Klaipėdos universitetas

In the article, we analyse the natural right of parents to raise their children, the law arising from their being natural parents and bringing children into the world. We make an analysis of the problematical understanding of natural law and rights. These form not only the point of view of the right education and the educational powers of separate individuals (parents), but also of all of society and the state. We analyse the challenges to the modern Western world which questions the ability of parents to raise their children in the best and most acceptable way to them. We delve deeper into the pre-Christian understanding of natural rights and laws exposed in the reflections and conceptual understanding of the Ancient philosophers, as well as the Christian approach in understanding the natural law and rights of parents on the understanding of children’s education, analysing and understanding the guidelines presented by the Pontifical Council for the Family, and looking at the tradition of the Roman Catholic Church’s concept of education.

We will analyse the cultural phenomenon as a product created by human genius. We will ask how works the interaction of culture and human life today and how cultural transformation influences the process of modelling perceptions of man himself. We will analyse how the cultural perception of what is “normal” or what is “value” is replaced by what is pleasant and useful. How a new concept of normality and value is created. We are creating a society on the foundation of exceptions without borders or a respectful and tolerant society?

The article discusses the conscious choice of Kristijonas Donelaitis to become a priest of a Lithuanian rural community and to take care of the parishers’ faith and morals. The Enlightenment-related position of the poet predetermined the expression of his poetical vocation to a great extent. By recognizing the significance of each element of the world created by the will of God, Donelaitis consciously turned his glance towards ‘minor’ things or the ‘lowest’ substances. He consciously chose to write about the most deprived, the most backward peasant-boor of the remotest Prussian periphery: about him and for him, in the declining language of the minority. One might ask whether the choice of that conservative addressee, the ‘smallest’ in the Kingdom of Prussia, did not paradoxically account for the modernity of Donelaitis‘ works in the context of the that time poetry. By the violation of the aesthetical standards of his time, Donelaitis unexpectedly forced his way into the ranks of the best poets of Europe and not only became one of them, but far surpassed them. A rural priest of a Pussian province with his weak voice and poor health, unknown to Europe, for a wink of an eye became perhaps the greatest European poet. For a wink of an eye, as Europe at the time did not learn about him. However, he remained great for us, representatives of a small, declining, and emigrating nation, and stayed with us to remind us of the true values of life.