The article focuses on the development of attitude maintaining that literary and folklore phenomena are closely related, as well as an inclination to highlight the artistic qualities of the folk ...poetry. The beginning of this tendency should be attributed to the praise for Lithuanian folksongs, expressed by the figures of German Enlightenment in the 18th–19th centuries, philosophers and poets like E. G. Lessing, J. G. Herder, and J. W. Goethe. Lithuanian authors of the 19th century, e.g. L. Rėza, S. Stanevičius, A. Baranauskas, V. Pietaris and others also praised the Lithuanian folksongs and their beauty. Expressions of pride and delight in Lithuanian folklore were quite common in the course of the 20th century as well.
During this period, through the school handbooks the notion became entrenched that literature and folklore are phenomena closely related by nature, and therefore they should be analyzed in similar ways. The literary aesthetical background of the Lithuanian folklore scholarship became consolidated thanks to the efforts of B. Sruoga, J. Ambrazevičius, D. Sauka, K. Grigas, P. Jokimaitienė and many other researchers and writers. These criteria still seem relevant to the younger generation of scholars. The close proximity to the literary scholarship did not obscure the original character of Lithuanian folklore studies, which is shaped by such qualities as anonymity of the folk poetry, its conventionalism, multifacedness, panchronicity, synthesis of different arts, the nature of performance, etc.
Studies of the folklore performance processes and its performers, strongly influenced by various interpretations of the individual role in this creative process, started as early as the second half ...of the 19th century, gaining further strength in the course of the 20th century. Numerous works published in various countries, including Russia, Hungary, Finland, USA and others, present ample evidence of the development of these studies. The researchers study prominent informants, attempting to create their typologies, to reveal functioning of the performers in the contexts of different social groups, surveying time and space of their performances, the peculiarities of the individual repertoires, as well as interactions of the individual contributions with tradition. Features and means of the artistic expression, reaction of the audiences, etc. also tend to be evaluated. Representatives of the performance studies developed an especially broad and complex analysis of these phenomena.
The article contains a brief review of spheres of folkloristic activities by professor Kazys Grigas. His most outstanding achievements, however, belong to the field of paremiology: thanks to his own ...ceaseless attempts and under his guidance, over 200 000 proverbs and proverbial phrases were systematized, and publication of the fundamental edition of “Lithuanian Proverbs and Proverbial Phrases” launched (vol. 1, 2000). K. Grigas was the author of significant works in comparative paremiology, including books like “Lithuanian Proverbs” (1976) and “Parallels of Proverbs” (1987), and also numerous studies and problem articles. He published and examined other small forms of folklore as well, including riddles, onomatopoeias, tong-twisters, jokes, etc. K. Grigas also significantly contributed to the Lithuanian folklore historiography, conducting research into the 19th century, especially the works by S. Daukantas. K. Grigas was an active folklore collector, a devoted teacher of the young folklorists and researchers, editor of various folklore publications, etc. His merits in Lithuanian folklore research and popularization are truly magnificent.
The folklore scholarship comprises theory of folklore, methodology of folklore studies, and history of folklore.
The folklore genealogy, poetics, systematics, archival work, terenial studies, the ...applied folklore research, etc. have also established themselves as separate disciplines.
Folklore scholarship aims at investigation of meaning, origins, functioning and understanding of folklore. The main spheres of studies include revealing peculiarities of this kind of verbal art, the basis of its existence, character of the visual patterning, and strata of themes, ideas and values; examining the changing role of folklore in the national history; studying peculiarities of structure inherent in pieces of folklore and principles of organizing an artistic text, its relationship with the cultural context and other kinds of art; examining the regional, national and international folklore processes.
The leading center of the folklore scholarship in Lithuania is the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. The Department of Ethnomusicology, together with the Chair in Ethnomusicology (1989), situated at the Faculty of the Piano and Musicology, Lithuanian Musical Academy, is the leading center of ethnomusicological research and training of specialists in ethnomusicology. Teachers of the Ethnology and Folklore Department at the Faculty of Humanities, Kaunas University, along with teaching ethnology and ethnomusicology, also give a number of courses in folklore. The university also pursues the scheme for the bachelor and master studies in ethnology and folklore. The scholarly research strategy of the Department of Lithuanian Literature, Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University, includes folkloristics as well. Courses in Lithuanian folklore are also given at the Department of Lithuanian Literature, Faculty of Lithuanian Studies of the Vilnius Pedagogical University. Specialists in folklore work at the Department of Baltic Linguistics and Ethnology, Faculty of Humanities at the University of Klaipda, together with linguists and
ethnologists. This department also administrates the Folklore laboratory, which has 3 employees and functions as basis for accumulating the dialectological, folklore and ethnographical data as well as serving purposes of the education process...
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