed to violent acts towards them, to anti-Semitic attacks even in states calling themselves democratic. Have the lessons of history actually been learned? Or must we despondently echo Antonio Gramsci\u2019s thoughts, that \u201chistory teaches, but has no pupils\u201d.<\/p>\n
Dr Ar\u016bnas Gel\u016bnas, Director General of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
As 2023 rounds off to a close, and the festivities for Vilnius\u2019 700th birthday abate, it seems to be the right time for quieter contemplation of the past, a chance to reflect on the less joyous yet no less significant facts from Vilnius\u2019 history. The famous Vilnius photographer Jan Bu\u0142hak, whose artistic merits to Vilnius […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22488,"template":"","tags":[],"department":[69],"parodos-zymos":[245],"class_list":["post-22487","paroda","type-paroda","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","department-lithuanian-national-museum-of-art","parodos-zymos-paroda-kitoje-institucijoje"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n