Lithuanian National Costume in the 19th Century and in the 2nd Half of the 20th Century: Cultural Pollution and Remains of Authenticity

Eglė Kumpikaitė,Rimvydas Milašius

doi:10.3390/soc11010017

Abstract

Lithuanian authors, authors abroad, and artists have presented Lithuanian folk clothes in their works. However, the oldest examples of these representations are not very reliable, because the authors painted them according to the descriptions of other people or copied works among each other. In the 20th century, the national costume of Lithuania changed considerably. Attention was not given to ethnographic regional peculiarities; instead, similar materials were chosen without any analysis. This article performs a comparative analysis of folk (the 19th century to the first half of the 20th century) and national (the second half of the 20th century) Lithuanian costumes to establish signs of cultural pollution and remaining authenticity. Over 500 articles of clothing with different purposes are collected from Lithuanian museums. Fabric parameters, such as raw materials, weaving technique, weave, pattern, decoration elements, etc., are established. The research results show that authentic folk clothes of the 19th century differ from the national costume of the second half of the 20th century in their cut, decoration, and patterns. No differences between ethnographic regions survived in the national costumes. Thus, at present, we must preserve our tangible heritage and re-create, as authentically as possible, national costume for folk songs and dance ensembles, folk restaurants, and rural tourism homesteads.

Highlights

Becoming citizens of “the world”, interpretations and perceptions of traditions, and the cultural and historical heritage of each country are very important
This study focuses more on a narrower period and covers a much narrower area of tangible heritage—Lithuanian women’s peasant clothing of the 19th century—the beginning of the 20th century
Due to the introduction of urban fashion into the Lithuanian countryside, clothes from the end of the 19th century to the beginning of the 20th century take on a Pan-European look

Summary

Introduction

Becoming citizens of “the world”, interpretations and perceptions of traditions, and the cultural and historical heritage of each country (which were significantly distorted during the Soviet period) are very important. Ethnographers have evaluated works of artists from the second half of the 18th century to the 19th century as important iconographic materials for investigating the clothes of Lithuanian peasants. In the 19th century, many sources depicting and describing Lithuanian folk clothing appeared, but it was mostly foreign (Polish, French, Russian) authors [7–13]. Some information is only available in single publications, such as the album of folk art called “Clothes” [14], and in the monographs and catalogues of professional artists [15], in which some works of peasants’ clothes can be found. Important ethnographic sources on Lithuanian clothes and iconographic materials are discussed in Vyšniauskaitė’s work about Lithuanians in the 9th–19th centuries [18,19]. Milius’s article, which describes authors who wrote about clothes in Lithuania Minor [20], is important for researchers. Šidiškienė investigated the evolution of folk costume, the traditional clothes of Lithuania Minor, and its descriptions in books and articles [22]. Appearance [25–32], cut [26], decoration [33], territorial distribution of folk clothes are described

Methods

Results

Conclusion