Cultures in Human-Computer Interaction

Jonauskienė V., Ostašenkovienė V.

Since 1589, Šiauliai became the center of Šiauliai Crown Estate, which maintained the ruler’s estate. From the 17th century onwards, Šiauliai Crown Estate was constantly entrusted to manage by loans to nobles of the Grand Dutchy of Lithuania, with its administrators changing over time (from 1678 to 1696, it belonged to King John III Sobieski). Šiauliai Crown Estate was administered by their appointed administration: an economist, vice-economist, and local officials. Officials of the manor administration were assisted by provision clerks, scribes, and other staff. The residence of the administration became Šiauliai Manor. The first small-scale archaeological investigations in the residential estate of Šiauliai Manor were carried out in 1997 (led by Audronė Šapaitė). More extensive archaeological excavations were conducted at the manor between 2010 and 2022. During this period, a total area of 533 square meters was excavated, and 10,577 square meters were surveyed. The remains of 11 structures dating from the 17th century to the early 20th century were localized within the territory of Šiauliai Manor, and 8,286 archaeological artifacts were collected along with abundant zooarchaeological material. In total, 1,114 fragments of zooarchaeological material dating from the 17th to the 18th centuries were collected and analyzed from archaeological cultural layers of the manor. The studied material provides an overview of the distribution of domestic (85 %) and wild (15 %) fauna in the zooarchaeological material of Šiauliai Manor. The surviving material allows insights into prevailing trends such as differences in the quantities of domestic and wild fauna, and to some extent, the presence of domestic animals in the manor, as well as the consumption of luxury goods and reflections of Western culture in Šiauliai Manor. The inventories of Šiauliai economy and the obtained statistical analysis provide an opportunity to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the daily life of the ruler’s table in Šiauliai Manor during the 17th–18th centuries and to extract the maximum information from the available/remaining data.

Pondelíková I., Majdáková V.

The concept of identity is currently one of the most frequently examined in cultural studies. Identity refers to the identification of an individual with a certain unit based on signs that he/she consciously or subconsciously accepts as his/her own. There are two main currents in identity research: primordialism (essentialist approach) and instrumentalism (constructivist approach). In today’s individualized society, there is a shift in emphasis from primordiality, i.e. from that side of identity that is given, permanent, inherited, fixed, to instrumentality, i.e. to such a basis of identity that a person chooses, creates, or selects. The research focuses on Iranian identity and its reflection in Western literature and the Iranian art of dance. Iran has an exceptional position in its region and influences global events with its policy. The question is what allowed the Persians to remain Persians for more than two and a half millennia. Persian identity is expressed mainly in spiritual power, poetry, and religion. The Persians gave the world poetry, miniatures, and carpets. From the point of view of production prosperity, all useless things. But that is how they express themselves. They gave the world what did not serve to make life easier but to make it more beautiful (Kapuściński, 2016, p. 153). The empirical part of the research is divided into two parts. In the first part of the research, the authors focus on expressing Iranian identity in their traditional and modern dance. The Persian “classic” is characterized by an expressive movement of the upper part of the body, delicate movements of the shoulders and palms, and eloquent facial expressions. The dance is very poetic and often depicts scenes from Persian poems. The second part of the research focuses on examining how Iranian identity is reflected in Western literature. The study of Iranian identity is based on Azar Nafisi’s Reading Lolita in Tehran (2003), who is a representative of Iranian anglophone immigrants, as well as on an unintentional tetralogy of novels by Betty Mahmoody, the author of the novels Not without my Daughter (1987) and For the love of a child (1992), her daughter Mahtob, the author of My Name is Mahtob (2013), and Moody, Mahmoody’s ex-husband and Mahtob’s father, the author of Lost without my Daughter (2013). The culture of a nation is expressed in the identity of its inhabitants, and literature and the art of dance contribute to its understanding.

Jakaitė D.

