Latviešu un lietuviešu katoļu bēru dziesmas : kā mantojums tas ir? (Dobeles un Jonišķu rajona pierobežas situācija)
LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Dobele; Etninės kultūros paveldas; Etniškumas; Joniškis; Katalikų laidotuvių giesmės; Laidotuvių dainos; Latvija (Latvia); Paribio regionai; Paribys; Romos katalikai; Catholic Funeral Songs; Crossborder regions; Dobele; Ethnic culture heritage; Funeral songs, ethnicity, borderland; Joniškis; Latvia; Lithuania; Roman Catholics.
ENData collected during the latest ethnographical expeditions reveal the fact that “The Office of the Dead” or the “Penitential Psalms” have been recited at the border of Lithuania and Latvia. Funeral is the period of time lasting from the death of a person to the burying or even until the first anniversary of the death. It consists of the wake, the funeral, the transportation of the body to the church and the cemetery, the burial, the after-burial gathering, and the commemoration of the dead. The question addressed in this article is: whose heritage is it? The object of the research: ritual singing at Lithuanian and Latvian Catholic funerals. The aim of the research: to identify the origin of ritual songs in Lithuanian and Latvian Catholic funerals. The tasks of the research: 1) to identify the sacred songs used in Lithuanian and Latvian Catholic funerals; 2) to show similarities and differences between them; 3) to identify the origin of this songs and argue in favour of a Lithuanian or Latvian origin. The methods of the research: analytical, comparative and retrospective. In order to reach these goals, a lot of data is analysed which was collected during the summer expeditions of 1992–2003 at the border between Lithuania (district of Žagarė) and Latvia (district of Dobelė). The research leads to the following conclusions: 1) Latvian Catholic singers usually sing twenty Psalms at a funeral, while Lithuanian sing fourteen. Only eight psalms are common to both Latvians and Lithuanians, all of which belong to the group of lamentable psalms.2) The Latvian Catholic tradition to sing psalms at funerals goes back to the 16th century, while in Lithuania and Poland it is an inheritance of the counter-reformation, when Jesuit colleges were opened in Riga and Vilnius and started their tridentine, counter-reformist mission in Curonia, in Semigallia, Samogitia and later in Latgallia. 3) The Latvian and Lithuanian traditions of singing psalms at funerals is assumingly also the result of pastoral activities of the Samogitian bishops Merkelis Giedraitis, Jurgis Tiškevičius and Motiejus Valančius with their common ethnic background. 4) The use of the vernacular languages in Church books and rites spread by Jesuits in the Samogitian diocese of bishop M. Valančius and of additional devotions (Psalms) in Curonia introduced during the rule of Russian tsar merged Lithuanian and Latvian Catholic cultures. 5) The practice of singing Psalms was a form of fighting against tsarist Russia and for (political and religious) independence for both Latvians and Lithuanians. These conclusions are evidence for the hypothesis that the Catholic funeral singing among Latvians and Lithuanians is identical. This identity is a result of intermingled religious cultures of the 17th–19th centuries between the Latvian and Lithuanian Lutheran and Reformed churches together with the Catholic church, in particular the Jesuits. [From the publication]
