Res Humanitariae

The article discusses the beginning, assumptions and dispersion of the historical reenactment movement in the world. National peculiarities of the phenomenon are highlighted by presenting the preconditions for and circumstances of the historical reconstruction movement in Lithuania. Features of the phenomenon are analysed in the formation of the first historical reconstruction clubs and the first festivals. The basis for this work is fieldwork material collected during 2015–2018, in the form of surveys and interviews with respondents. The data was processed by applying historical comparative and analytical methods. According to the data, the beginning of the historical reenactment movement in Lithuania started in the 1980s. This was influenced by Lithuania’s restitution of its statehood in the 1990s after Soviet suppression, and the desire to properly present the long history of the state. The folklore movement that started around the 1970s was still in existence, and influenced the start of the historical reenactment movement. The media (especially the Internet) and relations with foreign clubs (in Latvia, Poland, Estonia, Belarus and Russia) increased the development and popularity of movement. The analysis of the data has indicated the following main historical reenactment periods: the Balts, the Middle Ages, the Napoleonic era, the First and the Second World War, and the resistance. In the reenactment of general themes (such as Medieval), the local, regional and national history and artefacts are employed. The period of the Balts and Baltic tribes (Yotvingians, Curonians), the period of the creation and prosperity of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, and the partisan resistance, are themes by which the historical reenactment movement stands out.

The article deals with the organization of festive celebrations in co-workers’ environment. Based on field studies, co-workers’ gathered on the occasion of the holidays, the organization’s place, both internal organization itself and its surrounding external – local, national culture, the influence on their manifestation. Two traditional and two modern holidays are being analysed, where the habits of celebrations, formal and informal channels are compared between the city and its environs co-workers’.

The article provides an overview of the emergence of the term ethnic culture, analysing how the notion of ethnic culture is understood in the ethnology of Western countries, and how it is interpreted by the creators of ethnos theory. In Lithuania, not only cultural workers but also scholars and researchers understand ethnic culture very differently. In order to dispense with the chaotic and extremely varied understanding of ethnic culture in Lithuania, the author offers several possible ways out: 1) if most ethnologists and cultural workers in Lithuania have accepted the fundamental postulate of ethnos theory, recognising that ethnic culture can be discerned from the entirety of the culture of the nation, then the notion of ethnic culture existing in the theory of ethnos should also be adopted; 2) if this understanding is rejected, then guidance should be taken from the theoretical approach existing in the ethnology of Western countries requiring us not to apply the notion of ethnic culture when discussing cultures of nations.

Motiejus Valančius paid attention to the depiction of the relationship between a man and a woman (husband and wife) in his didactic creative work. The main aim of the Bishop of Samogitia was to educate people in the spirit of religion and morality. In Valančius‘ opinion, a good relationship between spouses is determined by equality between a man and a woman, cooperation, and equal responsibility for the children‘s upbringing. For this reason, the compatibility of social-caste, cultural and religious features between both spouses is important. The report reveals how Valančius created didactic precepts in order to create a harmonious relationship between a man and a woman.

The purpose of this article is to answer the questions raised in the course of the research on the development of textile pocket of the national costume of Lithuania Minor in relation to the motivation for production and wearing of pockets, the choice in decoration characteristics, the symbolism of ornamentation and colour combinations. The analysis of the accomplished field research reveals the manifestations of the expression of the ethnocultural identity through production and wearing of textile pockets. The analysis of the symbolic meanings traditionally attributed and newly assigned to the chosen decorative elements of pockets reveals the cases of the continuity and change of a symbol. The act of wearing a pocket not only with the national costume of Lithuania Minor demonstrates the expression of one’s identity through wearing the chosen parts of clothing. The growing demand stimulates the production of textile pockets. The research analyses the material collected from the well-informed presenters (makers and wearers of textile pockets) based on the questionnaires compiled by the author of the present article.

Over recent decades, speaking in dialects has lost its aspect of comic expression, and attained a much greater degree of prestige. In fact, owing to processes of globalisation, dialects are no longer tied to a clearly defined habitat: they have transcended traditional geographical boundaries, and have become an instrument of creative work and communication on social media. Furthermore, the public have a clear inclination to abandon the dichotomy of the dialectological and ethnographic segmentation of Lithuania, and to match dialects to ethnographic regions as closely as possible. Therefore, by distancing ourselves from perceiving a dialect as a static and closed-ended system, we can assume that dialects have every opportunity to survive and evolve, if they adapt to the needs of modern society.

This article examines the attitudeof young people of age 18 to 30 from Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Norway towards the national costume. The aim of this article is to analyze and determine how national costume is appreciated by the youth of countries mentioned before. The article briefly presents the preconditions for the emergence and creation of a nationalcostume; it analyzes what kind of information is lacking about national costume. The research was made in 2017-2018. Information was provided by 156 respondents. In conclusion, the worst situation is between Finnish youth and the deepest traditions of costumeʼs wearing has Norway. The results of Lithuanians reveal that national costume is not very important tradition, Latvians show the growing interest in the costume.

Methodological practice is based on complex linguistic research when semasiological and onomasiological aspects are combined. The article analyses the Lithuanian words for cow, bull and calf, in order to determine what conceptual features of animals semasiological and onomasiological lexical studies help to highlight. The main source of empirical material is the dictionary of the Lithuanian language. The analysis of complex semasiological and onomasiological lexemes shows that the language system identifies various conceptual features of cow, bull and calf. At the top of the animal hierarchy is the cow. The categorisation that emerges from the language system reflects the anthropocentric evaluation of the animals discussed.

In this article are presented images of Norway-Sweden depicted in internet memes collected on social network Facebook. For this research are collected 149 memes in total. The material is publicated from 2017 january until 2018 april in Facebook and collected from January 2018 until april 2018. This research helps to understand the specific of relations between neighbor countries, also depicts the view of society itself and neighbor country, different and identical assessments to current issues and the events of historical periods.

On April 10 this year, for the first time in humanity’s history, a photo of a black hole (or black abyss) taken with the Event Horizon telescope was published. As if seen through an “out-of-focus camera lens”, a shadow (dark circle) of a massive black hole at the centre on the galaxy M87 surrounded by a mass of gas moving very fast can be seen. Sheperd Doeleman, Project Director of Event Horizon Telescope and Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University says that black holes are the most mysterious formations in the universe. In fact, it’s amazing that the whole world is “going crazy” for the first publicly published black hole image. But it is at these moments that we especially want to point out that there are still so many inexhaustible, mysterious, valuable, exploratory things on our small planet Earth. Here, in front of our eyes, every day, whole worlds of human consciousness open up, as if they were a kind of parallel reality. The other question is whether we want to see them, “take a picture”, and most importantly, recognize their value? Remembering the words of Carl Sagan, a well-known astronomer and science populariser, not anyone else but “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself”.