The novel “The Rebels” (Sukilėliai) by Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas was written, edited and unfinished for more than a decade in a historically-ideologically complicated time (~ 1953–1967), almost until the death of the writer. Both the novel and the writing Material written around 1953–1960, which have so far not received the attention of researchers, have not only traces of Soviet-era ideology, but also imprints of authentic historical memory. Bearing in mind the importance of a certain region or specific localities in general in the reception of the uprising of 1863–1864, it is worth taking a fresh look at this aspect in “The Rebels” by Mykolaitis-Putinas, to make an assumption about the meaning of the place and its images in the concept of the novel. The object of the article is the literary-historical discourse characterized by the memory of specific places, localities or wider territories, countries or ethnographic regions in the novel by Mykolaitis-Putinas and in the Material (additional resource). This discourse is considered to be literary, folkloric, partly also religious intertexts in the research sources, the cultural memory of the uprising characterized by images of places and regions. Methodologically, the research is based on the concept of cultural and social memory. Without bypassing the controversial reception of “The Rebels”, the literary-historical significance of the novel and its wider context is shown by examining such semantic lines as the unity of Lithuanians with Poles, the rebels’ hostility to the maskoliai, the mythologisation of the uprising, the religious narrative, etc.

Tomić D., Legac V.

Međimurje is a region in the northwest of the Republic of Croatia. Among its many peculiarities, it is characterised by specific folk lyrical solo vocal female singing, the so-called Međimurska popevka (Folk song from Međimurje). In 2013, that traditional Međimurje song was declared an intangible cultural good of the Republic of Croatia. In 2018, it was put on the list of elements on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. This article presents the results of the authors’ research into the writings of the weekly Katolički list (Catholic Newspaper) (Zagreb, 1849–1945) about Međimurje singing. It can be seen from the weekly that the people of Međimurje attracted attention with their singing at all church ceremonies and on other occasions. However, with the Caecilian reform of church singing (1870–1920), which was more intense in Croatia from 1907 onwards, Međimurje singing began to be valued differently by some individuals (mainly priests). Echoes of these musical turmoils are also found in the weekly Katolički list. Although the entries of this weekly must be thoroughly supplemented with a description of the socio-political circumstances of the time, including Međimurje singing, and especially with the description of the nature of the Caecilian movement, the patriotic importance and traditional value of that folk singing in northwest Croatia can be strongly glimpsed in all the recorded texts.

Butkus V.

The article is based on the theoretical approach suggested by literary imagology, drawing an assumption that the image that is revealed in fiction of one country about the other country, the nation is not a literary value that is solely enclosed inside a text, but it rather often reflects specific historical, geographical, social, economic, cultural and other realia, too. There is a large number of literary pieces which depict the Lithuania-related topic or single Lithuanian motifs in Latvian literature of the first half of the 20th century; therefore, the article limits itself with analysis of only a part of them in the chosen aspect of imagology. Around thirty authors of the said period who wrote pieces of various genres, including both famous names, who became classics and less known authors, are discussed. Majority of these literary pieces reveal such manifestations of Lithuanianness which can be considered as trite, stereotypical because they are repeated, obtain new semantic, emotional shades in various contexts; nevertheless, they always retain almost the same notional core. The ethnotype of a Lithuanian beggar (Latv. leišu nabags / ubags) is one of the most frequently occurring manifestations of such kind; it reflects a historical, economic situation of the second half of the 19th century – first half of the 20th century, when many people from Lithuania would go begging in Latvia. The fiction also quite frequently and highly variously displays the motif of Lithuanian neighbourhood, its geographical proximity. The motifs of “a Lithuanian cherry” (Latv. leišu ķirsis) and “a Lithuanian goose” (Latv. leišu zoss) are much rarer, though repeating in fiction works related to specific agrarian and culinary realia prevailing in Latvia at that time. An image of a disastrous “quagmire of Lithuania” (Latv. leišu muklājs) that was made popular by a composer Alfrēds Kalniņš’s (1879–1951) song based on a verse by a poet Atis Ķeniņš (1874–1961) ought to be considered as dissociated from objective realia; this image had a metaphorical meaning which was usually directly unrelated to Lithuania. Manifestations of the topic of Lithuania which are characteristic of some exclusiveness, unusualness, even some kind of cultural exoticism in Latvian literature of that time are relatively sparse. The article analytically presents five pieces of fiction that display quite detailed portraits of atypical, unordinary characters from Lithuania. The most suggestive of them is an image of a Jewish man, named Perec, from Lithuanian province, who was educated under the influence of the religious spirit of the Torah but eventually embraced the truths of Marxism, and his milieu, created by a famous leftist writer Andrejs Kurcijs (the true name Andrejs Kuršinskis, 1884–1959) in his short story “The God of Paupers” (“Nabago dievs”, 1929).

