Klaipėdos universitetas

The article analyses the plays ‘Children in the Amber Palace’ (1985) and ‘The Comedians’ (1994) by Algirdas Landsbergis (1924–2004), an expatriate Lithuanian playwright, novelist, editor, and literary and theatre critic. The article is based on the idea that the connection with the mother is innate, not acquired, and that is why every person’s subconscious contains a preconceived (archetypal) expectation of the image of the mother. The complicated relationship between a mother and child in the creative process is linked to the transformation and de-archetyping of the image of the mother, i.e. the conscious separation from the inherently archetypal concept of motherhood. Therefore, the article analyses the change in the image of the mother as a result of the failure of the interpersonal relationship with the child. A phenomenological approach and Husserl’s theory of values are used to unpack the emotional states of the characters’ experiences. This perspective is chosen because of the archetypal interconnection between the mother and the perception of identity, considering identity as a sensitive topic in the work of diasporic authors. The analysis reveals that the expression of the relationship with the mother in Landsbergis’ dramaturgy is connected with the depiction of a sense of insecurity, and problems of personal identification, exceptional emotionality and exaggerated apathy in children.

In early 1919, Courland, which had already been semi-abandoned during the First World War, turned into an area of the Baltic region where at least four political agendas, and, in many cases, the military forces that supported them, clashed. The Bolsheviks exported their world revolution and acted through the Army of Soviet Latvia. The German armed forces had withdrawn from parts of Estonia and Latvia, and were still under the command of Berlin. Volunteer units formed with the help of the German army, many of which included local Baltic Germans. The Latvian Provisional Government and the units loyal to it was under the command of Lieutenant-Colonel Oskars Kalpaks. All these forces needed motivated soldiers and loyal civilians who might become engaged in military activities. The article discusses the political, economic and social backgrounds that contributed to the motivation of soldiers and the public support for the warring parties, with a particular focus on how important the sense of belonging and identity was in these circumstances.

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.

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 present paper is focused on the specific treatment of the sea topic in the Latvian writer Egons Līvs’ prose fiction. His works are focused on people who are related to the sea – fishermen and their families. Using the methodology of semiotics, two major variants of actualizing the sea topic in E. Līvs’ prose fiction are singled out: (1) the sea as a space of the rite of initiation, (2) the existential sea that preserves or takes one’s life. Within each of these thematic groups, one work by the writer is analyzed, emphasizing the specificity of the sea topic in it and characterizing the significance of the sea in the revelation of the conception of human and the construction of the world model. The literary and biographical contexts are briefly characterized by means of the biographical and anthropological methods.

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.

Women’s alcohol dependence is a serious concern for the whole of society, negatively affecting not only various important areas of the lives of women themselves, but essentially the mental health of future generations. Researchers have attempted to address the main problems associated with women’s drinking; nevertheless, their findings are still incomplete. Moreover, relatively little scholarly attention has been paid to exploring idiosyncratic alcohol-dependent women identity development processes. This study aims to fill the existing gap in the literature, by conducting an empirical study that would help elucidate the main psycho-social aspects contributing significantly to the identity development of alcohol-dependent women. Ten self-identified alcohol-dependent women participated in the study. Data was collected through life stories and in-depth interviews. The constructivist grounded theory approach (K. Charmaz) was used as a methodological strategy to explore how alcohol-dependent women develop and express their identities in their life stories. In this study, we present internal and external identity development processes, revealing the dilemma of internal detachment by alcohol-dependent women developing an illusory identity. The main aspects of this theoretical structure include compensatory adaptation, power seeking, and avoiding helplessness, which create a vicious triangle, with the need for acceptance and the fear of rejection at its core, all contributing to the development of an illusory identity. Moreover, based on traditional theoretical frameworks, the study builds on the premise that such internal detachment is linked to self-integrity problems, which is further associated with participants’ pursuit of a search for self-meaning in important others. The findings provide new insights about alcohol-dependent identity development processes, discuss the limitations and strengths of the current study, suggest directions for future studies, and highlight the need to see alcohol-dependent women’s problems from the perspective of identity, which is different from traditional psycho-pathological views.