Characteristics of Calendar Customs in Klaipėda Region: (Ethnography and Vocabulary)

The aim of the work was to examine the specific features of calendar holidays in Klaipeda Region. The comparative method was employed (the customs of Klaipeda Region were compared to the traditions in Lithuania Major), and the materials were collected from written sources and from contemporary ethnographic stories, with part of them recorded by the author of the thesis. The aim of the work was to disclose the specificity of calendar holidays (such as Christmas, Mardi Gras, Easter, Pentecost, and St. John’s) in Klaipeda Region and to discuss the calendar holidays-related vocabulary. In the process of preparing the materials from the funds of the record library of the Klaipeda University folklore and ethnography manuscript department (KUTRF) (246), as well as the materials collected during expeditions in Rusne, Kintai, Katyciai, and Klaipeda, for the analysis of genres and comparison with the written records, the author transcribed 160 ethnographic units (including 19 fragments) and 19 folklore units. From the funds of the KUTRF, 118 presenters were selected who were born in Klaipeda Region and provided information about the major calendar holidays. 482 ethnographic units were collected and systematized. The comparison of the materials from the expeditions in Klaipeda in the second half of the 20th c. with the examples of the written records from Lithuania Major brought out a large number of common characteristics of the calendar holidays in both regions. It was much more difficult to reflect on the lost meanings of the rituals. The interpretations of the cycle of calendar rituals supplied by the respondents were always linked with their social and cultural environment. The content of all the major calendar holidays in Klaipeda Region had a number of specific characteristics. People lived modestly in that region, therefore, the celebration was simple; it retained the principal elements of the celebration, however, those were strongly influenced by German pietism, close distances between towns, and high cultural and economic development. Thus, the information about the calendar holidays of the Lietuvininkai (Lithuanians of Lithuania Minor) supplied by the surviving descriptions and live witnesses was interesting, and it should be researched as a historical and ethnographic monument and as a testimony of the evolution of moral values in the region