Minelgaitė-Plentienė J.

The article explores culinary education in special schools (schools for girls) in Lithuania from 1918 to 1940 by investigating the network of schools, their founders, the curriculum of culinary subjects, the typical students, and the likely significance of such education. From 1918 to 1940, a network of special schools which were also referred to as castles of mistresses was established in Lithuania where, along with the training of household chores, culinary education was also practiced. This network involved lower-grade agricultural schools as well as lower- and middle-grade schools of household chores. In terms of their specialization, schools had to train agricultural specialists – or craftswomen; however, the curriculum of the culinary section as well as the aspirations of all the schools were oriented towards modernizing the household culture along with the teaching of cooking the meals conforming to the contemporary gastronomy trends. These schools were established not only by State institutions, but also as public ventures. The schools which were run by women’s associations or Catholic organizations were nearly two times more numerous than the State-run schools (at a ratio of 17 to 9). A relatively significant share of the classes of culinary education in the general curriculum of the castles of mistresses highlights the exceptional attention to this field. The subject matter of the culinary classes was channeled in several directions which also reflected the general trends of the culinary culture of the time. The objective was the modernization, renewal and rationalization of the cooking environment, equipment, cooking accessories and crockery. Considering the still surviving relatively archaic aspects – which were still being sustained primarily in the countryside – students were gaining knowledge on laying the table, table decoration and the fundamentals of the table culture. Emphasis was being made on the integration of the science achievements in cooking, which was intended to cover the aspects of the nutrition value of the meals, proper digestion, and the inclusion of vitamins in the regular diet. Culinary education also highlighted the ideas of the use of the local produce. However, the general trends of the recipes were primarily targeting the ‘universal’ diet, and the manifestations of ‘gastro-national’ trends were more prominent in the cooking of the meals and beverages which were perceived as originally Lithuanian (these recipes were not very abundantly included in the programs). This trend was also manifested in the customs of fasting and the traditions of religious festivals. Although the numbers of the graduates of the castles of mistresses were relatively low, however, the sheer numbers cannot serve for defining the extent of the impact of these studies. When the students would come home or gain employment as cooks, chefs or mistresses in the households of the richer population, they were inherently sharing the experience they had accrued in the course of the years of studies. Consequently, the knowledge was being actively distributed. On the other hand, schools as centers of the culinary literacy were also having an impact on the local communities in which they were established. The students were fine-tuning their culinary knowledge at school canteens, and they were also taking a wide range of orders. Thus, the local communities were getting acquainted with the more modern culinary trends which had not yet been established in the provincial areas.

Kregždys R.

