Pietryčių Baltijos jūrinė kultūra XX a. pradžioje

ENWhat meanings of maritime culture could we single out in the context of European and Baltic Sea environment? In this article, attempts are made to answer these questions by analyzing the relations of the nations and countries of the South-eastern Baltic region (Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Lithuania) with the sea in the second half of the 19th c. - the early 20th c. In our search for manifestations of maritime culture in the identity of a modern nation or country, we employ the theoretical constructs of maritime community, maritime perception and maritime environment used in European social historiography. Spain, Portugal, Holland, England and France were the countries which acquired geopolitical prestige thanks to the sea and defended “access” to the sea. For other countries, among which Lithuania found itself in the early 20th c., too, “access” to the sea was a political ambition, a guarantee of state vitality and economic development. When analyzing European sea trade in the Early Modernism times (15th-18th c.), cultural community of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea (the southern and south-eastern parts) determined by direct contacts with the sea can be seen in historiography. They were maintained by seamen (Dutch and English) and North Sea ports, Antwerp, Amsterdam and London, and then Hamburg which acted as mediators in the trade provision system of the Atlantic Ocean - the North Sea - the Baltic Sea. In national ideologies, the sea coast became a symbol of the development of unhindered nationality and possibilities of statehood.The national movements of Estonians and Latvians which were emerging on the eastern Baltic coast in the middle of the 19th c. and the members of which actively promoted the establishment of nautical schools and shipping companies perceived the sea as the source of prospects for independent state development. Contrary to the experience of the nations of the Baltic provinces and their rather modest aspirations, Polish nationalism was based on the memory of the former state power (albeit alleged) “from sea to sea". In the maritime communities (fishing villages) situated on the Baltic Sea coast and on the Curonian Lagoon, we do not find national perception or nationalism based on pride in the past. Throughout centuries, maritime perception got shaped on the basis of cultural traditions created by natural dwelling environment. In the early 20th c., maritime culture was politicized by Lithuanian intellectuals with the aim of obtaining a sea port needed for the economic structure of the country.