К вопросу об этнотопонимичeсkой идентичности низины реки Hявежис

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Etnotoponimai; Identitetas; Sudurtiniai toponimai; Tapatybė; Toponimai; Toponimika; Česlovas Milošas; Compound toponyms; Czeslaw Milosz; Ethnotoponymy; Identity; Lithuania; Toponyms; Toponymy.

ENEthnic exhibition in the works of Czeslaw Miłosz is provoked by the personality’s existential need for a selfimage. One can best recognise that in his novel "The Issa Valley". The narrative of the novel takes place in the specific geographical place, named Issa valley. As the author says himself, the prototype of Issa valley is the lowland of the Nevėžis. The Issa – the imaginative river name – is interpreted in the novel as the heritage of the Baltic ethnicity. In the centre of Lithuania toponyms could be researched as the exhibition of some ethnic identity. While taking the Nevėžis lowland as a reference point, it could be described as having a big concentration of toponymical identification unit – toponyms with a compound member -gala. Toponyms with -gala are relatively remote from the banks of the Nevėžis – they form a broad territory around the lowland of Nevėžis. On the banks of Nevėžis there are the toponyms with the suffix -ainiai. This suffix is typical for the Baltic hydronyms, anthroponyms, toponyms found in Latvian and, as it seems, Prussian languages. For that reason there is the preliminary conclusion that the toponyms with the suffix -ainiai are one of the oldest in the territory of Lithuania. [From the publication]

• Etnologija / Ethnology
• Kalbotyra / Linguistics
• Istorija / History