Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

Referring to research data of different authors, the article presents the Z generation characteristic by disclosing its essential features, which should be evaluated in modelling the perspective of this generation’s education/self-education. The article discusses the data of the qualitative research on the new generation, which was performed in 2014, by illustrating the Z generation features indicated by the representatives of the Y generation as well as their arguments on the attachment of some features to this generation. The insight of the Z generation’s education methodological direction discusses the sightings on the identification of the features of the new generation, which should be strengthened, by the Institute for Emerging Issues in North Caroline State, USA. The article also points out why in the education methodology it is necessary to highlight points of reference – educational references, grounded virtues, by means of them to substantiate educational interaction as well as to project all elements of educational system in the appropriate methodological approach. So it would suit to identify present characteristics of education actors as well as characteristics to be educated / self-educated.

The article presents the first programme of publishing Lithuanian secular literature in Prussian Lithuania proposed and carried out by Martin Ludwig Rhesa, professor of Königsberg University. The first publication of Donelaitis’ poem The Seasons prepared by Rhesa will be discussed by assessing Rhesa’s contribution to it: the editing, translation, and provision of the scientific part (a research study-article and scientific comments). The first reviews of The Seasons which started appearing in Königsberg and Germany in the period of 1818 to 1820 will be examined.

The article discusses the conscious choice of Kristijonas Donelaitis to become a priest of a Lithuanian rural community and to take care of the parishers’ faith and morals. The Enlightenment-related position of the poet predetermined the expression of his poetical vocation to a great extent. By recognizing the significance of each element of the world created by the will of God, Donelaitis consciously turned his glance towards ‘minor’ things or the ‘lowest’ substances. He consciously chose to write about the most deprived, the most backward peasant-boor of the remotest Prussian periphery: about him and for him, in the declining language of the minority. One might ask whether the choice of that conservative addressee, the ‘smallest’ in the Kingdom of Prussia, did not paradoxically account for the modernity of Donelaitis‘ works in the context of the that time poetry. By the violation of the aesthetical standards of his time, Donelaitis unexpectedly forced his way into the ranks of the best poets of Europe and not only became one of them, but far surpassed them. A rural priest of a Pussian province with his weak voice and poor health, unknown to Europe, for a wink of an eye became perhaps the greatest European poet. For a wink of an eye, as Europe at the time did not learn about him. However, he remained great for us, representatives of a small, declining, and emigrating nation, and stayed with us to remind us of the true values of life.