Atminimas didžio jubiliejaus, arba kaip lietuviai pasitiko XX amžių

LTStraipsnio tikslas — atkreipti dėmesį į beveik mūsų neakceptuotus 1901 m. Bažnyčios jubiliejui skirtus memorialinius objektus kaip į tam tikrą istorinės informacijos versmę. Yra išlikę daug įvairių tų jubiliejinių metų atminimo ženklų: paminklų, kryžių, medalių, atliktos išpažinties kortelių, antrinių relikvijų iš Romos Šv. Petro bazilikos, devocinių paveikslėlių, jubiliejaus proga bažnyčioms dovanotų meno kūrinių, pastatytų Kryžiaus kelio stočių koplytėlių ir kita. Publikacijoje pristatomas šis materialusis 1901 m. jubiliejaus paveldas Lietuvoje ir tarptautinis jo kontekstas. Svarstoma, kas norima pasakyti minėtais artefaktais, kokius mūsų prosenelių siekius jie atskleidžia, ką liudija ir kokios reikšmės lietuvių kalbos teisių bei tautinės savimonės įtvirtinimui turėjo lietuviškos jubiliejaus memorijos.

ENThe Church has been celebrating Jubilee years since 1300 but the only Jubilee that was solemnly celebrated by the Catholics in the 19th century was that of 1825-1826. It is therefore not surprising that in 1900 when, after an interval of 75 years and in the context of ever increasing laicisation, this tradition was restored and pope Leo XIII announced the Great Jubilee year, this religious event was received with great attention and significance. Seeking to ensure that every believer could celebrate the jubilee and following the usual practice of earlier centuries, the Holy Father extended it for 6 months into the year 1901 in the dioceses of the whole world, including Lithuania. The aim of this article is to draw attention to the memorial items dedicated to the 1901 Church Jubilee that have been barely accepted in our cultural history so far and to present them as a certain source of historical information. The Jubilee was an exclusive occasion for the materialisation of both religious and nationalistic aspirations and the pretext for the legitimisation of the Lithuanian language. Many various memorabilia of this Jubilee year have survived such as monuments, crosses, medals, cards of performed confessions, secondary relics from St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, devotional cards, artworks donated to churches on the occasion of the Jubilee and small shrines depicting the Stations of Cross built at the time.Cult buildings constructed at the time (such as a monumental church in Joniškis) were dedicated to the Jubilee of the Birth of Jesus and Christianity Era and the importance of this year was also recorded in the inscriptions on private tombstones. It is obvious that people pondered and reflected on the turn of the century and were deliberately trying to leave messages for the future. The article intends to reveal the aspirations of our ancestors embodied in the tangible heritage with artistic features of the 1901 Jubilee in Lithuania. The abundance of personal memorabilia and, in particular, of public Lithuanian memorabilia of the Jubilee undoubtedly testifies that the year 1901 was particularly important in the process of securing the rights of the Lithuanian language and national consciousness. After all, the Lithuanian press ban was still in effect that year. The article raises a hypothesis that the cards of performed confessions, medals in churches and monuments in churchyards with inscriptions in Lithuanian not only resulted from the activities of brave clergymen and parishioners but could have also reflected the position of the church hierarchy, particularly in Samogitian Diocese.