The article newly actualizes the etymology of the hydronyms Ketvergio upalis, Neknupis, Plocis, Rikinė, Župė / Župis, situated in Klaipėda Region. 
 Given the typology of the indicated morphophonetic changes in the word structure – change of the initial affricate č- to voiceless guttural K-, one can state that the first hydronym belongs to Slavonicisms, i.e., Ketvergio upalis is to be related to Lithuanian substantive četvergas ‘Thursday’. 
 It has been stated that the semantic connotation of the onym is to be based on the etymological analysis of the hydronym Turkupis situated in the Lowlanders area of Raseiniai. It is to be assumed that the primary semmeme of the hydronym Ketvergio upalis should be reconstructed in accordance with the meaning *‘the river flowing near bazaar; noisy river’. 
 The name of the stream Neknupis is interpreted as an authentic factographic relict of the Baltic Lexis. The primary form *Meknupis ‘a stream full of ides’ is reconstructed, i.e., the change of initial consonant *M- is presupposed, cf. N- ← *M- ↔ -n- (due to regressive assimilation). The connotation of the onym is related to the referent ide, as the type of the fish is very typical to the fauna of the stream. 
 The last three hydronyms have been found to be formed of the Germanic words. It is to be assumed that the authentic onyms of Baltic origin were changed with these Germanisms: 
 (1) the onym Plocis (other variants are also possible: Plazis 1912, Plažės ežeras 1994, Plazės gamtinis draustinis 2016, Plačias, Plocė 1959, Pluokis [Pluocis] 1998, Plocė 1959, [German variants] Plotsee, Plazis-Teich, Plazis-See) is related to German hydronym Plötzensee ‘roach lake’ (cf. also German toponyms Plötzenbruch, Plötzbusch, Plötzenhof ↔ Plötzenteich). The primary Lithuanian forms *Plakis ↔ *Plakė ‘roach lake’ are likely to be reconstructed. The authentic Lithuanian hydronym *Plakis in the long run was replaced by Germanism Plocis; 
 (2) etymological analysis of the hydronym Rikinė (Rikio upė) is based on formal identity between morphological cluster -rike used in the West German toponymy and dialectal German substantive, used in East Prussia, Rick ‘a long pole; transverse; pole stuck in the ground; a type of fence’, related to Middle Low German substantive recke / rik ‘a long, thin pole’, rek / rekke ‘fence; a hedge, planted in the middle of the field; grating etc.’, rieke / rikke ‘hedge, quickset’, Middle High German substantive ric, ricke ‘fence, narrow road etc.’ (cf. Old Saxon hydronyms Geld-rike, Lun-rike and toponym Led-rike). The primary Lithuanian forms *Siauroji, *Siaurukė are reconstructed; 
 (3) it is to be assumed that the origin of the hydronyms Župė / Župis (cf. other variants: Szopis, Szopebach, Szob 1725, Szope 1912, 1939), implied by Lithuanian dialectal Germanism zupė ‘soup, mess, skilly’, presuppose the change of the initial consonant, i.e., *Z- → Ž-, typical of the subdialects of Lowlanders. The above-mentioned variants Szopis etc., due to the vocal element -o-, can evidently be related to Middle Low German substantive soppe, sope ‘soup, broth’. The authentic Lithuanian form *Sriuba is reconstructed, cf. hydronym Sriùbupis (from the area of Lowlanders) originated from Lithuanian substantive sriubà ‘pottage; bouillabaisse etc.’. 

Pilkauskienė V.

