Gabrielės Petkevičaitės-Bitės užrašyta tautosaka lietuvių etnologijos kontekste

LTJuozas Jasaitis, kalbėdamas apie įvairiapusę Gabrielės Petkevičaitės- Bitės veiklą, pastebėjo, kad tarp daugelio darbų bei rūpesčių ji rado laiko ir tautosakai rinkti. Tad kyla klausimai: kodėl darbščioji moteris to ėmėsi ir kokie buvo šios veiklos rezultatai? Ieškoti atsakymų skatina ir kitas minėto Bitės biografo teiginys, kad į mokslinę „Rusijos Geografijos draugiją“ Bitė įstojo 1902 m. tarpininkaujant S. Baltramaičiui ir reikalinga etnografinė medžiaga paremiant P. Višinskiui. Tad ar tikrai taip buvo? Atsakyti į pastaruosius klausimus ir yra šio straipsnio tikslas [p. 31].

ENThe purpose of this article is to answer the questions, who encouraged G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė to write down Lithuanian folklore and what was the result of this work. At the beginning of the lašt decade of the 19th century, G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė got acquainted with Jonas Jablonskis who encouraged her to start collecting Lithuanian folklore. In the collection “Mūsų pasakos” (Our Talės) published in 1894, he included 3 fairy tales edited by himself and written down by G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė in Palanga in 1891. When she met Povilas Višinskis, who studied in the Faculty of Natural Sciences at the University of St. Petersburg in 1894- 1898, she became interested in collecting folklore on the theme of nature. The first items were written down in 1897 and 1898. For the Science of ethnology, valuable are the following collections: „Weather Forecasts and Superstitions of Lithuanians in Panevėžys County”, published in the Russian Geographic Society‘s journal „Živaja starina” in 1901, and „The Importance of the Moon for Lithuanians of Panevėžys County in Organizing Work” published in 1902. By the end of spring of that year, G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė was admitted as full member of the Russian Geographic Society and awarded a silver medal for presenting valuable material.G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė also discussed questions of collecting are the following collections: folklore with Jonas Basanavičius. By the year 1905 she had presented to him 384 items of the collected folklore. About 50 examples were received from Žemaitė. It is likely that within several years Jonas Basanavičius did not prepare the volume about magic and beliefs, which he had promised. So in 1911 she sent the collected „Material for the Lithuanian Folk Medicine” to the šame journal „Živaja starina”. It seems that the folklore collected by G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė was the first work about our country‘s spiritual heritage at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century that had been published outside of Lithuania. In 2004, the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore issued the 12th volume of the „Jonas Basanavičius Library , called „Juodoji knyga” (The Black Book). It contains the material accumulated by various authors about the beliefs, magic, superstitions and folk medicine of Lithuanians (about 1100 items from the folklorist Matas Slančiauskas records). G. Petkevičaitė-Bitė‘s collection ranks second in this book.