Bendra, bet sava: apie šiuolaikinius aukštaičius

LTLietuvos istoriografiją papildo vis nauji darbai, skirti "savo" ir "kito" apibrėžimams. Tapatybės suvokimui visada buvo svarbi erdvė, žemė, laikas. Atlikta daug regioninės savimonės tyrimų, tačiau gyvenimu pulsuojanti visuomenė neišvengiamai keičia "ribų" sampratas. Istorijoje, anot Edvardo Gudavičiaus, aukštaičių sąvoka atsirado XIV a. viduryje (Gudavičius 1999: 31). Ilgainiui politiniai veiksniai paveikė istoriškai susiklosčiusio kultūros paveldo puoselėjimą. Jau XIX a. pabaigoje buvo aktyviai propaguojama regioninės, lokalinės specifikos reikšmė visai lietuvių tautai (Aleksandravičius 1997: 291). Vykstant lietuvių tautiniam išsivadavimui, buvo akcentuojamas tautos vieningumas, keliami romantizuoti visos nacijos bruožai, o atkūrus nepriklausomą Lietuvos valstybę, ypač XX a. ketvirtajame dešimtmetyje, pradėta grįžti prie "regioninio prigimtiškumo" dalykų. Etnologai daug dėmesio skyrė Lietuvos regioninės kultūros, subkultūros savitumų XIX a. pabaigoje ir XX a. pirmojoje pusėje tyrimams. Pastaruosiuose darbuose dėmesys ryškiai nukrypo į visuomenės tapatybės ypatumus, individo savojo "aš" ir "kito" kultūros savitumus, etninių stereotipų funkcionavimą ir genezę (Kalnius 2002: 47-48). Humanitariniuose tyrimuose tebėra diskusiniai kintančių Lietuvos kultūrinių regionų ribų klausimai. Todėl aktualu pažvelgti, kokią įtaką šiuolaikinėms žmonių tapatybių sampratoms daro vieta. [Iš teksto, p. 169]Reikšminiai žodžiai: Aukštaičiai; Tapatybė; Etniškumas; Papročiai; Tradicijos; Kultūra; Kasdienybė; Tyrimai; Aukštaitija; Aukštaitians; Identity; Ethnicity; Customs; Traditions; Culture; Everyday life; Research; Aukštaitija; Lithuania.

ENThe changing discourses on European cultural regions and their fluctuating boundaries have come into the focus of discussion featuring numerous humanitarian fields of study. The culture of Lithuania merges into the concurrent processes of integration and consolidation of specific identities on an all-European scale. How does a specific locality influence multiple present-day understandings of identity? Do the European processes of social modernisation reach as far as Aukštaitija? How do agrarian symbols and their images intertwine with the far-reaching urgent tasks faced by societies? How does the "detraditionalisation" process affect them? How do Aukštaitians define themselves? These are the questions of a great topical interest. I tried to answer them in my works based on the findings of my recent 2002-2004 ethnographic enquiry into the lifestyle and identity of Aukštaitian people. From the methodological point of view I seek to find out how people understand their environment. At the same time I try to elicit a more exhaustive answer from my respondents and to record more thoroughly numerous customs practised by the Aukštaitian community, namely, to determine their origins, the area of distribution, the meaning and other related issues. I interviewed people differing from the point of view of age, gender, education and ethnicity. Topics of our discussions included such issues as identity, characteristics featuring local people, opinion on local customs, and culture. Relying on the techniques of observation, structured and non-structured interview I sought to find out what people, as citizens, community members, residents and original culture producers, thought about their distinctiveness and relatcdness. By this study I purpose to explore how multiple residents populating a definite territory - Aukštaitija, in this particular case, - understand their identity and culture.I am going to specify, firstly, what constituents basically define the local "boundaries" of people, and, secondly, what "symbols of Aukštaitianness" survive the process of modernisation, or, more pointedly, how environment affects and constructs the present-day "Aukštaitian mentality". History indicates that Lithuanians have demonstrated more than once their attachment to and affection for their nation, territory and land. Soaked in romantic ideas and glorified by numerous poets and writers, the native land emerges as a "symbol" from a multitude of identity definitions offered by present-day Aukštaitians - like "Anykščių šilelis" by A. Baranauskas. Urgent tasks and events of everyday life, agricultural operations, and customs exciting occassionally the echoes of an ancient pagan religion influence the intimate relation between man and nature. People link their identities with kinship and family traditions - practised within a narrow territory, they may sometimes exhibit very specific features. Young and elderly respondents' views on every-day issues, such as education or modified material conditions, more specifically, the steadily increasing rate of "subjects" / "objects" migration differ dramatically. Modernisation introduces sweeping changes into relations among "subjects". Due to a new political situation, the circulation of the flows of capital is largely defined by new political circumstances. Among other things, they include new programmes financed by the European Union, funds and technologies coming from abroad, availability of jobs, and new information flows. These factors provide additional impulses to distance oneself from relatively slower processes of "detraditionalisation" in the provinces. The study corroborated my assumption that new "objects", that is new jobs, new capital structures, investments, and information sources affect "s.In the provinces one's moving away from the "time-space" plane takes different courses among the younger and the older generation. This process has provoked young people's defection from the ranks of land-tillers, and, eventually, from the provinces. Youth's migration and thirst for knowledge and work in the centres corroborate my another assumption that a range of choice increases and that people feel freer to make a choice and that the process of perception, compared to a traditional society, experiences sweeping changes. In Lithuania we can witness a surviving regional understanding of identity based on modernised ethnic boundaries: Aukštaitians state that they are the children of one village. Naturally, such "self-definition suggests that the community is fully aware of the priorities and specific lifestyle characteristics featuring a traditional society. However thorough investigation into the views, "self-definitions and interests exhibited by people differing in terms of age and education shows clearly that "detraditionalisation" processes are sufficiently advanced and that the symbols of ethnicity are steadily becoming more and more "empty": they keep loosing the meanings possessed by them in a traditional society. Aukštaitian farmers work on and develop specialised farms. Farmers' education and labour, including the priorities and chances to create novel things, novel structures and more elaborate strategies largely determine these economies. Those Aukštaitians who keep their entire capital invested in a small piece of land develop smallscale economies. These tiny subsistence economies satisfy their basic material needs, proportionally small to match the size of their farms. These Aukštaitians are engaged in the creation of values for their own sake. [From the publication]