Notion of ethnic culture in ethnology, and variations in the use of the notion in Lithuania.

Straipsnyje apžvelgiamas termino etninė kultūra atsiradimas, nagrinėjama, kaip sąvoka etninė kultūra suprantama Vakarų šalių etnologijoje ir kaip ją aiškina etnoso teorijos kūrėjai. Tačiau Lietuvoje ne tik kultūrinio darbo praktikai, bet ir tyrinėtojai etninę kultūrą supranta labai įvairiai. Siekiant pabaigti su chaotiška, labai varijuojančia etninės kultūros samprata Lietuvoje, autorius siūlo galimas išeitis: 1) jeigu Lietuvoje didžioji dalis etnologų bei kultūrininkai priėmė fundamentalų etnoso teorijos postulatą, pripažįstantį, kad etninę kultūrą galima išskirti iš nacijos kultūros visumos, tokiu atveju reikėtų priimti ir etnoso teorijoje esančią etninės kultūros sampratą; 2) minėtosios sampratos nepriimant, vadovautis Vakarų šalių etnologijoje esančia teorine nuostata – etninės kultūros sąvokos netaikyti nacijų kultūroms.Neither prominent figures in the 19th-century Lithuanian national rebirth movement nor scholars and cultural workers of the 1918-1940 Republic of Lithuania and subsequently Soviet Lithuania used the term ethnic culture. Until the end of the 1980s, the term folk culture was used in Lithuania to describe traditional culture, the term national culture being employed to denote the whole culture of the nation. Lithuanian scholars and cultural workers adopted the term ethnic culture from Soviet ethnologists, primordialists and ethnos theory creators, and since then they have used it extensively for more than three decades. Unfortunately, in Lithuania the understanding of ethnic culture differs even among scholars and researchers: some perceive and use the term as a synonym for folk culture, and others employ it when referring to the entire culture created by members of the nation, including all areas of professional culture. Cultural workers usually base their understanding of ethnic culture on their personal experience, regarding traditional (folk) culture as ethnic culture, but drawing quite often from ethnic culture even definite subjects of the traditional culture, such as folklore, folk architecture and amateur arts created on the basis of traditional culture. Lithuanian ethnologists have discussed the notion and content of ethnic culture more than once; however, there is still no unanimously approved understanding. In 1999 the ‘Law on the Principles of Ethnic Culture Protection’ was passed in Lithuania. It contains a definition of the notion of ethnic culture. Regrettably, the definition highlights only the antiquity of culture created by the Lithuanian nation, the present existence of that culture, and also the fact that the culture was created by the whole nation, and fails to explain what particular culture should or should not be regarded as ethnic. The adoption of this law encouraged a focus on vanishing relics of folk culture and support for their protection, ensuring at the same time that the understanding of ethnic culture as a synonym for folk culture gained dominance. However, both cultural researchers and cultural workers quite often encounter the following dilemma: whether or not to include in ethnic culture phenomena that came into being as products of contact between traditional and professional culture? In this article, the author looks in great detail at how the notion of ethnic culture was interpreted by the creators of ethnos theory, who started to apply the notion to modern nations, and how ethnic culture is discerned from the entirety of ethnos culture. Attempts are made to find out whether it is possible to clarify the notion of the term ethnic culture and elucidate the content of the notion, and to determine whether we have any chances of touching the boundaries of ethnic culture when we wish to distinguish culture of such a nature from the entirety of national culture. When trying to distinguish phenomena of ethnic culture, a problem emerges when we come across work of professional culture or national culture in general authored not by the title nation but by representatives of other ethnic groups, and also in cases where we encounter influences from other cultures, or come across syncretic forms of culture. Recognising the vagueness of the notion ethnic culture, the author argues that the adoption of a uniform understanding of the term ethnic culture could bring more clarity to the issue. For this purpose, one of the following possibilities should be selected: 1) to use the term ethnic culture in the sense in which it is used in ethnos theory; 2) to abstain completely from using the term ethnic culture when discussing the culture of the nation, or when ethnic culture is perceived as traditional culture (folk culture); in the latter case, to use one of these two terms