Res Humanitariae

Among the important components of the decorative art of any people is the technology of making images. One of the forms of this technology is the basic technique (from Türk Baysa – “imprint”), which is one of the forms of realization of the imitation style. Using various forms (including – Baysa-technology) masters of different cultures and peoples sought in their creations imitating / copying works of more complex technology and, accordingly, more expensive. In fact, we are talking about imitation (de facto – about fakes) of affordable means of expensive samples. The review of the development of the Baysa-technique in the art of the Western Balts made it possible to make the ceremonial and status character of the items made in I thousand. AD the base method.

This article critically discuss and analize the predominant conception of Vydūnas as a representative of neovedantism. This predominant interpretation of Vydūnas religious identity was popularized by the most productive researcher of Vydūnas Vacys Bagdonavičius. Analysing methodological approach of V. Bagdonavičius and basing on hermeneutical view to fenomena of Vydūnas religious expression, it is indicated that the prime influence to Vydūnas religious identity formation was made by the junction and tension between Germanish liberal protestant theology and local, conservative ,,gathering crowd“ tradition, which impel Vydūnas to universal, confessionally neutral and sincretic interest for religions. Article reveals hypothesis, that Vydūnas creative- religious espression could be perceived as a development of basic liberal protestantic belief principles and its adaptation to concrete historical-cultural also political East Prussia lithuanians situation, in order to avoid confrontation between this two different religious traditions and politically consolidate nation.

Collecting folk music and ethnographic materials for a long time in one locality forms a collection of records and the analytical database. This allows you to make a comparison and reveal the dynamics of the change in the people’s traditions, identify the factors that affect it. For ethnomusicologists, there is rarely a happy opportunity to compare modern folk music records (late 20th – early 21st centuries) with materials from the late 19th – early 20th centuries (at that time the foundations of traditional life were still preserved). One of such opportunities is provided by records in the village Romanovka in the Popelnya district of the Zhytomyr region (north-eastern edge of the Podillia). In this village folk customs, rituals and songs began to fix approximately the 1870s. The article covers the song genres of the calendar cycle: carols («kolyadki»), «schedrovki», spring games and round dances («khorovody»), «petrovki» and reaping («zhnyvni») tunes. Records of the beginning of the XXI century with musical notations are published for the first time.

In the period of the 18th and 19th century, the interest in the ethno-cultural identity of various ethnic groups had begun to grow in Germany. For more than forty years a famous researcher of Baltic languages, ethnographer and archaeologist prof. Adalbert Bezzenberger focused his activities on the Curonian Spit by devoting his attention to the history and culture of the settlements and the endangered Kursenieku language. His work “Über die Sprache der preußischen Letten” (1888) became the first professional study of the Kursenieku language. Not only does the work contain a description of the Kursenieku language prepared in accordance with the tradition of comparative linguistics of that time, and is based on a large amount of factual materials accumulated by the investigator himself, but it also includes a number of texts and a glossary. Since the Kursenieku language did not have a written form, every documenter, including Bezzenberger, used one’s own system of spelling. This work is important for the reconstruction of the Kursenieku language of that time, as well as for the overall research of the history of the language in general.

The author analyzes the short-term and long-term weather omens and magical methods of influence on weather events by the inhabitants of the Ukrainian Middle Polissya, such as drought, rain, storm, hail; he examines the transformation of meteorological knowledge and beliefs.

The article deals with the issues related to the specifics of the incantation as a genre of oral folklore, history of collecting, publishing and the beginning of their studying in Russia. The main emphasis is put on the first monographic work dedicated to conspiracies. Scientific portrait of the author is represented, his work, translations and reprinting are analyzed. Features that have made the book classic are established.

One of the most important indicators of contacts between the specified related westbaltic tribes – finds of those types of brooches which have steady ethno-cultural coloring. As a result of studying of distribution of a row the brooches of Curonians in the earth of pruss was succeeded to establish that degree of the international contacts in the southeast Baltic before arrival of the Award was high. Earlier was considered that has begun Prussian-Curonians contacts treats not earlier than the 12th century. As the brooches of Curonians in a Prussian area shows the analysis, Prussian-Curonians contacts have begun no later than the X century and in the 11th century, after hypothetical destruction by Danes of the settlement of Kaup were rather intensive. This conclusion is confirmed, including, existence on Prussian burial grounds of this time the burials (on a ceremony and on types of things) of Curonians.

The article shows what information the press between 1905 and 1940 provided Lithuanian readers about Shrovetide celebratory traditions around the world. The information collected, consisting of seven articles, thirty photographs and drawings, is fragmentary but fairly informative, providing a good and concise understanding of this cultural phenomenon in a popular manner. By surveying and interpreting the available data, it tries to answer several questions: what significance these publications might have had on Shrovetide celebratory traditions and methods of celebration in early 20th-century Lithuania; how this information correlates with current academic research and known empirical data; what Lithuanian Shrovetide had in common with the winter-spring carnival celebrated around the world.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the reaping rituality of Ukrainians to demonstrate its close relationship with Old Slavonic ones, and partly with Indo-European mental constants, which has a pre-Christian basis. Thus, memorial motifs (honouring of the dead ancestors for their assistance to living descendants of reach yield) extremely clearly occurs in the reaping rituality.

The article discusses problems connected with Balto-Slavic mythological parallels, including typology of mythological characters, lexical similarities resulting from genetic affinity and borrowing, as well as the influence of mythological systems of neighbouring peoples. Some new Balto-Slavic parallels have been suggested, viz. Rugių boba – Baba Ruga (Roga); Pikulas – pikulík; nelabais, and nelabasis – nelapši, nelapszy, with the focus on their ethnolinguistic aspect, both as mythological characters and as elements of the mythological lexicon. Special attention has been paid to the etymology of these words. The new parallels between the two groups of related languages provides additional material related to Slavic and Baltic ethno- and glottogeny.