Tiltai

The object of this publication is the social network Facebook groups identity. After research, it has been observed that the symbolic groups identity fragmentation represents political and ideological aspects. Socialism and its restoration became the ideological political basis uniting analysed groups members. The group’s members estimate the current Lithuanian political governance system considering the Soviet period ideology, but in the other hand identifying themselves as Lithuanians. It seems that analysed Facebook groups members has experienced identity stagnation and has not changed orientation together with new accepted country’s political ideology. The analysis showed that two “others” categories has emerged: Lithuanian governance, the political elite and compatriots that is not resists Lithuanian policy. In order to highlight the “others” the ruling elite of Lithuania is equated with Jews to split them from the entire nation and anti-resist Lithuanians is equated with lower mental level people. The current liberal democracy and the struggle against it become a grouping factor of analysed group members. A strong group identity maintained in virtual space is not supported in real space. The lack of physical contact between groups members makes it possible to assume that virtual community identity is maintained only in the virtual space.

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.

By considering what Warmia and Masuria Regions mean to contemporary Poles, the author tries to find an answer by identifying two levels of acquaintanceship with the region: narrative constructions that acquired the forms of myths and scientific cognition. He analyzes the maintenance of two myths around which the images relating to the comprehension of the said regions concentrate: the myth of the Recovered Lands and the myth of Arcadia. Simultaneously, he discusses the meanings of Warmia and Masuria disclosed by scientific studies of the last two decades in contemporary Poland and the changing conceptions of the past of the region resulting in unique forms of identifying oneself with the past of Warmia and Masuria Regions.

The article discusses the main factors which shaped the peculiarities and distinctions of political elites in East Prussia in the first half of the 19th c. Among them, it names the growth of self-sufficiency of provincial nobility during the period of the Napoleonic Wars, the role of political elites in the liberal movement for constitutional reforms in Prussia, as well as the use of historical research and symbols of the past, increased in the first half of the 19th c. for the definition of distinction of both the province and its representatives. In the article, particular attention is paid to the examination of the factors of Russian neighbourhood and East Prussia’s position in the borderland between Prussia and Russia, showing their impact during crucial to Prussia events of 1813 and 1848. Due to the intertwining of all of those factors, in the first half of the 19th c., the consciousness of political elites in East Prussia ranged between regional provincial patriotism, Prussian patriotism (perceived through the relationship between the King and his subjects), and the growing sense of belonging to the German nation.

In this article I look at popular forms of self-representation in Lithuania, which are born out of a period of time where EUrope, EUropeanization and modernization are getting increasingly important. I argue that such discourses tend to exclude certain parts of the population and thus show a limited part of a complex picture. As I argue with an example from rural Lithuania, all Lithuanian citizens still respond to the many changes which came about with the EU and incorporate new features in their everyday life. They are, sadly enough, not the ones who get to formulate what it means to be Lithuanian in present day society.