The Verba and Ethno-Confessional Identity in Eastern Lithuania and Western Belarus
Volume 20 (2010): Studia Anthropologica, IV: Identity Politics: Migration, Communities and Multilingualism, pp. 154–166
Pub. online: 5 March 2010
Type: Article
Open Access
Published
5 March 2010
5 March 2010
Abstract
This article discusses the verba (palm; Palm Sunday flowers), one of the most important religious symbols throughout the second part of the 20th and beginning of the 21st century in eastern Lithuania and western Belarus. The tasks of this study are: to analyze the form and content of verba so as to reveal the relationships between regional, ethnic and confessional particularities, and to look at how the symbol becomes an important factor in the formation of the inhabitants’ ethnic and religious identity. The main source for this study is material gathered during field expeditions in eastern Lithuania and western Belarus at the beginning of the 21st century.