Res Humanitariae

The article presents the Lithuanian fishing glossary in the text of 1792 Curonian lagoon fishing rules. It discusses the problems of creation of this source, authorship, the historical context. It is analysed ethnographic content in glossary of Lithuanian fishing terms. The Baltic linguists haven’t noticed it earlier. New publication of this source could encourage scientists to broader analyze of 1792 fishing rules. It is intended to draw attention to Lithuanistic material in Prussian law documents in German language.

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 Latvian language dictionary of J. Langius (1685) does not contain a large number of terms denoting monetary units – altogether there are 11 of them (ārtaugs, dālderis, diķis, eiduks, grosis, kauss, mārka, skatiks, šķiliņģis, vērdiņģis, zelta gabals), as well as some other money-related lexemes (e.g., sīknauda, vara nauda etc.) which are not designations of monetary units and therefore are not analyzed in this article. These lexemes are included in most 17–19th century dictionaries, and sometimes are borrowed from one dictionary into another. For instance, J. Langius has taken over the words included in the dictionary of G. Mancelius, but later J. Lange, in his turn, refers to J. Langius in his work.Nowadays most of these words are obsolete, because the objects they denoted are no longer in use. These lexemes can be found in dictionaries, and in many cases also in folklore and in idiomatic expressions, which testifies to their once wide scope of usage and, naturally, the significance of money in the culture and history of the Lower Kurzeme region and the whole territory of Latvia. This fact is supported not only by the analyzed material, but also by various other culturally historical sources.

This article is the analysis of Jurgis Šaulys’s letters to Morta Zauniūtė which are held in the Vilnius University library. These letters represent a lot of new details on all of their lives, personalities and creations. This article discusses the impact J. Šaulys had on all of their lives by analysing their correspondence. This article shows initial stages of J. Šaulys life as a cultural figure who will eventually be viewed as one of the most influential organisators of the literary life of the beginning of the 20th century.

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”).

The article reviews and attempts to verify mythical information provided by Matthaeus Praetorius (Matthäus Prätorius, the end of the 17th century) in his work “Deliciae Prussicae or Prussian Theater” (Deliciae Prussicae, oder Preussische Schaubϋhne), which is directly concerned with childbirth and christening rituals, at the same time the role of Laimė, Laumė and the Blessed Virgin Mary in the mentioned customs is revealed. In parallel with this, the article discusses interpretations by more significant researchers of the 19th–21st centuries who were concerned with M. Praetorius’s mythical material on childbirth and christening. The context of the researches of the 19th–21st centuries has shown that researchers of earlier periods did not consider the question of reliability of M. Praetorius’s mythical material. The present research has also revealed that mythical information on childbirth and christening described by M. Praetorius is reliable and that patrons of human birth – Laimė / Laumė / the Blessed Virgin Mary – should be treated as some kind of (each other’s) continuation or as a constant and variables. Human birth is a constant which is made meaningful by rituals that, taking into account historical and religious context, are patronised by a certain variable.

The article examines the consequences of the colllision of two different cultures and eras. It draws on the history of Tilsit as described by the German journalist and historian Ulla Lachauer in her narrative “The Bridge of Tilsit” (“Die Brücke von Tilsit”). Published in 1995, Lachauer’s work offers historical facts and personal impressions of a journey to Sovetsk (1990) in search of the traces of the old Tilsit, which, unexpectedly, led to the author’s discovery of a city marked by an astonishing and, at times, frightening hybridity. The article analyses elements of “The Bridge of Tilsit” that constitute a narrative about the intermingling of cultures and highlight the hybridity of a city previously situated in East Prussia and, today, in the Soviet enclave of Kaliningrad.

The article presents the first hitherto known written monument of the Kursenieku language from the Curonian Spit. In the XV–XVII c. Curonian descendants moved to the Curonian Spit and the mainland seacoast from Courland and brought their own dialect, which eventually became a separate language of the ethnic minority in Prussia. It was the language of the local fishermen and has never been official or acquire a written form. However, there have been attempts to record it by using scripts of other languages. One of such attempts – in the so-called Pallas dictionary. The dictionary Linguarum totius orbis vocabularia comparative augustissimae cura collecta has been published by the order of Catherine II in the end of the XVIII c. and was first reviewed under the guidance of an academician Peter Simon Pallas. The Kursenieku language was also included among the 200 represented European and Asian languages: there have been 286 Russian words that were translated and transcribed in Cyrillic into the following language. The first edition of the dictionary appeared in two parts in 1787, 1789 and the following is considered to be the date of the first written monument of the Kursenieku language. Nevertheless, there is more value for linguistics in the manuscript with Latin characters, which is stored in the St. Petersburg Branch of the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences. Even though it is already known to scholars from Daina Zemzare and other publications, it has never been published as a source. Here the following source is presented in more details from the perspective of the development of the Kursenieku language itself.

Šiame straipsnyje naujai – pasitelkiant imagologijos teoriją – perskaitomas didžiausias Ievos Simonaitytės romanas „Vilius Karalius“ (1977-ųjų leidimas). Parodomas ne tik prancūzų imagologo Daniel-Henri Pageaux išskirtų požiūrių (manijos, fobijos, filijos bei idiokrazijos) į kitą kultūrą išryškėjimas romane, bet ir svarstoma, ar atsiveria naujų romano vertinimo perspektyvų. Kaip antraeile metodologine atrama straipsnyje naudojamasi ir kito imagologo Joepho Leersseno akcentuojama centro bei periferijos skirtimi, ryškiai atsiskleidžiančia „Viliuje Karaliuje“. Kadangi I. Simonaitytės tekste vaizduojamas lietuvininko susidūrimas su vokiškąja kultūra, daugiausia dėmesio straipsnyje skiriama veikėjų tarpusavio įtampoms.

The final phase of the Viking Age in the Prussian material culture was marked by the proliferation of media in the retinue of the Prussians and Curonians bronze and iron products, coated (plated) of silver. By the XIV century from the Prussian nobility extends the custom of wearing “knightly” zones, as the Order’s decorated and traditionally Prussian images. Later burials of Christianized Prussians plated items disappear along with the main array of other burial items.