Res Humanitariae

Anthropologists are increasingly doing research related to the city. There is a need to come up with new urban theories. Because of this, it is important to know about the research of Lithuanian ethnology and anthropology which emphasize the importance of the city. The aim of this article is to find out how city is analyzed and conceptualized by Lithuanian ethnologists and anthropologists. Two tasks have been formulated: to introduce with theories of urban anthropology and to analyze and classify works of Lithuanian ethnologists and anthropologists. In the article there are distinguished four groups of concepts of city.

The Tėviškė (Homeland) Society for Lithuania’s cultural relations with compatriots abroad was set up in Soviet Lithuania in 1976 on the basis of previous analogous institutions. Through the society, attempts were made to control the cooperation with emigrant compatriots, disseminate the Soviet propaganda, restrict the spread of objective information, and discredit the right-wing emigration organizations that nurtured the idea of restoration of Lithuania’s independence. The aim of this paper is to review the programme of cultural exchanges with emigrants in the USA, implemented in the Soviet times, by highlighting the musical aspect. The research is based on the Cold War paradigm, the work of historians who analysed the topic, the still unexplored documentation of the Tėviškė Society, and the letters addressed to it and currently stored in the Lithuanian Special Archives. The cultural cooperation programme also included the field of tourism, which was especially useful for governmental institutions wishing to demonstrate the achievements of Soviet Lithuania to foreign visitors. It was partly supervised by the Tėviškė Society. However, this is a subject for a new study and will not be analysed in the present paper.

The article provides with psychoanalysis of the story titled Traumnovelle (Rhapsody: A Dream Novel, also known as Dream Story), written by Arthur Schnitzler, representative of the Viennese modernist style, that decodes intricate forms of mental life from unconscious instincts, libido. The reader is exposed to the characters’ affection, that of the therapist Fridolin and his wife Albertina, who play each other up with immodest confessions about their erotic affection. The article uncovers the action mode of the story, which is on the verge between dream and reality, consciousness and unconsciousness, peculiarities of feelings exposure through the characters’ imagination, structurally similar to a dream, is reviewed as well. The article examines the motivational structure of Albertina’s behavior, determined by “primary affection”, activity of her psychics, regulated by “satisfaction principle”, and that of Fridolin, based on “reality principle”, where functional activity is coherent with human needs and external reality conditions. The article investigates the motive of a mask as a symbol of transformation, acquisition of anonymity by losing individuality (Fridolin’s participation in a sado-masochistic orgy at villa of secret society) and as an opposition to the husband real-life adventure – Albertina’s dream, revealing frustration and pleasure from a married woman’s revenge for the imposed role of serving her husband. It is concluded that the art, as well as a dream, makes it possible to get released for some period of time from a social role and a consciousness censorship.

The appearance of portrait miniature is traditionally dated back to the 16th century when the miniature became a portrait genre. The Reformation processes occurring in Europe at the time also influenced the genesis of forms, technique and style of portrait miniatures. This paper focuses on the factors (related to the Reformation) which affected the formation of new images embodied in H. Holbein’s and N. Hilliard’s works. The rise of the portrait miniature as a new type of portrait, its features, and uniqueness of its properties are explained through the study of certain political, social, and cultural aspects of the Reformation movement in the context of English art.

This article analyzes the question of the correct use of the phrases for the verb aptarnauti or the forms of this verb. The article discusses the semantic structure of these words and their disparate interpretation in the dictionaries of Lithuanian language. The data is collected from the Corpus of Modern Lithuanian Language, the sources of various functional styles, and the survey shows the real usage of the verb aptarnauti (and the noun aptarnavimas). The correctness of the usage of the examples is analyzed and special attention is given to some problematic cases that require more detailed analysis. This research indicates that some of the phrases, which users view as incorrect, comply with the language norm and specifically describe the characteristics that can help distinguish correct phrases from incorrect phrases.

The aim of this paper is, by using Computational linguistics method to analyse collocations of ethnonyms leiši and lietuvieši ‘Lithuanians’ in “Balanced Corpus of Modern Latvian” (Līdzsvarots mūsdienu latviešu valodas tekstu korpuss), compare contextual semantics of both ethnonyms. Comparing the frequency of use of the lexemes lietuvieši and leiši ‘Lithuanians’ in the modern Latvian language text corpus, the prevalence of the ethnonym lietuvieši is evident, therefore, the ethnonym leiši, regardless of its use as synonymic designation (sometimes in one and the same text), can be considered as an obsolete word. The desemantisation cases of the ethnonym leiši, detected in the corpus, show its oldness and varied functionality in Latvian language. The evidences to prove the statement of the “Modern Latvian Language Dictionary” (Mūsdienu latviešu valodas vārdnīca) that the lexeme leiši nowadays “carries slightly pejorative stylistically expressive colouring” were not found in the text corpus. In general, the image of a Lithuanian reflected in the modern Latvian language text corpus is rather positive – mostly in historical, language, culture and sports contexts, yet in the context of economics and emigration rather negative impression of Lithuanians is expressed.

In analyzing the pre-Christian culture of the Balts, the nucleus of which consists of pagan religious logic and mythology, there is a problem of the value and reliability of the recorded writings about it. The article reviews and verifies the mythological information having a direct relation to the sowing celebration that Matthaeus Praetorius (Matthäus Prätorius) recorded in the source “Deliciae Prussicae oder Preussische Schaubühne” (Deliciae Prussicae or Prussian Theater, late 17th century). In succession, the paper discusses the interpretations made by the 20th to 21st century researchers who analyzed the mythological material recorded by Praetorius about the sowing festival. The context of the research made in 20th to 21st century has revealed that the scholars of earlier periods gave different assessments to the reliability of the aforementioned mythological material provided by Praetorius: they did not question authenticity, but considered the information to be quite reliable, and used it in their works; the scholars sensed the problem of authenticity of the mythological material, but hesitated to solve it; the scholars noticed the authenticity problem and more or less tried to solve it. The analysis suggests to determine that the mythological material related directly to the sowing festival recorded by Praetorius is to be considered authentic and reliable.