Vilnius

[Alina Israeli]

>Check this out - http://www.knihi.com/pytanni/131.html
>(150 questions from the history of Belarus. Question number 131)
>
>
>Alina Israeli <aisrael at AMERICAN.EDU> wrote:
>
>>>                 Vilnia (Vilnius) was truly a Belarusian capital.


#131 gives an interesting view of history.

Between 1918 and 1931  Lithuania was independent. Lots of different ethnic
groups could have considered Wilno/Vilnius their unofficial capital, Jews
among them. (Some 20 years ago I met an old man in New Haven, Connecticut
who was a tailor there but who  had graduated from Wilno's yeshiva way bach
when. For him it was certainly a Jewish capital.)

Stalin could have taken Vilnius away, but he certainly did not give Vilnius
to Lithuanian, he just left it where it was (unlike the case of Crimea, for
example), part of Lithuania.

Unofficial capitals are nice, but one really cannot claim it for oneself,
let's take Chicago, it has more Poles than Krakow and more Lithuanians than
Kaunas (or something like that), but neither group can claim it.

New York could be claimed by Puerto-Ricans, Italians and a few others,
which does not make it a capital of Puerto-Rico.

_____________
Alina Israeli
LFS, American University
4400 Mass. Ave. NW
Washington, DC 20016

phone:  (202) 885-2387
fax:    (202) 885-1076

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