Klaipėdos universitetas

The object of this publication is the anecdotes about famous people and personages of the movies and literature. The research helped to identify the most popular personages and describe the images of them. It can be done conclusion that in the anecdotes which are told in Lithuanian the personages of movies and literature are more popular than the real famous people (politicians, sportsmen or pop stars). The images of personages are ambivalent, they can be shown in positive situations but more often these personages are negative: the features of the characters are drawn ironically; the results of their activities are estimated in the mocking and even scornful way.

The article deals with the issues related to the specifics of the incantation as a genre of oral folklore, history of collecting, publishing and the beginning of their studying in Russia. The main emphasis is put on the first monographic work dedicated to conspiracies. Scientific portrait of the author is represented, his work, translations and reprinting are analyzed. Features that have made the book classic are established.

The article considers the scholarly legacy of Volodymyr Hoshovsky in general, and more specifically his research into musical dialects. The scholar created his musical and dialectological method on the theoretical foundations of Filaret Kolessa, Bella Bartok, and other researchers of folk music from 1955. This study of musical dialects is based on the folk songs of Ukrainians in Transcarpathia.

The article presents the picture of the Christian angel in a genre of Lithuanian folklore, legends. The texts in question reveal the attitude of traditional Lithuanian society to angels as acting in the divine and earthly spheres. The research and the identification of the most popular scenes have revealed that the most important features of the legendary angel are the fulfilment of God›s will, and the protection of man and his soul. The article concludes that the legends of Lithuanian peasants about the activities of angels strengthened religion, promoted behaviour according to the norms of the community, and ensured a sense of security.

The article searches for manifestations of the trickster phenomenon in Lithuanian folklore and folk customs, trying to investigate whether Lithuanian trickster traits are observed in folk culture, and what names they could be given. The search for an image that is well known to cultural researchers in the West in ‘one’s own’ Lithuanian culture opens up opportunities for a broader analysis and understanding of traditional culture. The study reveals a wide variety of destructive, mischievous, joking or even harmful figures in folk tales and stories, calendar feasts and work customs, which do not allow for naming a single one as a trickster, and thus the multifaceted nature of the trickster phenomenon is established. Future research into manifestations of the trickster in our culture could include a deeper reflection on the Lithuanian national identity behind the masks of the dressers, or the text of the folk tale and the story.