Lithuanian folklore in changing cultural and social contexts

EN[...] The anthology "The Storytelling Human. Lithuanian Folk Tradition Today" is a stellar example of how the disciplinary tradition of simultaneously looking inwards and outwards while keeping one’s eye on the protean matter of research, is realised in the present. The search for the ancient lore of the people has since long been replaced by a commitment to the constantly changing and evolving expressions of folklore. There is much exciting work emerging from Lithuanian folkloristics at the moment, not least within the field of folk narrative as demonstrated by the comprehensive anthology "Homo Narrans. Folklorinė atmintis iš arti" from 2012. The volume in Lithuanian contains extensive summaries in English, which serve as a tantalizing indication of a dynamic discipline. Gratefully, "The Storytelling Human" is in many ways a continuation of the vision that informed the "Homo Narrans" project with its investigation into the concept of folkloristic memory. Indeed, several of the authors in "Homo Narrans" have also contributed to "The Storytelling Human", through which a rich scholarship is opened up for an international (Englishreading) audience. The disciplinary history of folkloristics in a Lithuanian, and more generally Baltic, context has in itself been the object of study in recent works such as "Mapping the History of Folklore Studies" and "Folklore in Baltic History". It should be made clear from the start that "The Storytelling Human" reaches far beyond the typical thrown together anthology with little, if any, inner dialogue and congruence among the contributions. The chapters in the present work complement each other and, although dealing with different subject matters and without much internal referencing, still present a whole that is greater than the sum of the parts.