Pakaunės ir Kauno žydų integracija į Kauno miestiečių luomą

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Asimiliacija; Kahala; Kaunas; Rusijos imperija (Russian Empire); Žydai; Žydų bendruomenė Kauno regione; Žydų iškeldinimas į Kauną; „Žydų klausimas“; 'the Jewish question'; Assimilation; Jews; Kahala; Kaunas; Russian empire; The Jewish community in Kauna's region; The Russian empire; The forcible Jewish migration to Kaunas.

ENAfter annexing the lands of the Great Duchy of Lithuania at the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, Russia attempted to unify the social structures of Lithuania and the Russian Empire. However, once the empire engaged in integrational policy, a problem arose: how to reconcile the Lithuanian social structure with that of the Russian imperial caste system. This complex task became even more difficult since the newly annexed lands were largely inhabited by Jewish communities, whose social status and living peculiarities the Russian imperial government did not know well. The reform of the Jewish legal and social statuses was difficult and it was carried out inconsistently. This was determined by the change in the imperial social policy as well as by the economic and political conjunctures, the struggle of interest groups (landlords, townspeople and Jews) and the government’s anti-Jewish viewpoints, described in the historical documents as the “Jewish question”. One of the possible solutions to the “Jewish question” was to integrate the Jewish population to towns, where they could be more easily controlled and to “protect” the villages from the harm caused by them.The economical conjunctures, the fire of 1801, the French-Russian war of 1812 and partly the governmental reforms as well as the Russian politics of the 30s and 40s of the 20th century influenced the migration of the Kaunas district Jews (especially from Rumšiškės, Vilkija, Babtai, Seredžius) and from other regions, like Užnemunė (Garliava, Zapyškis) to Kaunas. Once here, they managed to win the competition against the local townspeople and established themselves in the city by buying the bulk of the real estate in Kaunas. The Jews were forced to move to Kaunas by the Russian imperial government (by means of banishing them from the business of innkeeping), which was partly successful and encouraged them to move to cities and become townspeople. In the beginning of the 19th century the Russian government, in their attempt to integrate Jews into becoming townspeople, were hoping that it would be a natural process, thus they did not define clearly the Jewish caste status. The Jews formed a distinct, isolated group of townspeople that is often defined by the contemporaries as a separate class. Their integration was obstructed by legalising the Kahal, the communal self-governmental institution. Another obstacle for the Jewish social integration was the unwillingness of the Kaunas and Vilnius local citizens to allow the Jews to take part in the self-governance of the cities. [From the publication]