• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
• Publicationsclose
• Research dataclose
• 2019-2023close
• Article close
• Estonian close
• Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage close

This article examines the influence of the Enlightenment on the liturgical life of the Livonian Lutheran Church in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, when many clergymen set aside traditional liturgical forms and introduced new ones, based on Enlightenment humanistic principles. It surveys the extent to which the traditional Livonian agenda was still in use at this time and what neological liturgical handbooks were employed in its place. Since the Livonian Church consisted of German, Latvian, and Estonian ethnic groups, the article enquires whether new liturgical forms were also implemented in Latvian and Estonian congregations, which at that time had not yet been affected by the ideas of the Enlightenment.

The article gives an overview of the folk culture mechanisms that helped to cope with the pandemic situation in Belorussia during the first wave of COVID-19 (until midsummer 2020). The article is based on the qualitative analysis of interview texts related to the pandemic as well as the content of internet users' visual reactions (memes, poems, proverbs). In folk culture the mechanisms helping to overcome the crisis situation often have a ritual-magical nature. When describing the influence of the pandemic on some practices, the authors conclude that their performing in the crisis situation was especially important for the community. One of the ancient rituals activated for preventing the epidemic was the creation of a magic circle around the village by conducting a procession around the village with a ritual towel ('rushnik-abydzionnik'), which had to be made within one day. On March 28, this one-day-ritual was performed in Minsk with the greatest possible adherence to tradition. The initiators and participants of the practice were mainly representatives of the Students Ethnographic Society. Not all women present knew how to spin or weave, but some of the simplest operations were mastered. The towel was carried around Minsk and brought to a stone on the site of a pagan temple in the centre of Minsk at the sunset. The towel was tied around the stone, and the latter was also covered with threads spun on the same day. The ritual relieved the tension of the participants and fostered awareness of their solidarity, strengthening collective networks, and the feeling of empathy and unity. COVID-19 also affected the living traditions in Belarus. Some traditional practices were cancelled or postponed. The spread of the pandemic created a negative backdrop for living traditions. However, a number of rites and ceremonies were carried out despite the pandemic in accordance with their spatial and temporal reference. Due to the difficult epidemiological situation, the usual order of ceremonies was changed - their duration was reduced without changing the traditional rite structure. Only local residents participated in the rituals;although, formerly, many journalists and tourists had come to the villages from different parts of the country on the days of the ceremonies. For tradition bearers, such practices during a pandemic are a way to relieve stress and to share problems with people with similar interests. Traditions are one of the constants of their life;maintaining them in times of crises stabilizes the community. The coronavirus pandemic has caused a powerful explosion of folk art. The texts of various genres, both oral and written (graphic), are rapidly spreading on the Internet. A large number of them are based on the traditional worldview of Belarusians and are expressed in traditional forms (alterations, ditties, anecdotes, anti-sayings, paroemias, etc.). The role of humour has grown tremendously. Jokes and laughter in the face of an external threat are a compensatory mechanism that helps to overcome fear and uncertainty, and common laughter unites and helps to learn new rules of behaviour. Humour is not concerned with the threat of getting ill, but rather individual hygiene practices, the situation of quarantine, and circumstances of the new reality. Thus, humorous folklore becomes a way to adapt to new norms and to overcome fear and instability. © 2021 Eesti Keele InstituutAƒÂ‚A‚Â. All rights reserved.

Since the late 16th – early 17th century, tobacco smoking habit in Europe spread widely, which led to a new business branch – the production and sale of pipes. Due to the lack of historical data about when the habit of smoking tobacco emerged in eastern Baltic, it is imperative to pay attention to clay pipes that are considered to be a particularly suitable group of findings to specify the chronological limits. The article analyses in detail the chronologically earliest clay pipes found during archaeological research in Vilnius. Based on the typology of findings and known analogues, the author singles out the oldest pipes, names the possible places of their production, provides an interpretation of the appearance of pipes in the city. The article provides an overview of the development of smoking in Vilnius in the first half of the 17th century, as the text focuses not only on the analysis of findings, but also briefly introduces the historical, social and cultural contexts that led to the smoking of one or another type of tobacco pipe in Vilnius.

Peer reviewed

QC 20200415

.