Res Humanitariae

Šis „Res humanitariae“ numeris skirtas daugiausia Kuršių nerijos istorijos, archeologijos, kultūros ir kalbos klausimams. Prie jų temiškai šliejasi ir kito marių kranto kapinių įrašų tyrinėjimas bei nedidelis vakarų žemaičių tarmės žodynėlis, sudarytas iš vieno pateikėjo medžiagos.

The article draws attention to the distinctive features of Louis Passarge’s art of travel writing and to his originality best seen in the descriptive rendering of the Curonian landscape. The author offers many interesting ethnographic and historical details to describe the customs, the social relationships – the way of life prevalent among late nineteenth century Curonians. Passarge’s philological analyses, no less than his descriptions of landscapes, show that he was a writer of considerable talent. The article’s conclusions suggest that, in addition to factual information, Passarge’s work provides esthetic enjoyment as well as evidence of the intellectual attributes that characterized the writer.

The article investigates the society, economy, demographics of The Nothern Curonian Spit in the sixteenth century. It is considered hypothetical genealogic relationships and origin of population of the northern Curonian Spit. After statistical analysis of the collected tax data, it is analyzed population, welfare, social structure, dynamics of lifestyle’s lows and highs, extent and causes. Personal names, place names, processed statistics presented in this article could be material for further researches of comparative or economic, historical sociology, anthropology and filology subjects.

The article discusses the origin of the place-name Preila. Preila is a settlement located in the Curonian Spit. To this day, there is no obvious and definitely proven interpretation of this name’s origin. The reason for this is a failure to detect linguistic motivation of the origin of the onym in the kursenieku language. The settlement itself was set about as late as the 19th century, while most linguists tend to look for ancient (Curonian of Prussian) origin of its name. Both phonetic and morphologic structure of the name seems to support this approach, but there was a shortage of proof that motivating lexeme with the theme Preil- could survive through to the 19th century in the language or onomastics of kursenieku language.The article employs several analysis methods, in particular: comparative, internal reconstruction, cartographic, geolinguistic. As some proof surfaced of presence of the onym in cartography prior to establishment of the settlement, the author makes assumption that it was an undocumented Curonian person’s name that gave birth to a place-name, which could initially be just a name of a steading or a micro-toponym.

The major for archeology of southeast Baltic of an era of Vikings are Korallenberge connected among themselves the settlement and Stangenwalde burial ground. These monuments of archeology are located in southwest part of Curonian Spit. The thesis about synchronism and communication among themselves “before - and early Ordertime” time in O. Tishler and other Prussian archeologists of the XIX century of doubt didn’t cause these two monuments. Nowadays this point of view was supported by R. A. Shiroukhov. Got by excavation on Korallenberge settlement the material allows to call into question synchronism of this settlement and a soil burial ground of Stangenwalde. The joint analysis of the finds occurring from these monuments to archeology, allows to assume that the population which has left traces in settlement activity on a platform of the settlement of the X-head of the XII centuries, buried dead on a site of a burial ground of Stangenwalde, while unknown to archeologists.

This article focuses on Curonisms, i.e. words originated from Latvian based dialects spoken on the Curonian Spit and to the north of Klaipėda until 1945, which were encountered in the so-called German-Lithuanian Richter-Wörterbuch from the 18th century. These hitherto widely neglected Curonisms have been identified on the basis of the Deutsch-Kurisches Wörterbuch by Richard Pietsch, Kurisches Wörterbuch by Paul Kwauka and Richard Pietsch, the LKŽe and the Lettisch-deutsches Wörterbuch by Karl Mühlenbachs and Jānis Endzelīns.

The paper is dedicated to the generalisation of the investigations results for the 13th–15th Curonian Spit archaeological sites, with the analyse of the main types of finds and supposed Prussian and Curonian contact zone problem. Last decade’s established theories about the 13th–15th Curonian Spit archaeological sites populaton are also reviewed and revised. Unpublished till now new archaeological investigations and archival data is reflected in this study.

The article focuses on kuršininkai ethnic group living in the Curonian Spit since 15th C. as an object of scientific investigations at the end of 19th C. and the beginning of the 20th C. My attention is paying also to the reasons which stimulated scientists interest to this small ethnic community cultural traditions in the German Empire, where the policy of ethnic minorities levelling was growing sharpat that time. I emphasize in this my article the importance of Franz Tetzner’s cultural perceptivity concerning kuršininkai ethnic culture transformations in the context of processes of modernisation and assimilation. It is very important to have a comprehensive information from Tetzner investigations on such ethnic traditions of already disappeared kuršininkai community at present times. This information helps us to understand much better the specific features of kuršininkai local identity (such as Latvian speaking at home, specific customs, fishery terms) and their ties with Prussian Lithuanians’ culture traditions (Evangelical Lutheran confession, Lithuanian language in the church and at school). The investigations from this my article have an idea to enrich particular research works on historical Prussian Lithuania region cultural heritage.

The article analyzes the usage of epighaph fonts in old cemetries of Klaipėda region. The attention is mainly focused on gothic style type Fraktur. This German type was a basic script in German territories since Middle Ages until World War II. The German type is an inherent part of culture in Minor Lithuania. 1st part of the analyses deals with historical dissemination of printing Fraktur in German-speaking countries, with the purpose to illustrate the significance of this gothic style type in the society. The main target of the research is to explicate the relationship between different script types and languages, and to assess specifics of usage of the Fraktur regarding on period, ethnic and social aspects, material and technical features.

Teritorija, iš kurios rinkti žodžiai, yra šiaurės rytiniame Klaipėdos krašto pakraštyje ir priklauso Klaipėdos rajonui. Žodžiai buvo renkami kelis dešimtmečius – iš pradžių įsidedami į galvą, o paskui surašyti popieriuje. Rašymas vyksta ir toliau, nes atmintis retkarčiais ką nors sugrąžina. Juk ir patys lietuvininkai, apsupti iš kitur atvykusių žmonių, daugelio savų žodžių jau nebevartoja ir net nebeprisimena. O ir mokančiųjų vakarų žemaičių tarmę Klaipėdos krašte liko tik apie 100. Gal kiek daugiau jų dar yra užsienyje. Bet daugelio jų amžius jau per 70 metų. Tad šis darbelis bent dalį senųjų klaipėdiškių žodžių išgelbės nuo užmaršties.