Klaipėdos universitetas

On the turn of the 19th c., the composition of the students in Königsberg University changed. After the 3rd Partition of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (1795), the number of Polish students in it went up, however, after the foundation of the Duchy of Warsaw, it immediately dropped again. The Polish students who had studied abroad grew up into famous figures of culture and science. They promoted the development of cultural and scientific centres and of their network in Europe.

The article presents the first programme of publishing Lithuanian secular literature in Prussian Lithuania proposed and carried out by Martin Ludwig Rhesa, professor of Königsberg University. The first publication of Donelaitis’ poem The Seasons prepared by Rhesa will be discussed by assessing Rhesa’s contribution to it: the editing, translation, and provision of the scientific part (a research study-article and scientific comments). The first reviews of The Seasons which started appearing in Königsberg and Germany in the period of 1818 to 1820 will be examined.

The article explores the musical culture of East Prussia of the 18th c. in different forms of its expression. The epoch of Enlightenment provided a new impetus for the development of the culture in the region. The Protestant Lutheran hymnody was developing, and the tradition of Evangelical surinkimai (prayer hours held in private homes by lay preachers (German: Stundenhalters)) was progressing. Königsberg University was of great significance for the promotion of the regional culture. In the 18th c., the East Prussian school of composition was born, different techniques of instrumental ensemble and solo music making started developing, the house music making traditions were gaining popularity, and big cities had the first musical theatres. It was in that context that the personality of Donelaitis and the character of his cultural activity was maturing and developing.

The present article is a contribution to the research in the intellectual biography of Kristijonas Donelaitis. It aims to discuss the environment of Königsberg libraries in mid-18th c. not only as an institutional, but also an intellectual environment of the studies of Donelaitis which ought to be analyzed more in depth than it had been analyzed before. The first part of the article summarizes the efforts of Lithuanian, German, and Russian schollars after 1945 to save and reconstruct the funds of Königsberg libraries destroyed during WW2. The second part presents the environment of the ancient Königsberg libraries as a space of communication opportunities where student Donelaitis could find the principal literature. The context raises another issue that is merely mentioned in the article: next to the “public“ libraries, there was a number of personal collections in Königsberg. Some of them belonged to professors of theology whose lectures were attended by Donelaitis. Therefore, one can reasonably raise a question about the impact of scholars in Königsberg on Donelaitis in the years of his studies.

Donelaitis studied at Königsberg University at the time when the effects of the changes in the structure and staff of the Faculty of Theology started to surface. Due to the pro-pietist staff policy of Friedrich Wilhelm, the vacancies in the Departments were filled with the representatives of that trend; pietists had accounted for the majority of the body of professors since 1733. Donelaitis was likely to have mixed with professors Schulz, Kiepke, Salthenius, and Arnold more frequently than with their opponents Quant, Langhansen, and Lysius, especially because since the summer of 1736 Quant did not have any longer to give regular lectures. Despite the church and the higher education policies at the University, as well as the disturbancies caused in its environment by the implementation of the reforms, there were no significant theological differences between the seven heads of the Departments: all of them represented the traditional Lutheranism. However, one ought to pay attention to the specificity of their philosophical views. Unlike the pietists of the University of Halle, as well as Quant and Langhansen, Schulz was the first to advocate the synthesis of the Lutheran theology, the emphasis on the pietist praxis pietatis, and Wolffpromoted cultura intellectus. The efforts of Schulz to develop rational pietism that would be obviously related to Wolff’s philosophy not only by the methodological view, but also by the balanced ratio between the reason and faith, were especially supported by Arnold.

The article analyzes the mechanisms of institutionalization of the collective memory of regional identity, as its significant dimension, and assesses discursive strategies used by different politicians. The author discloses the principal elements of the regional identity in the Soviet period and analyzes the practices of collective memory and historical consciousness in the period of 1945 to 1990. The relationship of the history policies of the Soviet period and the contemporary political processes is demonstrated.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the solution (?) of the case. People, because of famine and the occupation of the East Prussia by the Stalinists, fled the Kaliningrad region to Lithuania and other regions in search of bread and work. How many were there? There are hypothesis that 5-7 thousand or more people from Kaliningrad roamed Lithuania in 1946-1947. After the deportation of the ethnic people from the Königsberg/Kaliningrad region in 1947-1949, the MGB and Soviet militia structures searched for them in the neighbouring territories. The net result of the action was the deportation of the so called “Kaliningrad Germans” in 10-12 May, 1951 from Lithuania to Germany. The total amount of deportees, who declared their birth place as East Prussia, was 3415 persons from Lithuania and 275 other regions. The principal result of these deportations of unnecessary, ideologically foreign people was that East Prussia became homogeneously Soviet and all that remained of Königsberg and East Prussia were historical facts.