Res Humanitariae

Pristatome gerbiamam skaitytojui XXXIV Klaipėdos universiteto periodinio mokslo leidinio RES HUMANITARIAE tomą. Jame skelbiama penkiolika įvairių humanitarinių mokslų krypčių straipsnių, liudijančių tiek tradicinį, tiek šiuolaikinį požiūrį į kalbą, kultūrą, literatūrą ir visuomenę. Šiame tome, kaip ir ankstesniuose leidiniuose, pateikiami tiek solidžios akademinės ir mokslinės patirties turinčių mokslininkų, tiek ir tik pradedančių eiti mokslo keliu jaunųjų tyrėjų darbai. Leidinys atspindi humanitarinių mokslų įvairovę ir gilumą, kviesdamas skaitytojus susipažinti su literatūrologijos, menotyros, muzikologijos, etnologijos, folkloristikos bei etnomuzikologijos tyrimų aktualijomis.

We hereby present to our esteemed readers the 34th volume of Klaipėda University’s periodical Res Humanitariae. It has 15 articles from various areas of the humanities, testifying to traditional and contemporary approaches to language, culture, literature and society. As in previous issues, this volume presents the work both of scholars with strong academic and scientific experience, and young researchers just starting out on their scientific careers. The publication reflects the diversity and depth of the humanities, inviting readers to get acquainted with current research topics in literary studies, art studies, musicology, ethnology, folklore studies and ethnomusicology.

Martynas Jankus (1858–1946) wrote his satire Šulmistrai (The Schoolmasters, 1893) inspired by Johann Ferdinand Kelch’s (in Lithuanian Kelkis, 1801–1877) mid-19th century satire Viernas Kre-

The aim of the paper is to reveal how Latvian writers described the Curonian Spit, its inhabitants, nature, and other realities in their non-fiction. To this end, the methodological approach of literary imagology studies is applied. The focus is on the 1930s and the 1960s, when the spit featured most prominently in the works of a wide range of Latvian authors, including both well-known literary classics and less prominent writers. The research demonstrates that in the 1930s, writers focused primarily on New Curonians who spoke a distinct Latvian dialect, and were perceived as a geographically detached and exceptional part of the Latvian nation. Their works reflected a desire to support the preservation of the community’s language and identity. In the 1960s, and somewhat later, non-fiction writers of Soviet Latvia usually gave only marginal attention to New Curonians. They were mostly interested in the uniqueness of the natural environment and the landscape of the spit, which was often poeticised.

This article examines how the Lithuanian partisan war narrative was suppressed during the Soviet occupation, and how it nevertheless survived in partisan families. Drawing on partisan documents, the underground press, Soviet propaganda and oral history interviews with the children of former partisans, it explores the competing interpretations of the resistance, and the mechanisms of memory transmission. The study argues that, although the Soviet authorities systematically delegitimised the partisan struggle in the public discourse, the narrative endured in private, through silence, fragmented stories, emotional memory and everyday practices, later contributing to the restoration of public memory after Lithuania achieved independence.

The article aims to discuss and compare several widely acclaimed solo performances created based on the principles of documentary theatre, when actors courageously and openly reflect upon and represent authentic experiences, problems, conflicts and childhood traumas. In these performances, the actor and the character merge into one, becoming identical segments. Self-reflection on stage often approaches the form of a public confession, art therapy, or the psychodrama method. Artistic fiction becomes a secondary, auxiliary element, serving only as an aesthetic tool or a stimulus to convey various situations from the protagonist’s life more emotionally and from different perspectives. Within the structure of a self-reflective solo performance, the actor becomes the instrument, the creation, the playwright of their own life story, and the performer at the same time. Self-reflection through theatrical expression (authentic narrative, verbal expression, body language, music, photographs, video recordings, or other auxiliary means) can serve as a vital tool for surfacing, and at times resolving, psychological issues. The act of public confession and the element of authenticity not only trigger high levels of stress and the risk of rejection or condemnation, but also activate a powerful mechanism of recognition and identification among the audience. The traditional mimetic concept of acting transforms into a concept of public confession and self-reflective documentality. The popularity of solo performances testifies that organic self-reflective acting, interspersed with elements of theatre therapy and psychodrama, meets the expectations of both the actor and the viewer.

The article reveals how the nation’s resurrection from oblivion is formed in phenomena of culture and nature. There is evidence that the stagnation of Lithuania in the Soviet era coincided with one of the first works by Bronius Kutavičius predicting a change of eras, Prutena. A Buried Village, inspired by a poem by Liudvikas Rėza about his homeland, the village of Karvaičiai, which was flooded by the sands of Neringa. Two creators who are destined to symbolise the reborn spirit of Lithuania meet here, Liudvikas Rėza (1776–1840) and Bronius Kutavičius (1932–2021). The latter evokes the infinity of Lithuania with sounds, inspired by Rėza’s sensitive touch with Baltic poetics. In this way, it is possible to distinguish and unfold meaningful rebirth meanings in the present, encoded both in the signs of oblivion and in the sound image that permeates the space-time of the epochs.

This study explores how Bulgarian migrant communities in Argentina and Canada shape and sustain their culinary identities under conditions of distance, substitution and generational change. Drawing on fieldwork conducted between 2011 and 2022, combined with an analysis of archival materials, migrant publications, and digital platforms, we trace how ‘traditional’ Bulgarian cuisine functions as a dynamic mediator between cultural memory and adaptation. Our findings show that festive food proves significantly more resilient than everyday cooking, while ethno-entrepreneurship and digital networks provide new channels for preserving and reformulating culinary traditions across generations.

This article analyses festive practices through which pregnancy is given meaning in Lithuania from the late 20th and the early 21st century: maternity photoshoots, the maternity washing ritual (prausynos), baby showers, and gender-reveal events. These newly emerging festive practices were not documented in traditional rural culture; however, as the research has shown, today they bring together the expectant mother’s close social circle, family members, friends and relatives, and help to give meaning to pregnancy. The study is based on material collected during ethnographic fieldwork. It draws on Arnold van Gennep’s rite-of-passage approach, treating pregnancy as a transformative period, and festive practices related to pregnancy as ways of marking pregnancy that help to make sense of the waiting period.

The article describes the issues I raised in more detail in my doctoral dissertation. I explore the clash between modernity and Judaic tradition, which accompanied the development of cultural practices and Zionist youth organisations in interwar Poland. Based on an analysis of press sources from this period, I examine two selected organisations, Hashomer Hatzair and Akiba. Each sought to build its cultural capital by relying, to varying degrees, on the selection and substitution of elements in a process described by Hobsbawm and Ranger as the invention of tradition. These processes were reflected in the cultural practices, particularly musical ones, that I present in this article.