Klaipėdos universitetas

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.