In this article the education of farmers and craftsmen about the construction of modern farmsteads during interwar period is assessed. Information on the subject was collected from interwar press and archival documents. The main features of modern interwar farmsteads are rational structuring, compliance with hygiene requirements, comfortability and aestheticism. These ideas were propagated by state institutions, although up to the 3rd decade it was not fully established. When the administration of rural construction matters was commissioned to the Žemės ūkio rūmai, the most important works in this direction were carried out. The Construction Department was established in 1929, and the construction technicians who worked there were the key players in the promotion of the conceptual framework. Therefore, their proper training and the provision of the necessary number of specialists was an essential prerequisite for the purposeful education of farmers and building tradesmen.
 Organising education for farmers one of the main goals was to achieve the largest possible number of persons and thus promote the importance of the implementation of the ideas of modernization of rural construction. Therefore, for this, the periodical press, educational publications, short-term courses and lectures on the issues of improving rural construction and the management of homesteads, as well as exhibitions where construction technologies were demonstrated and specialist advice was provided, were actively used for this. Given the gradual increase in farmers’ interest in the ideas promoted, as well as their active participation in the educational programmes, there is no doubt that the measures chosen were quite successful.
 Rural craftsmen also played an equally important role in the modernisation campaign. Therefore, since the end of the 1930s, short courses have been organised annually to raise their qualifications. The scope of these works was rising, although it affected only part of craftsmen and did not solve the lack of qualified specialists. In the 4th decade, the new laws and rules of rural building regulation were implemented. Also, the necessity for higher number of qualified construction craftsmen that would be able to implement modern building principles was realized. This resulted in first specialized craft schools for carpenters, masons and furnace workers. It was thought that these schools together with earlier courses had to form construction craftsmen education system. Although work in this direction was halted shortly afterwards, the establishment of the specialised schools was an indication of the prioritisation of construction issues and thus of the implementation of modernisation principles.

Noreikaitė A.

The object of the article is the border territory on the side of the Republic of Lithuania, called Palatvijys, and its concept. The aim is to find out what criteria can be used to distinguish this Lithuanian-Latvian border region and reveal the most significant features. Information found in dictionaries, the press, legal documents, various scientific literature, as well as empirical material collected by the author in several stages (in 2008-2019) were used to reveal the topic. The methods applied in this research were qualitative content analysis, case analysis, interpretive methods, and quantitative analysis. The theoretical approaches of geographers, anthropologists, and sociologists talking about the construction of regions and identity were relevant for the analysis of the topic.
 The Lithuanian-Latvian border is undoubtedly a unique territory, where the cultural environment of the border and the “sense of place” of the inhabitants have been formed for many centuries. We can accurately define only the length of the Lithuanian-Latvian border region, which coincides with the state land border – 588.09 km, and its width differs both in the concepts of residents and in the studies of scientists. However, social and humanities sciences allow us to talk about a region that is not defined by physical boundaries and is changing, constructed according to various socio-cultural criteria. For this reason, the boundaries of the Lithuanian-Latvian region are relative, in their concept it is important to take into account the emic approach, i.e. how the local people understand and value the boundaries. This article is the first attempt to present the Lithuanian-Latvian border area or Palatviiys as a region. In further research, it would be appropriate to delve more deeply into the cultural features of this region, which were formed by the interaction of Lithuanians, Latvians, and Germans, as well as to analyse social relations – communication between Lithuanians and Latvians, movement on both sides of the border, and the expression of regional identity, especially semi-Latvian (skerslatviai) identity.

Bandoriūtė-Leikienė S.

Nowadays, the long-standing communication by letters has changed a lot. A couple of decades ago, writing letters to another city, country or simply to someone who lives further away was a completely normal activity. Today, paper letters are usually only documents or postcards. Thus, it is interesting and meaningful to study letters as a disappearing form of communication. Researching letters is interesting for representatives of various branches of science. Investigating ego documents, especially letters, gives us an opportunity to find out more about the past communication, sender and receiver of the letter and the general discourse of the researched period. Reading letters, especially letters written by famous public figures, is interesting not only for the scientists, but also for the regular readers. Furthermore, it justifies the taboo set by social norms – prohibited reading of stranger’s letters.
 The subject of this article are the letters of the Lithuanian poet Justinas Marcinkevičius to his teacher Andrašiūnienė, written in 1949–1961, after leaving Prienai to study at Vilnius University. Andrašiūnienė was a famous intelligent of Prienai district, a teacher of the Lithuanian language, who financially and morally supported her talented students, including famous poet Marcinkevičius and linguist Jonas Kazlauskas. The leads of the existence of these letters circulated among the people of Prienai for many years, until a few years ago they accidentally came into poet’s family hands (Marcinkevičius himself did not know about the existence of these letters). There are 44 letters of Marcinkevičius to teacher Andrašiūnienė, which were written while he was studying at Vilnius University. 43 letters are perfectly preserved, but one is no longer legible, because a third of the text is damaged.
 The research of the letters reveals a close relationship between young poet Marcinkevičius and his teacher: a son-mother relationship. Marcinkevičius’ choice to call the teacher mother, mommy, confirms the fact that he is missing for mother’s care and attention (he lost his real mother in his early adolescence). Andrašiūnienė was not only a financial supporter, guardian, but also the first critic of the young poet’s writing. This critique significantly formed poets’ personality.
 The young poet’s letters reveal his talent for writing: the texts are fluent and literary. Also, there are a lot of stories about his achievements and creative downfalls. Marcinkevičius is carefully writing about his negative position towards the ideology of the time. It is interesting to read letters where Marcinkevičius is arguing and getting angry with his teacher. These letters reveal the rebellious side of the poet, which is completely unexpected. The opportunity to look at Marcinkevičius’ youth by reading his letters deepens the knowledge of the change of the poet’s work and the formation of his personality.

