Betweeen emotion and ritual: retracing Baltic military rites

Straipsnio objektas – XIII–XV a. baltų karo ritualai, turintys didelį emocinį krūvį, bei jų mitinis kontekstas; ypatingas dėmesys skiriamas dviem ritualams – apeiginiam raudojimui ir karo šūksniams. Straipsnyje analitiniu, semantiniu, lyginamuoju ir interpretaciniu tyrimo metodais stengiamasi atskleisti emocijų reikšmę ritualuose, analizuojant liūdesiu ir pykčiu grindžiamą apeiginį elgesį; panagrinėti baltiškų karo ritualų prasmę ir mitinį kontekstą. Pagrindinis tyrimų šaltinis yra keturios kryžiuočių kronikos: "Henrici Chronicon Livoniae" (Henriko Latvio Livonijos kronika), "Livlandische Reimchronik" (Livonijos eiliuotoji kronika), "Chronicon terrae Prussiae" (Petro Dusburgiečio Prūsijos kronika) ir "Chronica nova Prutenica" (Vygando Marburgiečio Naujoji Prūsijos kronika). Remiantis pateikiama medžiaga daromos trys pagrindinės išvados: 1. Laidotuvių raudojimas ir karo mūšių šūksniai yra "liūdesio / pykčio" emocijomis paremti baltų ritualai. Viduramžių kryžiuočių kronikose jie vaizduojami emocijų kaitos, atspindinčios karinių pergalių ir pralaimėjimų dinamiką, perspektyvoje. 2. Emocija gali tapti ritualinės komunikacijos su dievų ir / ar vėlių pasauliu būdu; kuo stipresnės emocijos ir kuo labiau jos mitologizuotos, tuo efektyvesnis ritualas. Tokio ritualo pavyzdys yra apeiginis raudojimas. 3. Emocijų mitologinis kontekstas, pavyzdžiui, dievų emocijų paralelės (deivių – Laimos, Saulės – raudojimas, Perkūno pyktis), suteikia ritualui mitologinę motyvaciją ir įrašo jį į dieviškosios tvarkos universumą.The subject of the article comprises Baltic military rites appreciated from the emotional perspective. The chief source of investigation consists of the 4 Teutonic chronicles: The Livonian Rhymed Chronicle, The Chronicle of Henry of Livonia, The Chronicle of the Prussian Land by Peter of Dusburg and The Prussian Chronicle of Wigand of Marburg. Primarily, the main emotional axis of the story described in the chronicles is analyzed: sorrow vs. joy. Regardless of the subject of the chronicles, i.e. whether these include crusaders or the Balts, military victories are marked with joy while defeats, with sorrow. Still, the joy of victory is not that simple: it rather compensates for the sorrow and involves malevolence (rejoicing because of the enemy’s grief). Both the emotional states are expressed in respective rituals: the ritual expression of sorrow is lamenting, while joy is expressed in grateful songs addressing God or the deities. The first part of the article exhaustively discusses the phenomenon of lamenting: the ritualized emotion (the ritual lamenting) is regarded as a special state of mind allowing the weeper to enter into a sacral relationship with the world of gods or souls, thus achieving the ritual aim, i.e. ensuring a successful transfer of the deceased into the world of ancestors. Sorrow as an emotional state becomes the basis for the ritual; it is a special element, enabling the performer of the ritual to achieve special powers. As the ritual action, lamenting has parallels in the world of the Baltic gods; on the grounds of Lithuanian and Latvian folklore, images of the lamenting goddesses are analyzed in this article: 1) Laima, the Baltic goddess of destiny and fortune, laments for the tragic fate and premature death, 2) the Sun laments over the slain soldiers. In the second part of the article, another emotion heightened against the military background is analyzed: namely, the anger, born as result of tension between the volatile emotions of sorrow and joy. Of the sorrow, anger is born, subsequently turning into craving for revenge and inducing one to seek crushing of the enemies and experiencing the malevolent joy of the victory. Among the forms of ritualizing anger, the war cries could be named, purporting at organizing aggression. Rather than being sporadic emotional expressions, these cries are elements of the military rites. The ritual anger differs from an individual emotional experience in being aimed at certain control or conscious organization of emotions, the purpose of which is creating a collective emotion and directing it against the enemy. Such anger may be expressed by human voice or sound of the instruments. The Baltic custom of shouting or hammering on the shields with swords prior to the attack is analyzed in the article, the metallic sound of the hammered arms being an instrumental expression of anger. Such sound is close to that of the bell, therefore chiming of the bell of Rīga church used to be perceived by the Balts as voice of the enemies’ God (or rather, of the war god). The metallic sound and the chiming of bells used to be associated in the Baltic mythology with the thunder god Perkūnas. On the other hand, of all the Baltic gods, Perkūnas is particularly characterized by anger, directed against his adversary Velnias [‘the Devil’]. This allows us asserting that emotions and actions of Perkūnas embody the mythological prototype and ritual pattern of the characteristic behavior of the warrior