Ilgametis universiteto kraštotyrininkų kompleksinių ekspedicijų etnografų grupės mokslinis vadovas

LTStraipsnyje analizuojamas profesoriaus Vacio Miliaus savanoriškas Vilniaus universiteto kraštotyrininkų klubo Ramuvos etnografų konsultavimas ekspedicijose 1976-1995 metais, to darbo rezultatai, taip pat pastangos skatinti surinktos etnografinės medžiagos skelbimų. Remiantis lyginamojo ir aprašomojo metodų teikiamomis galimybėmis keliamas tikslas parodyti Profesoriaus pastangas brutalios okupacijos metais kaupti nykstančios lietuvių tradicinės kultūros faktus panaudojant kraštotyros ekspedicijas.

ENProf. Vacys Milius was the leader of the ethnographic group of field trips held by the Club of Regional Ethnographers Ramuva of Vilnius University in 1976-1995 and taught 337 students of different subjects the methods of collecting ethnographic material. The most active collectors of ethnographic material were (% of all collectors): students of mathematics - 24,4, library science -18,5, Lithuanian language and literature - 18, natural sciences (mainly biology) - 14,5, economy - 7,4, medicine - 4, etc. At the beginning of a field trip prof. Milius would give a lecture to all the participants about the features of traditional culture of the given region, and then would work with the collectors of ethnographic material: he would find out on what topics the more experienced regional ethnographers were planning to collect material, helped first-timers to choose from a more or less established list of topics, and familiarized them with the methods of collecting. Another stage was the professors critical remarks and advice about the first descriptions of the collected material, which were particularly important in seeking to improve the quality of the collected ethnographic material. Ethnographers led by prof. Milius made circa 7 thousand descriptions of ethnographic material in circa 14 thousand typescript pages during eighteen Ramuva field trips (from 1976 to 1993; data on field trips held in 1994-1995 are not available). To avoid any conscious destruction of the ethnographic material for ideological reasons, it was copied and the copies were given out to research institutions: the Ethnographic Department of the Lithuanian Institute of History, the Manuscript Department of the Vilnius University Library, the Open Air Museum of Lithuania and the local Museum of Regional Ethnography.Among the 26 basic topics, on which ethnographic material was collected during no less than seven field trips, traditional spiritual culture was on top of the list with 17 topics (calendar, work and family customs, meteorology, medicine, veterinary science, customary law, educational science). Other themes devoted to material culture were traditional landscape gardening, heating of residential premises, interior, decoration, collecting forest berries and mushrooms, poultry, traditional washing and dyeing, and traditional lace. Among the topics on which material was collected during less than seven field trips, traditional spiritual culture was also predominant: fishing and sauna customs, folk astronomy and chronology, Russian family customs, traces of early beliefs in Lithuanian worldview, etc. In preparation for field trips, series of ethnographic lectures were held in Ramuva. Lectures were given by well-known Lithuanian ethnographers, archaeologists and historians: Vacys Milius - 8 lectures, Angelė Vyšniauskaitė - 5, Pranas Kulikauskas - 4, Vida Kulikauskienė, Jonas Mardosa and Regina Merkienė - 3 each, Romas Batūra, Napoleonas Kitkauskas and Eugenija Šimkūnaitė - 2 each, etc. Prof. Milius encouraged to publish the collected ethnographic material: he consulted the student members of the Ramuva club who prepared presentations for the Students’ Academic Society, initiated the publishing of the collected ethnographic material collected in field trips in the continued publication Kraštotyra (Regional Ethnography), and edited the chapters on ethnic culture in the monographs of the series Lietuvos valsčiai (Rural Districts of Lithuania).