Acta Historica Universitatis Klaipedensis

The article deals with the incorporation of Lithuanian immigrants into host societies and aims at identifying dominant strategies by which they are incorporated in England, Ireland, Norway and Spain. The main strategies of incorporation are identifying through the intensity of the immigrants’ social, economic, cultural and political linkages with the new society. Another focus is on the patterns of immigrants’ belonging. Based on the prevalence of linkage, four dominant strategies of Lithuanian immigrants’ incorporation into a new society are distinguished: conformist, representative, segregative, and navigational. Field data was obtained through semi-structured and focus group interviews with Lithuanian immigrants in 2007-2008.

The aim of the article is to explore how the migrant identity (especially, of the first generation) is changing under the influence of migration. Accordingly in the first part of the article the transnationalism and the concept of transmigration in relation to migratory experience are discussed, the second part is focused on the questions of identity and its boundaries, and the third part is based on the interpretation of empirical data from anthropological fieldwork by paying attention to the background, language and festivals of the immigrants as particular markers of the identity construction of the Lithuanian migrants in Northern Ireland.

Recent major changes in rural development in Europe have brought about new demands made on rural space. As a result of the transformation of rural needs, a type of modern rurality typical of the shift from production to consumption has emerged. The most illustrative example of this shift in rural environment is the emergence of international tourism and second homes. This text focuses the attention on how contemporary forms of mobility and international tourism affect local identities. Emphasis is put on the ways new and old cultural identities are contested, negotiated and constructed. The aim is to analyse one of the contemporary forms of ‘voluntary’, temporary mobility – the phenomenon of second homes owned by the Dutch in Czech rural countryside. The focus is placed on factors that either facilitate or hinder interaction between the second home owners and other international tourists, and local residents in two Czech rural communities.

This article analyses how the inhabitants of Visaginas construct their past and present. The first part of the article presents the ways the informants talked of the period 1970s-1980s, i.e. when they came to Lithuania, to the construction site of Visaginas (Sniechkus) and the nuclear power plant. The second part of the article discusses how the informants described their and the community’s social, economic situation in the post-Soviet period. The author discusses why the informants tend to construct the Soviet and post-Soviet periods in particular ways and provides parallels with other anthropological works. The article is based on data collected during ethnographic fieldwork conducted by the author in Visaginas in 2000-2004.

The attitude of Klaipėda Jewish community towards survival, alternation and continuity of community is being analyzed in the present article. Klaipėda Jewish community is regenerated in independent Lithuania, and it unifies few members. As a rule, they are Russian speaking elderly people, having little knowledge in its nation history and customs. It was expected, that Klaipėda Jewish community will naturally vanish, and young people will emigrate. In a fact we see at present, that this community is still lively, active and integrated one. A short excursion to the history of Klaipėda Jewish community, regarding the issues of its survival, alternation and continuity is presented hereby, and attention towards Klaipėda, as cross-border region, is pointed out.

Christiania is the name of a Danish alternative community. In this article I investigate how Christianites, members of Christiania, deal with internal tensions and conflicts. My empirical data suggests that Christianites have developed social mechanisms and practices, in which conflicts accumulate without being resolved. I suggest that these practices are related to the dominant position of community old-timers. In my discussion I employ situational analysis as means to presenting one crisis situation in Christiania. The crisis situation occurred during my fieldwork in Christiania in 2005 and 2006. The first part of my article is about the general features of social life in Christiania. In the second part, one ethnographic example will show how old-timers operate in a specific crisis situation. I use Max Weber’s ideas on traditional authority to explain the dominant position of community old-timers.

Some of the Russian-speaking teachers in minority schools in Latvia have to teach bilingually. That is, they are required to use both Latvian and Russian within the scope of one lesson. However, due to insufficient knowledge of Latvian they often cannot do that properly. In this study I describe the strategies they use to solve this problem. Problem-oriented interviews with teachers, participant observation and personal experience were used to collect information. I have discovered five strategies for the teaching. Each strategy involves different ratio of Russian and Latvian within a lesson. Three of them also imply a significant amount of cheating and pretence. Four strategies used for document handling in Latvian were discovered as well.

The aim of this paper is to analyse the growing concern over the treatment of multilingualism in the main cities of Lithuania (Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda) with the focus on the population’s national identity and self-consciousness identifying the prospects of preserving the language-related national identity. The main problem seems to be deciding on which language of instruction would be most beneficial to balanced communication. This is a task requiring thoughtful planning and is surrounded by debate. Somebody prefer instruction only in the official language, but some aim to foster linguistic and thus social diversity by encouraging teaching in several languages, emphatically amplifying the English.