Klaipėdos universitetas

Scientific journal Tiltai / Bridges / Brücken published by Klaipėda University (established in 1991) is devoted to the issues of social sciences, and seeking academic dialogue, also to other human and society functioning-related humanities and biomedical sciences, with expand and interpret different social phenomena and current issues from an interdisciplinary perspective. The publications attempts at analysing and solving actual problems of economy, management, demography, social geography, geopolitics, political sciences, history, education, religious, regional planning and land use, other social problems. Science has no borders. Therefore scientific cooperation is one of the most important elements in the progress of world’s community. Scientists from different countries of the world are kindly invited to write for and contribute to the journal.

This article offers an analysis of soft skills acquisition in children through animal training programmes within the framework of a two-year Erasmus+ project. The article overviews important aspects of shaping and introducing new approaches towards the acquisition of soft skills in children through animal training programmes. In this context, children participated in research in three countries (Lithuania, Belgium and Bulgaria), in three animal-assisted educational programmes: dolphin-assisted therapy, hippotherapy, and canine therapy. The results of the narrative analysis show a significant improvement in the skills of children, improving the quality of their relationships with themselves, with others, with animals, and with the environment. This reaffirms that exposing students to authentic, hands-on experience can significantly enhance their cognitive, social and emotional development. Moreover, the article shows that the process also increased the soft skills of teachers and of external actors involved in the process, reinforcing the importance of an open schooling approach as a way of improving all society. The article contributes to empirical evidence to support the integration of experiential learning into the pedagogical realm.

The Christianisation of Lithuania is usually dated to the late 14th and early 15th centuries, but the first attempt to turn Lithuania into a Christian kingdom was made by Mindaugas. In 1251 he was baptised by the Master of Livonia Andreas de Velven (also known as von Stirland), and in 1253 was crowned King of Lithuania with the support of Pope Innocent IV. Christian (Kristijonas), the Livonian priest who taught the ruler the virtues of Christianity, a member of the Teutonic Order, became the first Bishop of Lithuania at Mindaugas’ request. It is known that Mindaugas bequeathed several lands to Christian in 1254. The article examines the background to this act of providing for the Diocese of Lithuania. The author argues that the donation of the possessions to Christian is the most important source that can help identify Mindaugas’ own domain. He hypothesises that Mindaugas’ domain may have been located south of the lands donated to Bishop Christian, in an area known in historiography as the defence line of the lower River Nemunas. In his analysis of this hypothesis, the author presents arguments that invite us to reconsider the established assertion in historiography that the domains of the senior dukes could have been located in present-day east Lithuania.

More than a hundred years of fighting between the Teutonic Order and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have left us with a considerable amount of narrative sources that allow researchers today to imagine the language of the Christians who fought against the pagans, and to understand their beliefs and propaganda measures. One little-studied question in this regard is how the Christian narrative tradition of the 14th century portrayed miracles and divine intervention during the struggle between the Teutonic Order and Lithuania. To address this question, the author of the article focuses on the chronicles of the Teutonic Order, which represented the idea of the Crusade to the Lithuanian lands, and therefore showed a strong need to emphasise the religious aspect of the whole military conflict. At the same time, however, she also draws on other surviving documents for comparison, including Lithuanian and Ruthenian narrative sources. The author argues that the accounts of miracles and divine intervention in sources from the Teutonic Order were influenced by the nature of the Order as a religious military corporation and the chroniclers’ need to explain the campaigns to Lithuania as a holy war. It was this need that led them to place a great emphasis on the depiction of divine intervention in the campaigns of the crusaders to help them.

The way the Baltic region was viewed in Christian Europe during the High and Late Middle Ages was strongly characterised by the fact that it was the land of the last pagans. Beginning with the crusade against the Wends (Polabian Slavs) in 1147, attempts to convert them in the region took the form of the Northern Crusades, authorised by the Pope. The Teutonic Order became the driving force behind these crusades from the 13th to the 15th centuries, and secured support in Christian Europe, including France. The representation of the east Baltic region, on which this article focuses, was mainly related to these crusades. The author’s aim is to provide an overview of the attitude of the French-related nobility and intellectual elite towards the Christianisation of the Baltic from the tenth to the 15th centuries, with a special focus on Lithuania. In the first half of the 14th century, many crusaders from France and neighbouring countries backed the Teutonic Order’s struggle against Lithuania. These expeditions, mostly a derivative of the crusades in the Holy Land, were seen as the epitome of the chivalric lifestyle. This view changed slowly after Grand Duke Jogaila acceded to the Polish throne in 1386 and a year later baptised the grand duchy. With the evangelisation of Žemaitija (Samogitia) in 1417, Lithuania was definitely considered a part of Christendom.

The story by the Teutonic Order chronicler Peter von Dusburg about the Prussian pagan priest Criwe and his sanctuary Romowe has for centuries provoked historiographical arguments about the nature of the Baltic pagan religion and the interpretation of Medieval chronicle sources relating to the Balts. This article focuses on an interpretation of Dusburg’s text, without attempting to decide on the reality of ancient pagan religious practice. Through a ‘close reading’ approach to actual words and the contexts of sentences that are often extracted and used out of context, the article argues against either dismissing the passage as an invented moral exemplum or accepting it literally. A speculative explanation for Dusburg’s portrayal of the pagan priest Criwe as a pope is presented for consideration. Moreover, through a reminder of the often-neglected context of the Criwe passage in book III of the chronicle, this article suggests an overarching aim for Dusburg’s portrayal of the Old Prussians, which is not as the ‘avatar of evil’ often proposed in historiography, but rather as simple peoples who should be left to the Teutonic Order and not to the Franciscans favoured at that time by Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania. To aid readers, the article contains the whole Latin passage (rather than the extracts often quoted), and an English translation by Rasa Mažeika.

With the Christianisation of the Lithuanians in the Middle Ages, fundamental changes brought new Christian images of the Otherworld and entry to it. The image of souls being raised to heaven by angels is one of the images that emerged in the wake of changes in burial rituals. Based on Medieval historical sources, the article examines the image of the angel ascending to heaven that emerged in Balt and Finno-Ugric countries during their Christianisation. It explains how it is related to the Christian image of the Otherworld, and how it changed the pre-Christian Balt and Finno-Ugric mythical perception of the world beyond. It also explores the question of whether, in the Balt and Finno-Ugric mythical world-view, there may have been companions that conducted the soul in the Otherworld (psychopomps), which are seen as angels in Christianity. The research shows that in the earliest written sources describing ancient Balt and Finno-Ugric burials, there is no mention of spirits or deities acting as psychopomps, or of deities in charge of the deceased. The article argues that converts may have learned about angels raising souls to heaven because burial rituals and the concept of life after death changed in the course of Christianisation in Livonia and Prussia.