Res Humanitariae

The article deals with the issues related to the specifics of the incantation as a genre of oral folklore, history of collecting, publishing and the beginning of their studying in Russia. The main emphasis is put on the first monographic work dedicated to conspiracies. Scientific portrait of the author is represented, his work, translations and reprinting are analyzed. Features that have made the book classic are established.

The article is devoted to the historiographic analysis of French flute manuals of the 18th-19th centuries. The author has examined the technological and artistic principles of the formation of French flute didactics at different stages of historical development. The educational books by Jacques Hotteterre, Charles de Lusse, Benoit Tranquille Berbiguier, François Devienne, Antoine Hugot, Johann Wunderlich and other performer-educators have been investigated by using the comparative analyses. Theobald Boehm’s reform has been displayed in terms of its impact on flute playing technology. The author also has focused on the discussion about its use in the educational process at the Paris Conservatory.

The paper focuses on the contribution of regional 18th-century ‘East Prussian’ historiography to the formation of an Old Prussian identity. The author specifies the concept of ‘Old Prussianism’, and reveals the main steps in the change in that model of identity in the 18th century through an analysis of three authors who were active in Königsberg and spanned three generations: Michael Lilienthal (1686–1750), Daniel Heinrich Arnoldt (1706–1775) and Georg Christoph Pisanski (1725–1790). On the basis of their treatises, the paper reveals how in the 18th century, in the territory of the former Duchy of Prussia, a unique regional self-awareness independent of Royal (Polish) Prussia and of Brandenburgian Prussia was developing, as well as a related concept of the past of the region.

The paper analyses the techniques and methods of creating propaganda narratives about Lutherans in the chronicle of Dominican monk Simon Grunau (the early 16th c.). It examines how, during the Reformation, in the debates of the propaganda character between its supporters and opponents, narratives or their complexes were used with the intention to belittle the image and the arguments of the opponents. It also explains how the Dominicans’ common European experience of the fight against the spreading Reformation was used in the stories of Grunau’s chronicle about the Reformation gaining a foothold in Prussia.

The article reviews the development stages of the battle of Durbė narrative over the period of the 13th to the early 16th c. in Prussian and Livonian historiographical traditions. Attempts are made to find out the way and the reasons of the changes in the battle of Durbė narrative in different traditions, the impact that caused the changes, and the functions the narrative played in historical works. Major attention is focused on three chronicles: the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle (the 13th c.). The Chronicle of the Prussian Land of Peter of Dusburg (mid-14th c.) and Simon Grunau’s Chronicle (mid-16th c.). The chronicles present three versions of the battle of Durbė story which are related and which, however, differ in the plot, details, and functions. Each version marked three different stages of the narrative development and formed three different traditions of the battle of Durbė narrative, on the basis of which subsequent authors created historical myths of the said battle. Part of the details of the historical myths (and especially those borrowed from Simon Grunau’s version) survived and are employed in contemporary Lithuanian fiction, historical, and educational literature.