Res Humanitariae

The article describes and analyses the Shrovetide celebrations that took place in the village of Grūšlaukė, in the Kretinga district, during the second half of the 20th century and into the 21st century. The aim of the article is to describe and analyse the Shrovetide celebrations in Grūšlaukė during this period, and to reveal their transformation and the reasons for these changes. The article employs the theoretical approach of interpretive anthropology from Clifford Geertz, a member of the social-interpretive school of anthropology, and is based on the carnival structure model proposed by the British historian Peter Burke.

In this article, I examine the various ways Christmas and New Year greetings were expressed during a time of relatively modest technological diversity. The objective is to explore the array of greetings customs prevalent in interwar Lithuania, focusing on two specific practices: New Year visits, and the exchange of visiting cards. This study sheds a light on the subject by examining visiting cards preserved in archives, publications on etiquette, and interwar Lithuanian periodicals.

The article searches for manifestations of the trickster phenomenon in Lithuanian folklore and folk customs, trying to investigate whether Lithuanian trickster traits are observed in folk culture, and what names they could be given. The search for an image that is well known to cultural researchers in the West in ‘one’s own’ Lithuanian culture opens up opportunities for a broader analysis and understanding of traditional culture. The study reveals a wide variety of destructive, mischievous, joking or even harmful figures in folk tales and stories, calendar feasts and work customs, which do not allow for naming a single one as a trickster, and thus the multifaceted nature of the trickster phenomenon is established. Future research into manifestations of the trickster in our culture could include a deeper reflection on the Lithuanian national identity behind the masks of the dressers, or the text of the folk tale and the story.

In the article, based on ethnographic field research conducted between 1988 and 1996, using the historical comparative method, I aim to compare how the community customs of rural youth in the Klaipėda region differed from those in neighbouring areas of Lithuania, and how they changed when the Klaipėda region was a part of Lithuania from 1923 to 1939. In order to achieve this goal, I set the task of examining the community customs of young people (confirmation and birthdays, name days, parties, beekeeping and bee parties, wedding parties, gegužinė [outdoor parties] and entertainment in the garden, keeping watch over linen at night, and gatherings by the swing). The findings obtained show that during the research period, the community life of the youth of the Klaipėda region intensified, and some customs that existed in the Republic of Lithuania were adopted.

Džiaugiamės galėdami pristatyti RES HUMANITARIAE XXXII tomą, kuriame susipina įvairios humanitarinių mokslų kryptys, atspindinčios tiek tradicinį, tiek šiuolaikinį požiūrį į kultūrą, kalbą, literatūrą ir visuomenę. Šiame tome pateikiami jaunųjų tyrėjų bei solidžios akademinės patirties turinčių mokslininkų tyrimai, kurie ne tik praplečia žinias apie mūsų kultūros paveldą, bet ir kelia aktualius klausimus apie dabarties iššūkius bei jų sprendimo būdus. Leidinys atspindi humanitarinių mokslų įvairovę ir gilumą, kviesdamas skaitytojus gilintis į temas, apimančias etnologiją, folkloristiką, lingvistiką, literatūrologiją, teologiją ir kt. Mokslininkai dalijasi savo įžvalgomis apie tradicijas ir šiandienos aktualijas, skatindami akademinį dialogą ir naujų perspektyvų paiešką.

The instrumental music-making tradition of Lithuania Minor was officially recognised as a valuable part of the Intangible Cultural Heritage and included in the national register in 2022. In the 20th century, the way of preserving the instrumental music-making of the Lietuvininkai (the inhabitants of Lithuania Minor) typically used for folklore was not followed, and it would have ceased to exist. However, the folklore revival movement that emerged in the 1960s, along with the determined efforts of Antanas Butkus, a master instrument maker, to restore the folk music instruments of Lithuania Minor, and other favourable circumstances, gave rise to renewed interest and new directions for the development of the tradition. The purpose of this article is to explore the forms and development of this folklore tradition, and to identify the factors that had the most important impact on its decline, restoration and continuity.

The article analyzes the theme of the psychology of religion by the American psychologist William James. It is treated in the context of the works of other pioneers of psychological science at that time. James saw positive sides in religiosity/faith: it is a stimulating factor in life, an integrating aspect of human maturation and even a fundamental factor in human spiritual hygiene. Without religion, it is difficult to achieve the meaning of life, and empirical science, in his opinion, was increasingly eroding the foundations of religion. Therefore, in search of a way out, he tried to create the so-called optimistic philosophy. James explained that a psychologist can be just as objectively interested in religious phenomena as in other everyday psychological matters. Psychology can study theological phenomena, but there is one limitation – psychological research is limited to the area of human feelings and will, which means that it does not study doctrinal questions of the Church institution. The sanctity provided by faith helps a person to gain psychological balance, opens new horizons of life, broadens horizons and gives hope for eternity.

The subject of this research is feminine gender roles in Kristina Sabaliauskaitė’s Silva rerum and Kerstin Thorvall’s The Story of Signe. The aim of the thesis is to identify the most common traditional and non-traditional gender roles of women in historical literary narratives by two women writers. The study identifies six gender roles of women: four traditional (mother and wife, daughter and care-giver/housewife), and two non-traditional (adventurer and competitor). The research shows that in historical literary narratives, despite the space-time of the novels, the main semantic axis remains the traditional gender roles of women. The failure to fulfil traditional gender roles determines the emergence of non-traditional gender roles, and a negative impact on the state of women in the novels.

The article presents the traditions and superstitions of film production workers in Lithuania in the mid-20th and the early 21st century. Based on field research data collected in 2020 and 2021, it turned out that most traditions are transferred or adopted from other countries’ film industries and their employees. The research data reveal what symbolic actions are performed on a film set to indicate the successful implementation of the project or part of it. The strengthening of social ties between film production workers is expressed through the tradition of gift-giving or other traditions formed in individual groups, whereas superstitions, which are common among film production workers, are mostly aimed at attracting success, dealing with fear or anxiety while working on a project, or avoiding anything you do not want to happen.

The article focuses on the shift in meaning assigned to the symbol of the holiday tree, specifically its transformation from the Christmas tree into a New Year’s tree. This transformation occurred due to the reorganisation of the ritual calendar by the Soviet occupying regime in Lithuania. The primary objective is to discuss the (political) contest for dominance over this symbol, as portrayed in children’s periodicals, interwar Lithuanian Žiburėlis and Soviet Lithuanian Genys. The theoretical approach is based on the concept of symbolic conflict as articulated by the anthropologist Simon Harrison. The study helps us to understand the mechanism behind the shift of meaning concerning the holiday tree in Soviet Lithuania.