Res Humanitariae

Lietuvos tapsmas jūrine valstybe, kaip rodo istorinė retrospektyva ir šiandienos aktualijos, yra gana nelengvas, trūkinėjantis, bet labai įdomus ir reikšmingas procesas. Tik XX a. 3-iajame dešimtmetyje nepriklausoma Lietuvos valstybė įgijo platesnę geografiniu ir reikšmingesnę istoriniu bei ekonominiu požiūriais prieigą prie Baltijos jūros. Tai, regis, sudarė prielaidas spartesniam ir glaudesniam lietuvių priartėjimui prie jūros, jūrinio mentaliteto formavimuisi, kuris kol kas nėra sulaukęs deramo humanitarinių mokslų tyrėjų dėmesio. Kalbiniai ir kultūrologiniai jūros koncepto (konceptualiojo lauko) bei nuo jo neatsiejamo lietuvių jūrinio mentaliteto moksliniai tyrimai Lietuvoje tebėra užuomazgos būsenos. Šiame „Res humanitariae“ numeryje publikuojami moksliniai straipsniai, kuriuose tradiciniais ar moderniaisiais metodais tiriama jūros mentalinė kategorija, jos verbalinė ir neverbalinė raiška lietuvių ir kitų tautų kalbose bei įvairiose kultūros srityse. Publikacijos parengtos 2014 m. lapkričio 20–21 d. Klaipėdos universitete vykusioje tarptautinėje tarpdalykinėje mokslinėje konferencijoje „Tradicijos ir modernumo dermė: konceptas JŪRA kalboje ir kultūroje“ skaitytų mokslinių pranešimų pagrindu. 

Having analysed the forms of the shapes of the ethnic musical instruments of the mankind, the data of the research leads to the presumption that the musical instruments convey the images of the fauna, mode of life, which reflects on very ancient processes of the humanity. The great part of the images of these instruments shows not only the animal kingdom and tools of everyday life, but also the ancient totemic world outlook and the means of burying – process of traveling to ‘another’ world. These means were canoes, boats and even sea ships. Connection with the water and sea propose the idea about the features concerning two cultures – fishing and shipping. The reflections and relics are evident in the shapes of the ethnic musical instruments of mankind. However, the ‘Sea’ culture is noticeable only in the civilisations of ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece and in the traditions of using the musical instruments of the current people living in these areas. The ‘Water’ culture relates with fishing in the local rivers and lakes and is evident in the traditions of many nations of the world. The images of the fishing culture are the most noticeable feature of the instruments of the Baltic people.

Well known established over many centuries and wandering in the culture of the archetypes associated with water. In the nineteenth century, which marked crisis of rationalism, we can distinguish archetype: water as the embodiment irrational. Accordingly, the antithesis of “rational-irrational” appears in literature and art through the contrast of images of earth and water. This binary reveals itself in the evolution of the leading art schools of romanticism and realism. Water, especially the sea, images prevail in romanticism, allow to realize its leading artistic and aesthetic ideas. Irrational element, the unpredictability embodied in the images of a stormy sea, the drama and the wrongness of fate – in the pictures of the shipwreck. Sea – infinity, the vastness of space, time, existence in General (J. Byron, U. Turner, T. Gericault, K. Friedrich, and others). In the era of establishing realistic, and then naturalism, with their interest in social existence of man, “water recedes”, giving place to land, the earth. In the image system, under the influence of materialistic tendencies and positivist cult of scientific knowledge, is dominated by the resistance, finiteness, definiteness. The earth is the center of matter, nature (E. Zola “Earth”). If the field of view of water falls, lush shimmering sea gives way to the calm water surface (“Barbizon painters”).

This article discusses maritime and other navigation-related terms proposed by V. Pakalniškis in his book The Explanation of Navigation Terms (2005). Terms proposed as substitutes to the words of foreign origin but not mentioned in other publications of this field have been researched. The composition and correct usage of these substitutes are analyzed, their use in other highly popular sources have been researched, and in cases of their use, the meanings are compared with other publications. This article determines which maritime terms can be considered as neologisms proposed by V. Pakalniškis and partially discusses the (un)suitability of these proposed terms.

