Klaipėdos universitetas

The debate on gastronomic culture and identity, the national heritage, national products and gastronomic nationalism, is one of the most active and popular in the contemporary public discourse. The increased importance of different identities in contemporary networked society drives the popularity of these topics. As a form of the intangible heritage, gastronomic culture is an evolving system that easily links past and present societies. In this way, the gastronomic heritage and the history of gastronomy are easily transferred to contemporary culture, and become the basis for various identities. Given that the intangible heritage operates in society through tangible representations, and that in gastronomic culture one of the most visible representations is dishes, this study analyses the communication of one of them, šaltibarščiai (cold soup), on the social network Facebook. The study aims to determine how the representation of a specific intangible element of the heritage is used to construct the Lithuanian national identity. The research has identified the most important topics of discussion, the discourses involved, and elements of the reality that are important for constructing the national identity and their interrelationships.

The Venclova House-Museum is probably the most discussed museum in Lithuania today. Not only are the museum’s activities and the communication of the collection discussed, but also the general question of the need for and value of this museum. In February and March 2022, a study of the museum’s performance was carried out on the Internet. The research highlighted the main and the most debated problems relating to the communication of the museum, as well as identifying fundamental communication errors which have been made by this cultural heritage communication institution. During the research, parallels between the process of museum decolonisation (which is currently taking place in museums all over world), and the main communicational issues of the Venclova House-Museum were also identified. The study includes a semantic analysis of the museum’s performance on the Internet, a qualitative content analysis of discussions on Facebook, and semi-structured interviews with participants in the discussion.

This paper presents a preliminary study of the orientation of Lithuanian Catholic churches and interactions between Christian and pagan cosmologies in Lithuanian church architecture. We can state that the Christianization of Lithuania involved an interaction of these two systems. It is already known that models of time and space in Christian Europe were reflected in the architecture of Lithuanian Catholic churches. But pagan cosmology also influenced Lithuanian Christian architecture.