Klaipėdos universitetas

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.

The article analyses axiological and hodegetic ideas by M. Pečkauskaitė-Šatrijos Ragana. Aspects of neotomistic ethics in the writer’s attitude towards human virtuousness and preparation for eschatological fulfilment are highlighted. Cultivation of virtues is revealed as an essential prerequisite to faith. Virtuousness reveals to people horizons of freeing truth and a possibility to overstep human imperfection. Love is actualised in this context as a fundamental value with eschatological continuity and remaining in the hope and perspective of divine eternity. An important role in M. Pečkauskaitė’s pedagogical concept is assigned to personal self-reflection enabling self-knowledge and an adequate evaluation of one’s actions and spiritual culture. Eschatological conception of the meaning of time, when all human attempts are directed towards eternal perspective, is presented.