Maskuliūnienė D.

1868 was a fateful year for Lithuanian children’s literature, as two books by Samogitian Bishop Motiejaus Valančius (1801–1875) appeared: Vaikų knygelė (Engl. Children’s Book) and Paaugusių žmonių knygelė (Engl. Adolescence Book). They mark the beginning of literature for Lithuanian children and teenagers. This is evidenced not only by the symbolic titles of both books, which indicate the addressee – children and teenagers, young people. It is important that Valančius thinks about a specific reader – a child, so in the Foreword of the Vaikų knygelė he hopes that “children will not regret while reading” his book, that is, they will not get bored. The author thinks that children while reading Aukso altorius (Engl. Golden Altar) only find prayers and litanies, however, they want to learn about interesting things to tell others, and if they do not find such things, “sometimes they can’t even learn”. Therefore, it is necessary to read special books for children in the post-elementary period. It was a modern approach in those times, which is not outdated even today.
 The article aims to discuss the publishing path of Valančius’ Vaikų knygelė as well as the most important modifications (textual and visual) this collection of didactic short stories underwent. The article analyses the following aspects: 1) issues of selection of texts and their presentation; 2) preservation of the dimension of authenticity of texts; 3) what was the presentation of the texts of Valančius’ Vaikų knygelė written in dialect over time.
 It is very important to emphasize that the linguistic expression of Valančius’ works, especially the stylistic layer, is an interesting phenomenon in all Lithuanian literature. Paradoxically, when the reissues were published, the stylistic layer of the works was often affected, the dialect was levelled, so a considerable part of the authentic layer, the exotic whiff of didactic prose of the 19th century, was “erased”. The interdisciplinary research approach is employed in the present research, the perspectives of literary studies, textology and art studies are combined: it is based on the scientific insights of the literary expert and textologist Paulius Subačius, the analysis of the illustrations of various editions of Valančiaus’ Vaikų knygelė by the art critic Ingrida Korsakaitė, the considerations of the literary researcher Vanda Zaborskaitė on the aesthetic value of the archaic nature of Valančius’ text, etc.

Giedrimas L.

