In the article, we analyse the natural right of parents to raise their children, the law arising from their being natural parents and bringing children into the world. We make an analysis of the problematical understanding of natural law and rights. These form not only the point of view of the right education and the educational powers of separate individuals (parents), but also of all of society and the state. We analyse the challenges to the modern Western world which questions the ability of parents to raise their children in the best and most acceptable way to them. We delve deeper into the pre-Christian understanding of natural rights and laws exposed in the reflections and conceptual understanding of the Ancient philosophers, as well as the Christian approach in understanding the natural law and rights of parents on the understanding of children’s education, analysing and understanding the guidelines presented by the Pontifical Council for the Family, and looking at the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church’s concept of education.
The article describes the origins and development of the Palanga Lutheran congregation, from its formation at the beginning of the 19th century to its closure by the communist authorities in the early postwar years after the Second World War. The life of the affiliate in the parish of Rucava is discussed, as well as its attempts to build its own church in Palanga. The congregation’s life was particularly revitalised after the city was reunited with Lithuania in 1921. As an affiliate of the Kretinga parish, and supported by it and the Gustav-Adolf-Werk, it bought its own prayer house in 1928. The article describes ecclesiastical life in this period, the disastrous effects of the 1938 fire, when the congregation lost its place of worship, and the challenges it faced in the first years of the Soviet occupation.
The article investigates the source of the historiographical topic of heroic paganism in the laments/elegies of Dionizas Poška (1764–1830). It is known that Poška read the manuscript of the first history of Lithuania (1822) by Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864). The article hypothesises that the choice of Poška’s written language ‘to lean towards the Samogitian dialect’, and the increase in a lexicon characteristic of the historiographical genre in the laments, are connected with his reading Daukantas’ manuscript. Since until now researchers into Daukantas’ legacy do not agree on the date of the completion of his first manuscript history, it is believed that research of this kind will make it possible to clarify it. The research leads to the conclusion that Poška read the ‘History of Lithuania’ by Daukantas in 1824, because in verse dating from that year we find a lexicon which is characteristic of Daukantas’ work. In elegies written after 1824, Poška found Lithuanian equivalents of the traditional topics of the heroic and lost nation, which are often taken from the text of Daukantas, and are not literal translations of Polish literature. Daukantas’ text inspired Poška to talk about a lost Golden Age, and so he can be considered a pioneer of Lithuanian historical elegy. Following Daukantas, the poet learned to replace rhetorical writing with an authentic expression of thought characteristic of Romantic authors.
The concept of meditation is common when discussing various forms of spiritual assistance. It is usually associated with eastern traditions, but it is also sometimes mentioned in a Christian context, and it often becomes a subject of discussion. The article aims to reveal the concept and meaning of Christian meditation in more detail, by analysing its interpretations and the etymology of the term, and by identifying specific features of Christian meditation. Meditation in this context is revealed as a Christian form of prayer, inseparable from individuality, dialogue and Christocentricity.
Humanity benefits from the achievements of modern technology, but man cannot avoid pain, long-term suffering, and spiritual problems. In modern society, as in all eras, man still raises fundamental questions of being: What is the meaning of life? What is spirituality? How to solve spiritual problems? Therefore, spiritual counselling or assistance is receiving more and more attention. Its needs and benefits are undoubtedly noticeable, because spiritual assistance tries to respond to the spiritual needs of people today, and to be a landmark in spreading spiritual well-being. Although spiritual counselling in Lithuania is still searching for explicit boundaries of function and definition, it is becoming quite clear that it is not the same as psychological counselling. Of course, spiritual counselling is not so far from psychological counselling, as they both have some features in common. However, the priority of a spiritual counsellor is existential questions and the search for answers to queries about the meaning of life, suffering, death, love, etc. Spiritual counselling tries to approach a person through the prism of faith. A unique element in spiritual counselling is not the methods used by the counsellors, but their personality, their world-view, faith, values, and attitude towards other people. Therefore, in order to substantiate the identity and importance of spiritual counselling, this article aims to reveal the essence and meaning of spiritual counselling.
Pub. online:16 Dec 2022Type:Book ReviewOpen Access
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 43 (2022): Defeating Disease in the Changing Society of the Southeast Baltic from the 18th to the 20th Century = Ligų įveika besikeičiančioje Pietryčių Baltijos visuomenėje: XVIII–XX amžiai, pp. 215–218
Pub. online:16 Dec 2022Type:Book ReviewOpen Access
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 43 (2022): Defeating Disease in the Changing Society of the Southeast Baltic from the 18th to the 20th Century = Ligų įveika besikeičiančioje Pietryčių Baltijos visuomenėje: XVIII–XX amžiai, pp. 207–214
Pub. online:16 Dec 2022Type:Source PublicationOpen Access
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 43 (2022): Defeating Disease in the Changing Society of the Southeast Baltic from the 18th to the 20th Century = Ligų įveika besikeičiančioje Pietryčių Baltijos visuomenėje: XVIII–XX amžiai, pp. 149–203
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 43 (2022): Defeating Disease in the Changing Society of the Southeast Baltic from the 18th to the 20th Century = Ligų įveika besikeičiančioje Pietryčių Baltijos visuomenėje: XVIII–XX amžiai, pp. 131–145
Abstract
The press (books, newspapers, magazines, calendars, etc) in the Lithuanian language educated its readers extensively on the prevention and treatment of infectious diseases in the early 20th century. However, the frequent outbreaks of various epidemics from the 1900s to the 1930s raises the question whether this information really reached its target audience, especially when, as folklore sources show, folk medicine was still heavily relied on in the provinces. The article addresses this question by taking cholera as an example. It compares the methods of protection against cholera and its treatment, as presented in Lithuanian periodicals and professional publications, with narratives of folk medicine collected in archives. In the collected material, the author looks for definitions of the folk concept of communicable diseases (limpamos ligos, the name given to infectious diseases at the time), which may have influenced the limits to which people followed the recommendations of medics in the first half of the 20th century.
Journal:Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis
Volume 43 (2022): Defeating Disease in the Changing Society of the Southeast Baltic from the 18th to the 20th Century = Ligų įveika besikeičiančioje Pietryčių Baltijos visuomenėje: XVIII–XX amžiai, pp. 99–130
Abstract
Between the First World War and the Second World War, approximately 280 thousand men served in the Lithuanian armed forces. This is a significant figure for a country that only had a population of two to 2.5 million. Even though the Lithuanian armed forces were only involved in active military operations and low-intensity fighting from 1919 to 1923, servicemen died during the entire period up to 1940. The numbers of deaths during the Wars of Independence are well known; however, the causes of death in the Lithuanian armed forces, both from 1919 to 1920 and in later years, have not been investigated in great depth. We understand that one cause of death in an active army is active combat. In the study of war, deaths in action are further classified into deaths caused by artillery fire, machine gun and rifle fire, bayonets, etc. This allows scholars to determine the effectiveness of weapons systems and tactical elements used on the battlefield. However, the focus of this article is the causes of soldiers’ deaths that are not directly combat related. In the first section, I discuss causes of death in the Lithuanian armed forces during periods of war and peace, and provide a host of examples, which include deaths caused by disease, accidents, homicide and suicide. In the last section, I present the results of quantitative analysis. The quantitative analysis is a case study of a single regiment that demonstrates the predominant causes of death from 1919 to 1940, with a separate analysis of causes of death for the period 1919 to 1920.