Apie besiplečiančią etnologinių tyrimų erdvę ir galimybes Lietuvoje : recenzija

LTMonografija "Vilniečių socialinė sąveika ir kultūrinė raiška: laisvalaikis, šventės ir ritualai" (2019) yra trijų Lietuvos istorijos instituto (LII) Etnologijos ir antropologijos skyriaus etnologų Rasos Paukštytės-Šaknienės, Irmos Šidiškienės ir Žilvyčio Šaknio bendras darbas. Tai etnografinis ir etnologinis Vilniaus gyventojų laisvalaikio, šventinio gyvenimo bei su juo susijusių žmonių tarpusavio santykių tyrimas. Šeima (Paukštytė-Šaknienė), bendradarbiai (Šidiškienė) ir draugai (Šaknys) yra tyrėjų pasirinktos socialinės prieigos ir konceptualios erdvės vilniečių laisvalaikio kultūriniams ypatumams pažinti: kaip jie leidžia laiką, laisvą nuo darbo ar po darbo, kokias šventes ir kaip švenčia, kokias progas pažymi. Esu skaičiusi dar rankraštinį monografijos variantą, tad įdomu buvo vėl prie jos sugrįžti. Tuo labiau kad ambicingas autorių išvadų teiginys, jog „[l]aisvalaikis gali būti suvokiamas kaip svarbus ir savarankiškas socialinis ir kultūrinis reiškinys, praplečiantis etnologinių tyrinėjimų erdvę ir galimybes Lietuvoje“ (p. 281), paskatino pasigilinti ne tik į monografiją, bet ir į besiplečiantį etnologinių tyrimų lauką Lietuvoje. Tyrimas, kuris yra monografijos pagrindas, nėra pirmas bendras šių trijų etnologų darbas. Paukštytė-Šaknienė, Šidiškienė, Šaknys jau senokai atlieka etnografinius ir etnologinius tyrimus kartu. Švenčių ir šventinių papročių tema jiems taip pat nėra nauja sritis. Paukštytė-Šaknienė, Šidiškienė ir Šaknys atstovauja etnologų kartai, įsitraukusiai į akademinę bendruomenę po Lietuvos nepriklausomybės atkūrimo 1990 m.Jie subrendo kaip mokslininkai XX a. dešimtajame dešimtmetyje pradėję savarankiškus tyrimus ir 1996–2000 m. apsigynę etnologijos mokslo krypties disertacijas Vytauto Didžiojo universitete dirbdami jau visiškai kitomis nei jų vyresnieji kolegos ar tyrimų vadovai sąlygomis. Jų darbai atstovauja Lietuvos etnologijos mokslo plėtrai posovietiniu laikotarpiu. Tai ryškus vietinės mokyklos tradicijų, vyresniųjų kolegų patirties, etnologinių tyrimų stiliaus (plg. Čapo 2015: 58) tęstinumas, bet kartu ir siekis plėtoti šiuolaikinę šio mokslo perspektyvą. [...]. [Iš teksto, p. 207-208]

ENThis review of the monograph "Vilniečių socialinė sąveika ir kultūrinė raiška: laisvalaikis, šventės ir ritualai" (The Social Interaction and Cultural Expression of Vilnius Residents: Leisure Time, Celebrations and Rituals, 2019), by Rasa Paukštytė-Šaknienė, Irma Šidiškienė and Žilvytis Šaknys, draws attention to the development of ethnological research in Lithuania. All three authors represent the generation of ethnologists who joined the academic community after the restoration of Lithuania’s independence in 1990. They were among the first PhD students in Lithuania to study on the doctoral programme in ethnology at Kaunas Vytautas Magnus University, which was restored in 1989, and successfully defended their dissertations in the 1990s. These ethnologists worked under completely different conditions to those of their older colleagues at the Lithuanian Institute of History. The period after the restoration of Lithuania’s independence in 1990 was a time of fundamental changes in the humanities and the social sciences, when the requirements of Soviet ideology, the politicisation of science, and the hegemony of censorship collapsed. The space of social theory which had developed in the West opened up to Lithuanian researchers. The real possibility to join the international world of science, as well as the institutionalisation and development of the disciplines of ethnology, folklore and social anthropology at Lithuanian universities, were fundamental changes that accompanied the transformation of ethnography, which had functioned during the Soviet era as a part of history, into the independent discipline of ethnology. The review emphasises the fact that the monograph on the social interaction and cultural expression of Vilnius residents grew logically out of the previous research by its authors. The theme of festivals and festive customs is not a new field for them.The first joint project by Paukštytė-Šaknienė, Šidiškienė and Šaknys (and also Vida Savoniakaitė) was the Lithuanian Institute of History project ‘Atlas of Lithuanian Ethnic Culture. Customs (2002–2011)’, which began in 1998 as the programme ‘Atlas of Lithuanian Customs: The Second Half of the 20th Century’ (supervised by Irena Regina Merkienė). This was a historical-geographical study of Lithuanian folk customs and culture. Its conceptual idea leaned towards the programme of national atlases that had existed before the Second World War and between the 1950s and the 1980s in the field of European ethnology, the European atlas (from the Atlantic to the Urals) of folk culture, and the Baltic historical-ethnographic atlas of agriculture and attire prepared by Soviet Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian ethnologists between the 1960s and the 1980s. The atlas of Lithuanian customs is innovatory for its shift towards a thematic field that was ignored in the Soviet era, the customs of the life cycle and calendar holidays, which in rural culture are closely related to religion. It was also a shift from the material space emphasised in Soviet times towards the social space. The second joint work by Paukštytė-Šaknienė, Šidiškienė and Šaknys (this time together with Jonas Mardosa) was the research project for the Research Council of Lithuania ‘Modern Family Celebrations of Vilnius Residents (2012- 2014)’. Although the thematic field remained the same, i.e. festive customs, the space of the research changed, from rural to urban, to a multiethnic and multicultural space, diverse in ethnic, confessional, social and cultural terms. The monograph ‘The Social Interaction and Cultural Expression of Vilnius residents’ is the third joint project by these three authors. It is an ethnographic and ethnological study of the leisure, festive occasions and relations among residents of Vilnius.The place of this research has changed in comparison with their previous work, moving once again from a geographical space, the city of Vilnius, towards a social space: family, co-workers, and communities of friends. However, perhaps the most striking change in this monograph is the expansion and diversity of the thematic field. It includes the city, family, co-workers and friends, leisure, work and recreation, celebrations, day-to-day and occasional commemorations, rituals, social relationships, virtual space, etc. The authors of the monograph, who approached people very closely, went with them everywhere they went, capturing and evaluating all life situations and contexts from an ethnographic point of view, and thus unknowingly falling into the embrace of ethnography. The dualism of the object of study, namely, leisure and festivals, in spite of some ethnographic arguments that counteract it, leaves the thematic diversity open, and preserves the authority of ethnography. The monograph is a ‘composite’ work by three researchers. These are three different studies, presenting different thematic problematic contexts, preferences and analytical styles. The authors gave each other the freedom to move in their own directions, and choose their own perspectives offered by the ethnographic field. The freedom to raise problematic questions in the field is the valuable aspect of this monograph. The review also draws attention to tendencies highlighted in the monograph that are typical of works by other Lithuanian ethnologists. Firstly, it is the anthropologisation of ethnology, which the Croatian ethnologist Dunja Rihtman-Auguštin called ‘ethno-anthropology’. Social and cultural anthropology, and its theoretical contexts, nowadays inevitably influences local schools of ethnology in Lithuania. For example, it is similar to Estonia. [...]. [From the publication]