Res Humanitariae

Uostamiesčio ALMA MATER liko ir, tų pačių nedraugų liūdesiui, liks savarankiška aukštąja mokykla. Negana to, šiemet priimti studentai (suformuotos grupės) į visas humanitarinių mokslų studijų programas. Vadinasi, dėstytojai dirbs. Skaitys paskaitas ir rašys mokslo darbus, o tai reiškia, kad ir žurnalas „RES HUMANITARIAE“ gyvuos. Jo gyvybingumą akivaizdžiai rodo ir apimtis. Ne veltui sakoma: „Kol storas suplonės – plonas sudūlės...“

Long shafts, known by various sources in Sambia, were not attracting the attention of archaeologists. According to their location, the shafts are divided into: shafts near the extremities of the peninsula, known from archaeological exploration, and shafts in the depth of the land, known only from written sources. It is possible that the shafts were performed not so much by the military as by cult and administrative functions, limiting the extraterritorial nature of the canals and protecting the foreign boats roaming through them from the Prussian tribal territory, the laws of which the merchant-mariners did not obey.

The article gives the description of spells pronounced during gathering the first berries that are based on wide range of field ethnographic data. The spells are classified according to their magic markers. The main features of using spells towards forest and domestic fruit, berries, vegetables, mushrooms, herbs etc. The usage of first fruit is investigated considering their regional and local features. The text reveals field data that show the major issues of this article. The main provisions of the article are illustrated with the materials collected in the course of ethnographical expeditions.

The article analyzes the teachings of the Catholic Church about the Mother of God of Mary. Such teaching is basically based on four dogmas about Virgin Mary: The Mother of God, The Virgin, The Immaculate Conception and The Assumption. The doctrine of the Catholic Church is distinguished from other Christian denominations by the fact that it has a unified and rather precise teaching not only about Mary, but also about other things of faith and morals in general. The person of Mary is examined in the light of the teachings of the Holy Scriptures, Tradition and Magisterium. This is important to emphasize that the main four dogmas have been formed over the centuries, based on the beliefs of the faithful (sensus fidei), approved by the universal assembly of the Church and by the popes solemnly proclaimed ex cathedra, as probable truths that are obligatory for all Catholics.

he Lithuanian Trinitarian formula includes within it the word God. It is supposed that Lithuanians received this parenthesis from the Teutonic Order as early as the Baptism of King Mindaugas. The author of this present study has focused his attention on German liturgical texts used in the Baltic region in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Analysis of these documents indicates that the parenthesis God was included in the Trinitarian formula in almost every German liturgical book, and this suggests that such a formula may well have been used among the Baltic Germans before the Reformation. The author supports the thesis of those scholars who suggest that Lithuanians in the Grand Duchy as well inherited the use of the word God in their formula from the Teutonic Order.

The article is devoted to the analysis of rational and irrational conceptions about the bread baking flour, its substitutes and admixtures, as a component of a daily nutrition culture of dwellers of South-Western Historic-Ethnographic Macro-region of Ukraine. The main attention was paid to the analysis of ritual orders which regulated bread baking flour dealing with.

The article is devoted to the analysis of the reaping rituality of Ukrainians to demonstrate its close relationship with Old Slavonic ones, and partly with Indo-European mental constants, which has a pre-Christian basis. Thus, memorial motifs (honouring of the dead ancestors for their assistance to living descendants of reach yield) extremely clearly occurs in the reaping rituality.

The article shows what information the press between 1905 and 1940 provided Lithuanian readers about Shrovetide celebratory traditions around the world. The information collected, consisting of seven articles, thirty photographs and drawings, is fragmentary but fairly informative, providing a good and concise understanding of this cultural phenomenon in a popular manner. By surveying and interpreting the available data, it tries to answer several questions: what significance these publications might have had on Shrovetide celebratory traditions and methods of celebration in early 20th-century Lithuania; how this information correlates with current academic research and known empirical data; what Lithuanian Shrovetide had in common with the winter-spring carnival celebrated around the world.

Collecting folk music and ethnographic materials for a long time in one locality forms a collection of records and the analytical database. This allows you to make a comparison and reveal the dynamics of the change in the people’s traditions, identify the factors that affect it. For ethnomusicologists, there is rarely a happy opportunity to compare modern folk music records (late 20th – early 21st centuries) with materials from the late 19th – early 20th centuries (at that time the foundations of traditional life were still preserved). One of such opportunities is provided by records in the village Romanovka in the Popelnya district of the Zhytomyr region (north-eastern edge of the Podillia). In this village folk customs, rituals and songs began to fix approximately the 1870s. The article covers the song genres of the calendar cycle: carols («kolyadki»), «schedrovki», spring games and round dances («khorovody»), «petrovki» and reaping («zhnyvni») tunes. Records of the beginning of the XXI century with musical notations are published for the first time.

The representation of the witch in Lithuanian mythological folk narratives and beliefs and her malicious activities as well as ways of preventive protection against these malicious activities are introduced in the present article. No focus was laid on numerous diverse malicious activities of the witch which encompass various fields of human life and the considerable number of ways and measures to protect against them in folk narratives and beliefs as passed on by people so far. Important to mention that the witch of the folk tales that is different from mythological folk narratives’ one is not ascribed to the object of research; and also, the sorceresses operating in mythological folk narratives are not ascribed there – because of their functions that do not concur with the ones performed by witches. The aim is to analyse the material found in written sources about the wrecking of the folk witch and the human preventive protection measures against witch wrecking ways. The objectives of the thesis: to distinguish the preventive ways of protection from witch wrecking found in folk narratives and beliefs; to distinguish between the potential universal protection measures against witch wrecking; to assess the intensity of witch wrecking during calendar feasts and to analyse the degree of variation of typical protection measures; to assess the intensity of witch wrecking and also the need of preventive protection during family feasts. The descriptive, the comparative and the interpretative methods were employed in the study.