Suchergebnisse

The subject of analysis in this article is the image of letter in Lithuanian folklore. Letter writing in the traditional Lithuanian rural community of the end of the 19th–the first half of the 20th century was perceived as an outstanding cultural activity, because of poor literacy available only to a small number of more educated persons, who used to aid the illiterate members of the community in contacting their relatives that had ended far away from home. In letter writing, certain established principles of text composition, related both to the old epistolary culture and to the more modern, media-spread recommendations regarding writing of letters used to be adhered to, besides, certain elements of oral tradition used to be kept in mind as well. The specific approach to letters as things-signs, characteristic for the illiterate part of the traditional society is noteworthy. It is very probable that against the general background of traditional cultural images, letters used to be frequently perceived not only as written messages possessing certain contents, but also as generalized symbols of news, closely linked in folklore with earlier elements of communication, such as kerchief, ring, sash, or the like. Epistolary images are characteristic to various genres of Lithuanian folklore. Yet the greatest variety of motives describing letter writing, sending, and reading is found in folksongs, especially in the military-historical and love songs. While analyzing motives of letter. [to full text]

The subject of analysis in this article is the image of letter in Lithuanian folklore. Letter writing in the traditional Lithuanian rural community of the end of the 19th–the first half of the 20th century was perceived as an outstanding cultural activity, because of poor literacy available only to a small number of more educated persons, who used to aid the illiterate members of the community in contacting their relatives that had ended far away from home. In letter writing, certain established principles of text composition, related both to the old epistolary culture and to the more modern, media-spread recommendations regarding writing of letters used to be adhered to, besides, certain elements of oral tradition used to be kept in mind as well. The specific approach to letters as things-signs, characteristic for the illiterate part of the traditional society is noteworthy. It is very probable that against the general background of traditional cultural images, letters used to be frequently perceived not only as written messages possessing certain contents, but also as generalized symbols of news, closely linked in folklore with earlier elements of communication, such as kerchief, ring, sash, or the like. Epistolary images are characteristic to various genres of Lithuanian folklore. Yet the greatest variety of motives describing letter writing, sending, and reading is found in folksongs, especially in the military-historical and love songs. While analyzing motives of letter. [to full text]

The subject of analysis in this article comprises folkloric motives related to death and funeral in the late Lithuanian military-historical folksongs. The scope of investigation embraces the songs that became popular approximately in the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, chiefly related historically to the Russian–Japanese War and the World War I, in which Lithuanians had to participate as soldiers of the Tsarist Russian army. The main attention is paid in the article to the following folkloric motives of the songs: the seeing of the soldier off to the war and saying farewell to him; death in the battlefield, far away from home; the soldiers' graves; the nameless mass burials; death without funeral. The farewell motives found in some of the examined songs contain reflections of certain rituals of farewell and seeing the man off to the war, existing in the traditional Lithuanian culture. The foreboding of death is very distinctly expressed here. In the late military-historical folksongs, image of the battlefield emerges as the specific space of death, becoming a popular folkloric motive. The poetics of the death 179 in the battlefield is subtly supplemented by quite frequently used Christian religious images. Among numerous realistic and sometimes even openly naturalistic motives, the much more lyrical poetic parallel of bullet and bee could be discerned, encountered not only in Lithuanian, but also in Latvian military songs. A special place in the late. [to full text]

The subject of analysis in this article comprises folkloric motives related to death and funeral in the late Lithuanian military-historical folksongs. The scope of investigation embraces the songs that became popular approximately in the end of the 19th – beginning of the 20th century, chiefly related historically to the Russian–Japanese War and the World War I, in which Lithuanians had to participate as soldiers of the Tsarist Russian army. The main attention is paid in the article to the following folkloric motives of the songs: the seeing of the soldier off to the war and saying farewell to him; death in the battlefield, far away from home; the soldiers' graves; the nameless mass burials; death without funeral. The farewell motives found in some of the examined songs contain reflections of certain rituals of farewell and seeing the man off to the war, existing in the traditional Lithuanian culture. The foreboding of death is very distinctly expressed here. In the late military-historical folksongs, image of the battlefield emerges as the specific space of death, becoming a popular folkloric motive. The poetics of the death 179 in the battlefield is subtly supplemented by quite frequently used Christian religious images. Among numerous realistic and sometimes even openly naturalistic motives, the much more lyrical poetic parallel of bullet and bee could be discerned, encountered not only in Lithuanian, but also in Latvian military songs. A special place in the late. [to full text]