The article aims to reveal the possibilities of the data contained in the parish visitations in determining the average household size of the residents of Šiauliai parish. Firstly, the data on visitations allows us to learn about the number of residents who came to catholic confession and those who did not come to catholic confession. Secondly, the source allows us to learn about the number of households in all parish settlements. The data is important for calculating the number of residents in the settlements and in the whole parish. The data on the number of residents allows us to calculate the size of the households in separate settlements and in the whole parish. Moreover, this data can be used for the reconstruction of parish geographical territory. On the other hand, the data on parish visitations can be incorrect as usually statistical information was rewritten from the earlier sources. Considering Šiauliai catholic parish visitations, it should be noted that later visitations were rewritten from the visitations of the year 1820, thus this research only deals with the situation of the year 1820. The analysis revealed that the geographical territory of Šiauliai parish has not significantly changed since the middle of the 17th century. Also, those settlements that were the largest in terms of population in the middle of the 17th century, remained the largest in the first half of the 19th century. After calculating the ratio of those who went to confession and those who did not go, it was found that in the visitations of Šiauliai parish, only the number of Catholics was given, and in some settlements far from the center of the parish, there was a high number of those who did not go to confessions, most likely it indicates pastoral problems, and not the population of other denominations. On average, 9.7 people lived in one household in Šiauliai parish, 7.98 lived in Šiauliai city, 14.5 lived in Kužiai town, and 11.35 lived in Meškuičiai town. After comparing the results of the research with the data of other cities and towns, it can be said that larger cities were characterized by smaller households, while small towns were characterized by larger households. Meanwhile, it is not easy to compare the obtained research results with the household data of the Central and Eastern European population, because the research results are highly dependent on the concept of the household. Nevertheless, it can be said that the average household size of Šiauliai parish was close to the household size of the residents of Nereta (Latvia).

Senkāne O.

The aim of this study is to analyze the verbal and non-verbal signs of the Rēzekne Jewish cemetery with the cultural semiotic approach and to find out the hybridization features of the Jewish semiosphere in Latgale. The article describes the Rēzekne Jewish cemetery as a representative substructure of the “other” in the culture of Latgale with special traditions of language and ritual graphics, valuable genealogical material and historical evidence about the fate of local Jews and with a special tomb cult, determined by the ethnically diverse environment.
 Jews in Latgale have always nurtured and preserved their cultural otherness; this is also characteristic of their traditions of arranging cemeteries. Depending on the cultural and social trends of the relevant era, it is possible to trace changes in the formation of grave inscriptions, graphics and forms. Interrelations with the traditions of the local majority, the Latgalians, show the hybridization of the culture of Jewish cemeteries. In the 20th century, Yiddish is gradually disappearing from grave inscriptions, that is caused by decreasing of the number of its speakers. During the Soviet occupation, the role of the sacred language – Hebrew in grave inscriptions decreased, while the proportion of Russian in the narrative of the inscriptions increased. During the last decade of the 20th century, grave inscriptions are predominant in Russian, which confirms the decline in the number of Hebrew speakers. The symbolic meaning of tomb cult graphics in the second half of the 20th century levels off, and local Jews take over Latgalian traditions of the design of tombstones. The graphic shows the transmission of information to the receivers of the “other” culture, for example, the yellow Star of David is represented instead of the menorah, since the yellow six-pointed star is more recognizable to the local population as a testimony of the Holocaust. A menorah may not cause an association with a Jew, because candles and candlesticks are usual graphic elements of Latgalian tombs. Such a trend in the choice of symbols indicates a unique cultural dialogue and its implementation tools, which are oriented towards the self-presentation of a separate ethnic group, using recognizable stereotypical signs instead of specific cult symbols, the language of local residents instead of their sacred language. They want to be understood and understandable for themselves because the number of people who know the authentic meaning of Hebrew and sacred cult signs in Latgale and Rēzekne is quite small. In any case, communication or cultural dialogue still exists, at least the tomb culture is still capable of transmitting its basic values in the form of stereotypical, well-known signs. In this way, the “other” tends to be noticed and understood.

Rudzāte I.

