Regaining Independence in the Light of the Provincial Yiddish Press. November 1918 on the Pages of the „Lubliner Tugblat” Daily

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the attitude of the provincial Yiddish press (based on the example of the Lublin daily „Lubliner Tugblat”) towards regaining independence and forming Polish statehood in November 1918. It discusses both the news content of the title newspaper (focused mainly on local events) and its opinion journalism (concerning almost exclusively national matters) separately. The daily reported on various stages of regaining independence from a strictly Jewish perspective, focusing primarily on matters related to security issues, collective anti-Jewish violence trundling through the country, as well as the role and place of the Jewish community in the reborn state. The newspaper’s attitude to the events of November 1918 went through three distinct phases: recognition, struggle and disappointment, but the constant determinant of its narration was the conviction, taken from folkist ideology, that Jews constitute a separate nation, pursuing an independent policy, expecting from the newly formed state to ensure equal rights to them and, in the longer term, grant them national and cultural autonomy.