Šišioniškių tarmės saugotoja Vaida Galinskienė: "dėl tų žmonių turiu kalbėti ir pasakoti, nes jie jau nepapasakos"

ENA keeper of the cultural heritage of Lithuania Minor and a Lithuanian language teacher at the first gymnasium in Šilutė, Vaida Galinskienė, talks about the disappearing šišioniškiai dialect and the efforts to preserve it. It is estimated that there are only 80 to 100 šišioniškiai-speaking people left today. Galins- kienė’s parents are from Samogitia, but she was born and raised in Svencelė, a former coastal fishermen’s village, where she heard and learned the dialect from local residents. For three decades, she has been spreading knowledge about the traditions, customs, and folklore of the Lithuanians of the coastal region and teaches her more receptive students the disappearing dialect. The massacres of Lithuania Minor’s residents, the destruction of their heritage, and the traumatic experiences endured by the handful of Lithuanians in the Klaipėda region, who survived Nazi and later Soviet repressions, have led to the revival of their dialect no longer being in the hands of the people of Lithuanians Minor themselves. Enthusiasts dedicated to learning and teaching the dying šišioniškiai dialect have no blood ties to Lithuania Minor but are committed to preserving the memory of that destroyed world and to returning to Lithuanian society that page of historical memory torn away by the Soviet era. In 2023, their perseverance was recognised by adding the revival of the šišioniškiai dialect to Lithuania’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Inventory - the first case where heritage preservation activities were included in the list.