Lietuvos provincijos intelektualų grupės formavimasis ir raida (XIX a. pradžia – XIX a. 7 dešimtmetis): bendrieji tyrimo aspektai

• Authors: Reda Griškaitė

Abstracts

EN

In recent decades inquiries into European nobility of the 18th–19th century have been on the rise. Scholars pose new problems and hypotheses, speak about changes in the forms of the nobility’s existence and social networks initiated by the nobles as well as investigate functions assumed by the nobility in various European societies. Regional research of the nobility which allow the comparison of noblemen’s social groups and their local communities seem productive and viable. The said researches cover both political and economic as well as cultural and mental spheres of the nobility’s life, because changes in the latter spheres were also significant. This is equally true speaking about the world of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania nobility in the 19th century. The traditional political, economic, social and cultural elite – the nobility – started losing important social position – external (due to changes in political conditions, possibilities to participate in the political life of the region and its administration decreased) and internal (structural changes within the class evoked by the above mentioned situation) factors accountable for that. Certain compensation to the losses was the aspiration to sustain and enhance the class’s cultural function through personal involvement into the process of culture preservation and creation. Thus in the first half of the 19th century the group of noble landlords who fostered specific intellectual aspirations was formed. The birth and rise of this segment could have been induced by the general process of culture democratization, expansion of press and reading culture that underwent significant acceleration, education and the family environment, imitation of different models as well as tradition or even prestige to organize meaningful pastime alongside farming in the estates. It is obvious that in the former territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania the above-described aspirations of noblemen were considerably influenced by Imperial University of Vilnius as the majority of representatives of this unique social segment were in one way or another related to this institution of science and education. Shutdown of the University had impact on the rise in the numbers of the so called province intellectuals as the majority of former students and professors settled down in manors and estates. However, inquiry into intellectual aspirations of noble landlords is always an analysis of a rather narrow and uncharacteristic of the whole nobility phenomenon. The so called intellectual islands in the province were usually created by a single personality prominent not only by his/her creative talent but also by social weight (“biography” also played an important role, for example, being part of the legendary philomaths and philaretes environment), therefore the scope and the spread of the intellectual activity could not be considerable just as not considerable were the numbers of the intellectual elite in the province. On the other hand, the impact of cultural dissemination for the most part depended on the ambitions of the creator to make his/her literary and scholarly work or other intellectual activity public. Even more so, when these persons were of great talent. In general, the middle of the century saw the tendency to “decrease” the privacy of noble landlords’ creative aspirations and increase their “publicity”. However, more important is the fact of intellectual activities in the manors than that of their dissemination. Hence the intellectual aspirations of noble landlords were a highly individual matter, just as individual is creative and intellectual work itself. Material well-being and surplus of free time for cultural activities were an important factor facilitating access to intellectual work, however, was far from being the underlying precondition. This partially prompts the trend for research of the social segment in question – the approach is always unique with particular attention on the biography of the person under investigation. In other words, it is always a highly personalized history. After all, the social segment of noble landlords – both men and women – who fostered intellectual aspirations in the first half of the 19th century has so far not been given special consideration. Historiographic research is scarce and for the most part carried out the plane of the so called manor culture or biography of one or another creator. However, even a superficial source analysis indicates that intellectual aspirations of noblemen for the most part covered all spheres of cultural and even scholarly life. Moreover, this group had adopted a unique way of life that was typical of it only and had distinctive self-pastiche based on the so called Horace ideology. The Roman poet offered to the nobility of the region a half-way model of living implementation of which allowed harmonisation of intellectual and civic aspirations. A few more aspects are noteworthy. Analysis of this status of nobility provides ample materials for the genesis of the intelligentsia of noble descent and for its portrait in general. Furthermore, such research is always a compound of social and cultural history bearing unquestionable benefit to both of them.

• Publisher: Lietuvos istorijos institutas
• Journal: Lietuvos istorijos metraštis
• Year: 2013
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 25-56

Dates

published

2013

Contributors

author

Reda Griškaitė

• Lietuvos istorijos institutas

Identifiers

Biblioteka Nauki

57628920