The article is aimed to clear out the cognitive significance of the concept SEA for the Ukrainian mentality, and culture. Turning to the characteristics of Ukrainian cultural concept SEA, the author identifies two main aspects of it: “external” (related to the territorial and geographical self-identification of the Ukrainians) and “internal” (cognitively associated with the “external”, representing the emotional sphere of romantic personality). The study is based on the Ukrainian dooms of the XVI–XVII centures, collected and published in 1927–1931 by Ukrainian researcher Catherine Hrushevska, and on poems about the sea written by outstanding Ukrainian poetess Lesya Ukrainka and poets of the “Executed Renaissance” (A. Vlizko, J. Pluzhnyk and others).Comparison of two dimensions of the Ukrainian concept SEA (external and internal) gives an opportunity to carry out certain parallels between their cognitive and axiological characteristics. Both in its internal and external dimensions the concept SEA reveals the duality, axiological ambivalence, correlation with the idea of primary chaos, danger and overcoming.

The purpose of this article is to find connections between two seemingly unrelated objects in art – the image of sea and the sound of organ. The author believes that an area of semantic overlapping exists between these phenomena: the properties of organ sound production, as well as the technical and artistic means of expression a priori hold certain properties that enable evocative and convincing reproduction of certain characteristics of the image of sea.The article analyses four main parameters for the comparison of the image of sea and the sound of organ: the infinite sense of time, the incomprehensible and vast sense of space, the broadness of dynamic scale and the multitude of diverse colours (richness of timbres). This research is based on the organ music oeuvre devoted to the image of sea by the Latvian composer Romualds Jermaks. However, similar interconnections could conceivably be discovered upon analysis of the sea-theme related organ works by other composers.

The article deals with conceptual metaphors tied to the source domain SEA in Lithuanian political and economic discourse. The study is based on the dictionary compiled during the research project “Conceptual Metaphors in Public Discourse”, funded by the Research Council of Lithuania. The analysis refers to the traditional conceptual metaphor theory, theoretical problems relevant to metaphor analysis in discourse are considered. Features of the source domain SEA conceptualize the political and economic instability and insecurity. Although political and economic discourses are rather different, the analysis of metaphorical expressions related to the source domain SEA reveals that their linguistic, conceptual and communicative properties are basically compliant.

The present article analyses one of the fragments of naïve psychology – conceptual WAVE metaphor related to the Lithuanian language world-view. The approach to language which is close to cognitive linguistics is taken into consideration: it is referred to cognitive theory of metaphor, that allows to describe the characteristics of abstract phenomena by employing their relation to this what is concrete and understandable and what is fixed in language world-view. On the basis of the names of internal life phenomena as well as word combinations with different forms of the word wave, collected from Contemporary Lithuanian Language Corpus, those phenomena of the domains of feelings and emotions are described, which in the Lithuanian language world-view are perceived as waving.

The present paper is focused on the specific treatment of the sea topic in the Latvian writer Egons Līvs’ prose fiction. His works are focused on people who are related to the sea – fishermen and their families. Using the methodology of semiotics, two major variants of actualizing the sea topic in E. Līvs’ prose fiction are singled out: (1) the sea as a space of the rite of initiation, (2) the existential sea that preserves or takes one’s life. Within each of these thematic groups, one work by the writer is analyzed, emphasizing the specificity of the sea topic in it and characterizing the significance of the sea in the revelation of the conception of human and the construction of the world model. The literary and biographical contexts are briefly characterized by means of the biographical and anthropological methods.

In the article the principles of text analysis within the limits of thematic criticism are applied to investigate Nelė Mazalaitė’s (1907–1993) novel “In the mist” (Lith. „Migloje“). The main implications of the text, related with the theme of the sea, as projected by the artificial consciousness, are observed. The leitmotif of the sea is analyzed through the most significant semantic aspects which form the structure of the imagery of the novel, plot development, style, and characters. Romantic, fairy, and musical connotations reveal the theme of the sea. The sea becomes the archetype of the beginning as life and festival and tranquility, death. The souls of characters are viewed in the light of the meanings of the sea as mist, waiting, freedom. Miscellaneous expression of the leitmotif of the sea in Nelė Mazalaitė’s novel makes it possible to speak about transcendental relationship between personality and sea, marine worldview and culture.