Vilna (Polish Wilno) modern Vilnius and capital of Lithuania was the traditional spiritual
and intellectual centre of Jewish thought in the Russian Empire. It was often referred to as
the 'Jerusalem of Lithuania' a term that has now come to stand for the lost world of Jewish
life in Europe. Most people today learned what they know about this Vilna from autobiographies
or personal memoirs. This book takes a more objective look at how Vilna became a uniquely
important centre of the Jewish press. In particular it follows the development of the Jewish
press within the context of modernising Imperial Russia during the second half of the
nineteenth century. Vilna is revealed as an important centre for the Jewish Socialist movement
the Bund towards the turn of the nineteenth century and in the years running up to the 1905
Revolution. Bundist journalism is discovered to be the sponsor of a Jewish cultural ideology
called Yiddishism.
