Professor François Guesnet, a reader at the Hebrew and Jewish Studies Faculty at University College London currently visiting at the History Faculty of Vilnius University, granted Nijolė Bulotaitė, a writer for VU’s news page, a long interview. Dr. Guesnet is also the secretary of the European Association for Jewish Studies. Excerpts translated from Lithuanian appear below.

What is the most interesting or most inspiring thing to you?

That’s a good question. We were just talking with a doctoral student about how some topics become very boring as the years go by and become stale. Partisan politics, let’s say, isn’t very sexy. Right now I’m most interested in the human body and the history of medicine, because it’s very interesting to explore who people understand themselves and their bodies. I also research the functioning of the Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. I was born in Germany, my mother is German, my father French; I grew up in a very European family and studied the history of Eastern Europe. I know Polish and Russian. Both languages were very important for me and Russian helped especially in researching archival material. I know Hebrew and Yiddish, otherwise it would be impossible to study the history of Eastern European Jews, at least a basic knowledge is required. My dissertation concerns the 19th century when the majority of official documents were in Russian.

What are the greatest differences in Jewish life in Eastern and Western Europe?

I’m currently interested in Jewish history in the 17th and 18th centuries. There are many differences, the situation of Jews in Eastern Europe was special because that community was very safe, very specifically economical and integrates, and very large as well. One of the most important rights of Jews in Eastern Europe–in Poland from 1264 and in Lithuania from 1388–was that there were almost no restrictions on their economic activities, they could trade with whomever they wanted, work in any craft or trade and order their community in complete freedom. In Western Europe they had a multitude of restrictions. But that doesn’t mean that they were poorer in Western Europe. On the contrary, because people in general lived more poorly in Eastern Europe. I think another significant difference was life in extremely large Jewish communities in Eastern Europe. Let’s say that 40 percent of residents of Vilnius were Jewish, and in Berdichev [Ukraine] 80 percent. These communities were very strong and had a strict structure, and that’s both good and bad, because they were very static, it’s very difficult to make something of oneself in this sort of community. Dangers used to arise, but the large community was reliable and safe.

Warsaw and Vilnius, in Jewish memory. Did they cooperate, or maintain ties?

Yes, and very active ones. Communication was good and they maintained ties, although they had an opinion about one another and about the differences between them, including the pronunciation of Yiddish. There were also organizational differences; Polish Jews had their own council, and Lithuanian Jews had their won. From about the 18th century the esoteric hassidic movement didn’t spread in Lithuania, and for that reason differences increased. But we shouldn’t forget they were closely connected by economic ties as well. Psychoanalysts call this the narcissism of slight differences. A Jew identified another Jew as a Litvak, Polak or Galician, they made up jokes about and made fun of one another. Litvaks weren’t well liked in Poland in the 19th century, but then again all Jews coming from Russia were held by them to be Litvaks because they spoke Russian. The considered them overly confident and clever, rationalists, cold-blooded intellectuals. There was a massive migration of Jews out of Russia to Poland in the 19th century for various reasons and that’s why there was enmity as well. But later they integrates very well and enmity disappeared.

Full interview in Lithuanian here.