Вильна – посттравматические нарративы
Vilna – Post-traumatic narratives

Summary/Abstract: The article concentrates on the large and heterogeneous in its chronological, geographical, genre and linguistic scope group of texts about Jewish Vilnius/Vilna that evolved after the two World Wars. The annihilation of Vilna Jewish population and the irreversible loss of the prewar type of life in the city were reflected upon as a cosmic catastrophe, and that inspired the constructing of a post-Holocaust image of Vilna as a veritable paradise lost. But the genesis of such narrative may be traced to the verbal and visual texts of West Jewish visitors to Vilna during the World War I. This paradigm was interiorized and strengthened by Jewish literati and artists of Vilna and Lithuania in the inter-bellum period. Thus, the post-Holocaust image of Jewish Vilna was formed not only by actual memory and pain, but also by those gradually accumulated “constructing blocks”, resulting in an exalted and nostalgic ideal chronotop.

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