Simono Rozenbaumo politinis ir teisinis palikimas

LTTyrimas skirtas politiko, diplomato, teisininko Simono Rozenbaumo (1859–1934) politinio ir teisinio palikimo analizei ir kontekstualizavimui. Pagrindinis šios studijos tikslas – viena vertus, naujai pažvelgti į Lietuvos istoriografijoje funkcionuojančius žinių apie Rozenbaumą modulius, siekiant iš naujo nustatyti, kokią įtaką šis valstybės veikėjas turėjo platesniuose kontekstuose, tokiuose kaip modernios Lietuvos valstybingumas ir jo raida, tarptautinio statuso įtvirtinimas, suverenitetas ir demokratizacija, kita vertus, išgryninti, suaktualinti Rozenbaumo indėlio bei politinio ir teisinio palikimo reikšmę Lietuvos, Lietuvos žydų ir sionizmo istorijoje. Tyrimas parodė, kad Rozenbaumas savo kompetencijų ribose visomis priemonėmis gynė Lietuvos teritorines pretenzijas, pasitelkdamas žydų, gyvenusių Lietuvoje ir aplink ją, statistinį, politinį ir ekonominį svorį, pabrėždamas žydų tautos apsisprendimo teisę bei jų politinį palankumą Lietuvai. Lietuvos valstybingumas Rozenbaumui buvo tiesiogiai susijęs su galimybe įstatymiškai apginti žydų politines ir pilietines teises, konstituciškai įtvirtinti žydų tautinę autonomiją. Jis buvo nuoseklus žydų tautos interesų gynėjas ir tautinės žydų valstybės vizionierius. Rozenbaumo vaidmuo ir reikšmė Lietuvai baigėsi, kai pasikeitusi valdžia į sprendimų priėmimo pozicijas išstūmė savimi pasitikintį lietuvių politinį elitą, kuris nebuvo nei pasirengęs, nei ideologiškai pajėgus suvokti ir įvertinti Rozenbaumo politinį ir teisinį indėlį, o jo gyvenimo projektas – autonomija – žlugo. [Anotacija knygoje]

ENThe case of the Litvak Zionist statesman and international lawyer Shimshon Rosenbaum (1859-1934) unveils the issue of sovereignty and trusteeship for the Jewish nation. In six chapters, loosely oriented to the chronology of his publications, the political and legal legacy of Shimshon Rosenbaum is appraised and, for the first time in a study that focuses exclusively on his life, times and work, the impact of his relentless engagement for the benefit of the two nations he served - the Jewish nation and the Lithuanian nation — as well as for , the benefit of the rule of international law is evaluated. In the overall view, this results in an unparalleled pattern of activity in the fields of Jewish diplomacy and international law, which consistently connects such diverse places of activity as tsarist Russia, the newly independent State of Lithuania, Germany, France, Switzerland, and Mandatory Palestine as a result of the protagonist’s understanding of his mission in the service of the Jewish nation, although the individual facets of the fulfillment of this mission seem to stand quite independently when viewed in isolation. Revisiting European nationalism, his plea for a modernist renewal of international law is related to the reestablishment of Lithuanian statehood, on February 16, 1918, which was attained, and had to be consolidated, in a contextual framework, in which a relatively inexperienced leadership was confronted with the need, on the one hand, to operationalize the new terrains in international law opened up by the 1919 Treaty of Versailles, and, on the other hand, to defy refutation, by Poland, of the emerging sovereign State of Lithuania.As the establishment of a State alone can guarantee a nation the full enjoyment of its rights in a territorially delimited space where it exercises its sovereignty and can ensure its security, the prime lesson, which the Lithuanian people had learned from history, was that without a State in defined boundaries which secures the existential survival of a particular way of life, it would remain fundamentally vulnerable and fragile. After Shimshon Rosenbaum had come to this insight at the latest during the occupation of Vilna by German troops in World War I, the preservation and inviolability of Lithuania’s statehood and the international recognition of its sovereignty had the highest priority for his political activities. Therefore, the reestablishment of sovereign Lithuania in the first place meant normalization: The sovereign State is able to adopt the simple and clear position that the law is on its side. Among the most important and vital constituents of this vector of normalization was the system of international guaranties for the minorities through the League of Nations. As in all those States affected by this novel paradigm, Jews as well as other minorities were, or at least should have been, entitled to rights as a group or collectivity. The formulation and protection of those rights created an interface of international law and municipal law, at which Shimshon Rosenbaum vindicated the practice of resort to rules and conceptions of private law for the purpose of development of international law. This method of legal argumentation displays certain similarities with the approach chosen by his contemporary Theodor Herzl (1860-1904).While the latter had adopted private law concepts such as negotiorum gestio, chartered company or possession of land in order to explain the implications in international law of his grand design in Der Judenstaat [The Jews’ State], Rosenbaum commented extensively on the notion of sovereignty - in particular on the legal nature of territorial sovereignty, where he appears to have transmuted the object theory, qualifying the territory as an object of the State’s right, into a qualified space theory, pursuant to which the territory is the space, within which the State exercises jurisdiction guided by limitation of the scope of its powers thus entitling the State to rule within the territory while respecting certain confines ratione personae, but not over it. Shimshon Rosenbaum was born in 18 59 in Pinsk (today in Belarus), a center of Jewish culture in the Russian Empire, where he grew up in a traditional Orthodox, Jewish environment. He studied law in Vienna and in Odessa, where he received his doctorate in 1887. Rosenbaum was sworn in as a clerk at Minsk District Court and later went on to work as a private lawyer. Following his election to the State Duma in March 1906, he joined the parliamentary group of the Constitutional Democratic Party (Kadets) and initiated legislative proposals that would give Jews political equality. Among these, the most prominent would be the bills “On Civil Equality,” “On Habeas Corpus,” “On the Abolition of the Death Penalty,” and “On the Immunity of Members of the State Duma.” But it was only after his arrival to German-occupied Vilna in 1915, after having assumed the task as spokesman for the vital Zionist movement, that the vigorous manner, in which he discharged his political and legal commitments, rendered him broad public recognition. [...]. [From the publication]

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