Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

From the earliest descriptions and studies, the Prussian Lithuanians, or Lietuvininkai, and their sung folklore have usually been treated as one unit. However, the ethnographic region of Lithuania Minor is a vast territory stretching over 200 kilometres from north to south. Two distinct areas of ethnic Lietuvininkai music can be identified within it. This article aims to investigate the musical features of the folklore that existed in the Klaipėda district, and to reveal its uniqueness in the context of Lietuvininkai sung folklore.

The purpose of this article is to answer the questions raised in the course of the research on the development of textile pocket of the national costume of Lithuania Minor in relation to the motivation for production and wearing of pockets, the choice in decoration characteristics, the symbolism of ornamentation and colour combinations. The analysis of the accomplished field research reveals the manifestations of the expression of the ethnocultural identity through production and wearing of textile pockets. The analysis of the symbolic meanings traditionally attributed and newly assigned to the chosen decorative elements of pockets reveals the cases of the continuity and change of a symbol. The act of wearing a pocket not only with the national costume of Lithuania Minor demonstrates the expression of one’s identity through wearing the chosen parts of clothing. The growing demand stimulates the production of textile pockets. The research analyses the material collected from the well-informed presenters (makers and wearers of textile pockets) based on the questionnaires compiled by the author of the present article.

The paper discusses different appropriation strategies applied to the same historical region of East Prussia. By dating the beginning of the symbolic appropriation to the early 19th century, the author reviews the strategies, first applied by Germans and Poles, and later also by Lithuanians and Russians, to make East Prussia or their respective part (Warmia and Masuria, Lithuania Minor, and the Kaliningrad Oblast) their own. This is demonstrated by several periods, starting with the situation before 1914, the First World War, the interwar period, and the Second World War, when East Prussia still existed; and finishing with the postwar period and the changes after 1989. A distinction is made between national and regional East Prussia appropriation strategies, as well as different levels of the process, i.e. publicistic (literary) and practical.

Like many other towns in East Prussia, Klaipėda lost almost all its former population during World War II and was inhabited by newcomers after 1945. After an example of Klaipėda, the article analyzes the process of comprehension of a newly inhabited area and making it one’s own. Klaipėda became a former East Prussian city having returned to Lithuania and simultaneously incorporated into the Soviet Union. That caused the clash of interests, the development of which also changed the systems of meanings that provided a framework for the appropriation process. The city was gradually comprehended in the process of formation of unique interrelationships of the meanings of Soviet ideology, all-Union patriotism, Lithuanian national culture, and East Prussian cultural heritage. In the article, the author identifies the processes that affected different configurations of the said interrelationships in different post-war periods.

The year 1923 was a critical moment in the history of the Weimar Republic. Due to Germany’s delay in paying war reparations, French and Belgian forces occupied the Ruhr region in January. Shortly afterwards the Lithuanians seized Memel (now Klaipėda), which in the Treaty of Versailles had been declared a Free City with a French Governor and garrison. German public opinion was outraged by this situation. In the press, a campaign against Lithuania was started. The article is devoted to publish the results of research on the military potential of Reichswehr in East Prussia in January 1923. The hypothesis concerning the military Reichswehr impossibility to influence the Klaipėda events has to be examined in this article.