Regional Formation and Development Studies

The article is based on agricultural customs and beliefs collected in the Lithuanian Folklore Archive taken from Lithuania by the ethnologist Jonas Balys and published in a book in the USA. The originals of the published sources are named in the Beliefs File (BF), and are stored in the library archive of the Institute of Lithuanian History. Based on this material, the article analyses the customs and beliefs of spring work in the Aukštadvaris region. The aim is to determine to what extent the published US sources correspond to the stored BF data, and it is concluded that most of the material published by Balys is BF, but there are unpublished as well as beliefs in the book which were not found in the Institute of Lithuanian History. The analysis of the beliefs about ploughing and sowing cereal crops and planting vegetables recorded in the Aukštadvaris region in the first half of the 20th century in the article revealed the possibility of using material from the book and the BF file to conduct a fully fledged study of the important local and wider area of ​​the economic and spiritual life of farmers in the first half of the 20th century.

In the article, using authentic Lithuanian material, the celebration of St Martin’s Day in Lithuania Minor is analysed from a chronological point of view (from the first mention to the present day), in order to show the general stages in the development of the festival, and the modern changes to the customs. The paper analyses the St Martin’s Day feast from the late 19th to the 20th century, showing the structural and functional changes in the calendar feast. It also aims to analyse modern customs in the festival (since 2002), and to discuss the prospects for the continuity of the ethnic tradition in today’s festival.

The article analyses proverbs that mention bread. The aim is to reveal how bread is treated in Lithuanian proverbs, and to provide an analysis of the image of bread. It analyses Lithuanian proverbs in which bread is treated as a meal, as well as symbolic meanings and the personification of bread. Stylistic analysis, interpretation and description methods are used in the preparation of the article. Material published in the compendium ‘Lithuanian Proverbs and Sayings’ was mostly used.