Until now, little attention has been paid to studies of Latvian language vocabulary on a thematic aspect related to the traditional homestead on the Baltic Sea coast once inhabited by the Curonians. This article presents names denominating the object of a kitchen in a traditionally built dwelling house, their diversity, origins, and prevalence in Latvian-speaking communities on the coast of the Baltic Sea in Latvia and Lithuania. The analysis is based on Latvian material from various written sources, using descriptive, partly historical and mapping methods. The vocabulary analysed in the sources of this article shows lexemes that denominate both the separate, enclosed room and the part of the room used for food preparation and cooking. The prevalence of analysed lexemes in the meaning of a ‘kitchen’ is not uniform. In the coastal areas of Kurzeme, the names ķēķis, kukņa, plītsistaba, virtuve and their variations were identified, but in the vocabulary of the Latvian dialect of Šventoji, the morphological variant ķēķe inherited from the dialectal vocabulary of Kurzeme has been recorded. In the vocabulary of Kurzeme, names denominating a kitchen are mainly of Germanic and Slavic origin. The emergence of Germanisms in the Latvian vocabulary related to the kitchen is directly related to the material cultural peculiarities, which were encouraged to Latvian peasants in Kurzeme by the German nobility, and to the Baltic German everyday speech. The impact of Lithuanian as an intermediary language has been recorded mainly in the Latvian dialect of the Curonian Spit. The borrowed names with the meaning of a ‘kitchen’, such as kukne || kukine, can be explained by the close contact of New Curonians with the Lithuanian-speaking community on the eastern coast of the Curonian Lagoon; New Curonians not only had economic ties with them, but also formed mixed families.

Candravičius L.

In the 15th and 18th centuries, part of the Curonian population moved to the Curonian Spit. The settlers brought their own dialect, which became a separate ethnic minority language when they mixed with Lithuanians, Germans, and descendants of Prussians. It was mainly used in fishing and in fishermen’s homes. It did not have its own script, but various linguists and ethnographers have tried to record it using the scripts of other languages (German, Lithuanian, Latvian). Monuments of the Kursenieki language are sparse. In order to investigate the influence of the Lithuanian language on the adjectival lexis of Kursenieki adjectives from the point of view of etymology, and to examine how the impact of the Lithuanian language on Kursenieki adjectival lexis has changed over the last 150 years, the adjectival inventories of the Kursenieki language at the end of the 19th century, the beginning of the 20th century, and the end of the 20th century are compared in the article. The descriptions of adjectives done by linguists who have studied the Kursenieki language are not exhaustive, as the descriptions of the loanwords of the Kursenieki language from the Lithuanian language tend to focus on nouns and verbs.
 The first dictionary in the study material is Maximilian Voelkel’s dictionary Die lettischen Sprachreste auf der Kurischen Nehrung, published in Tilsit in 1879. Its adjectival inventory is the smallest of the three dictionaries taken as the study material. The second source is a glossary compiled by Juris Plāķis and included as an appendix to his study Kursenieku valoda, published in 1927. The inventory of adjectives in this glossary is the largest. The third glossary was published in 1993 in Christliebe el Mogharbel’s dissertation, Nehrungskurisch. All three dictionaries contain a combined total of 272 adjectival lexemes. The distinction between the borrowings and inheritances was based on the Latvian dictionary (Mīlenbahs ir Endzelīns, 1923–1932), the Lithuanian dictionary (Naktinienė, 2017), and the following criteria: phonomorphological, lexical, formation, semantic, and geographical. A total of 50 lexemes were identified, which can be considered Lithuanianisms. Among them, there are some problematic cases that could be assumed to be Curonisms. In total, nine Slavisms have been identified from the identified Lithuanianisms (since Kursenieki language did not have direct borrowings from Slavic languages, they are classified as Lithuanianisms). Slavisms have been divided into adapted and non-adapted Slavisms. It has been observed that the semantic group of the Christianity discourse is particularly prominent in the adjectival inventory under study.
 In order to better observe the interaction between Lithuanian and Kursenieki languages, additional material from a period older and later than the period under study was taken for comparison – Peter Pallas’ dictionary Linguarum totius orbis Vocabularia comparativa of the late 18th century; and the decoded material of one audio recording recorded by Dalia Kiseliūnaitė at the beginning of the 21st century, collected during expeditions in Sweden.