Lietuvių ir latvių valstiečių mentaliteto tautiški profiliai XIX a. pirmojoje pusėje

LTObjektyvumo intencija norime palyginti lietuvių ir latvių valstiečius, išaiškinant jų mentaliteto identiškumą ir atskleidžiant veiksnius, kurie darė skirtingą įtaką. Tiesą sakant, tik lyginant ir įmanoma individualizuoti bei konkretizuoti tam tikrą reiškinį. Kodėl būtent latvių valstiečiai parenkami palyginimui? Jie buvo etnogenetiškai artimiausi lietuviams. Artimumas, besireiškiantis per giminingą geofizinę, gal ir geospiritualinę aplinką, išsilaikė šimtmečiais dėl luominės santvarkos, kuri konservavo valstiečių gyvenimo būdo ir mąstymo uždarumą. Šis artimumas yra tarsi bendrasis lyginimo vardiklis. Tautiški profiliai reiškia, kad mentalitetas orientuotas į tautiškumą. Lyg ir savaime suprantamas dalykas, juk ir XIX a. lietuvių (latvių) valstiečiai buvo lietuviai (latviai) ar bent jau lietuviškai (latviškai) kalbantys. Bet nelabai aišku, kas yra tas mentaliteto tautiškumas? [p. 340].

ENThe question of national and civil consciousness in Lithuanian peasantry is a new one and almost unexplored in Lithuanian historiography. S. Pivoras (National Profiles of Lithuanian and Latvian peasantry mentality in the First Half of XIX c.) therefore firstly attempts at making distinctions between self-consciousness and consciousness defining the first one as the effort of consciousness to reflect itself. This effort is possible only when a person concieves himself as a subject. The author doubts if Lithuanian and Latvian peasants could have had a more intensive self-consciousness because they were not granted any social rights let alone political ones. We should rather speak about their national consciousness or mentality, e. g. how actually they realized themselves as members of a nation, state or any other community. Direct evidence testifying to national or civil consciousness as existing in Lithuanian or Latvian peasants is the first half of XIX c. is hardly available. Peasants lived in the world of tradition where all activities were endowed with meaning through ritual. But the end of XVIII c. and the first half of XIX c. was exactly the time when farmers could start realising them selves as citizens and this was caused first of all by changing attitude of gentry to peasantry. National consciousness in Lithuanian peasantry was forstered by their participation in liberation struggle together with gentry. Latvian peasants were liberated from serfdom in early XIX c. and their civil rights were then formally acknowledged.Still to make them actual peasants had to join into struggle for them. This fight could take only positive forms, such as requirements for education, better wages and similar. Any different fight would have meant only revolt. Therefore though the period brought about favourable conditions for peasants civil and national activities and the first forms of such activity were appearing, still its impossible to distinguish national consciousness as a unique phenomenon of the first half of XIX c. the more so we cannot speak of national self-consciousness the latter being a conscious choice of person to belong to a nation.