Res Humanitariae

On April 10 this year, for the first time in humanity’s history, a photo of a black hole (or black abyss) taken with the Event Horizon telescope was published. As if seen through an “out-of-focus camera lens”, a shadow (dark circle) of a massive black hole at the centre on the galaxy M87 surrounded by a mass of gas moving very fast can be seen. Sheperd Doeleman, Project Director of Event Horizon Telescope and Senior Research Fellow at Harvard University says that black holes are the most mysterious formations in the universe. In fact, it’s amazing that the whole world is “going crazy” for the first publicly published black hole image. But it is at these moments that we especially want to point out that there are still so many inexhaustible, mysterious, valuable, exploratory things on our small planet Earth. Here, in front of our eyes, every day, whole worlds of human consciousness open up, as if they were a kind of parallel reality. The other question is whether we want to see them, “take a picture”, and most importantly, recognize their value? Remembering the words of Carl Sagan, a well-known astronomer and science populariser, not anyone else but “We are a way for the cosmos to know itself”.

In this article are presented images of Norway-Sweden depicted in internet memes collected on social network Facebook. For this research are collected 149 memes in total. The material is publicated from 2017 january until 2018 april in Facebook and collected from January 2018 until april 2018. This research helps to understand the specific of relations between neighbor countries, also depicts the view of society itself and neighbor country, different and identical assessments to current issues and the events of historical periods.

This article examines the attitudeof young people of age 18 to 30 from Lithuania, Latvia, Finland and Norway towards the national costume. The aim of this article is to analyze and determine how national costume is appreciated by the youth of countries mentioned before. The article briefly presents the preconditions for the emergence and creation of a nationalcostume; it analyzes what kind of information is lacking about national costume. The research was made in 2017-2018. Information was provided by 156 respondents. In conclusion, the worst situation is between Finnish youth and the deepest traditions of costumeʼs wearing has Norway. The results of Lithuanians reveal that national costume is not very important tradition, Latvians show the growing interest in the costume.

The purpose of this article is to answer the questions raised in the course of the research on the development of textile pocket of the national costume of Lithuania Minor in relation to the motivation for production and wearing of pockets, the choice in decoration characteristics, the symbolism of ornamentation and colour combinations. The analysis of the accomplished field research reveals the manifestations of the expression of the ethnocultural identity through production and wearing of textile pockets. The analysis of the symbolic meanings traditionally attributed and newly assigned to the chosen decorative elements of pockets reveals the cases of the continuity and change of a symbol. The act of wearing a pocket not only with the national costume of Lithuania Minor demonstrates the expression of one’s identity through wearing the chosen parts of clothing. The growing demand stimulates the production of textile pockets. The research analyses the material collected from the well-informed presenters (makers and wearers of textile pockets) based on the questionnaires compiled by the author of the present article.

The article deals with the organization of festive celebrations in co-workers’ environment. Based on field studies, co-workers’ gathered on the occasion of the holidays, the organization’s place, both internal organization itself and its surrounding external – local, national culture, the influence on their manifestation. Two traditional and two modern holidays are being analysed, where the habits of celebrations, formal and informal channels are compared between the city and its environs co-workers’.

The aim of this article is to analyze the demographic changes that have taken place in Kaunas since the mid. 20th century – the end of the 20th century. The main source of research is field research material, collected in Kaunas during 2018, using the author‘s ethnographic questionnaire. Empirical material was collected using classic field research methods: participatory observation, interview, in-depth, structured and semi-structured interviews. Also the analysis of statistical and historical data was performed. The article is based on oral history theory. The results of the research revealed the participants‘ attitudes and beliefs related to urban changes and demographic trends during the Soviet period in Kaunas.

For the first time in Ukrainian and world musicology, based on previously unexplored archival materials, information on one of Yakiv Yatsynevych’s most popular works – arranging of the folk song “Susidka” has been reconstructed and supplemented. In the process of research in Central State Archives Museum of Literature and Arts of Ukraine (Kyiv) were found out many valuable sources. Among them, more than twenty letters which are the correspondence of composer’s wife – Iryna Yatsynevych with the musicologist Leonid Kaufman; a letter to I. Yatsynevych from her brother, Methodiy Pavlovsky and from the editorial office of the vocal literature of the State Musical Publishing House; articles from the periodicals and posters of concerts, which inform about the performance of the work, original musical manuscript of “Susidka”. As a result of work, all founded documents were included to scientific circulation. The materials give an opportunity to supplement the history of the creation of work, to determine its place in the stage life of the twentieth century, to find out the “detective” story by I. Yatsynevych about the appropriation of the composer’s work by another artist and to establish that Y. Yatsynevych’s “Susidka” is not just a processing of folk song, but almost original author’s composition.

We have to define at least three different regional folk singing traditions in the central part of Dnipro river localities in Ukraine. They are located in the territory of contemporary Cherkasy district. We have Podillia region with much more archaic folk songs genres and enough clear their musical stylistic features. We also have Naddniprianshchyna and Poltavshchyna regions with colourful and various way enriched polyphonic features of regional folk singing traditions. The main goal of our ethnomusicological activities we see here in recording continuity of such singing folklore traditions from all Cherkasy district followed by their scientific research studies in their style, genre, rhythmic and melodic typology aspects, as well as mapping of particular macro- and micro-zones in various mentioned above parameters.

The article investigates the specifics of the musical and poetic consistent patterns of the ancient Ukrainian monody. An important role in the incarnation of the sacred meaning of the chants is played by a verbal-poetic text. Hence the need for a structural analysis, that combines the methodological achievements of literature and musicology. Integrated approach to the study of monody gives us the possibility to realize the value of the liturgical text and trace the logic of its musical development.

The article deals with Sergei Bortkiewicz form, structure and functional experiments on sonata cycle in Sonata for Violin and Piano op. 26. The date of creation of the work is clarified. The article provides an overview of the history of development of the sonata cycle genre invariant. Comprehensive analysis of the work by Bortkiewicz provides tracing influences of West-European and Russian composing traditions. Different approaches to the interpretation of the composer’s idea are presented, which allows to explain the specific construction of the cycle.