Towns In Lithuania Research Articles

The Situation of Teaching History in Jewish Gymnasiums and Progymnasiums of Lithuania in the Period of 1919–1940

The aim of the present study is to explore the situation of teaching History in the Jewish gymnasiums and progymnasiums in the period under discussion, and alongside to reveal differences in the content of teaching history in Jewish and Lithuanian schools as stipulated by the country’s government. The study is based on the documents found in Lithuanian Central State Archives available in the collection of the Ministry of Education of the Republic of Lithuania (f. 391), and in the collection of the Jewish society “Tarbut” (f. 552); use was made of the periodicals of that period, for instance, the Jewish newspaper Apžvalga (The Overview). The obtained findings revealed that after the First World War, in the newly established state of Lithuania, Jewish children could attend government-funded schools with Lithuanian as the language of instruction. The government allowed the Jews to find their own private gymnasiums and progymnasiums with Hebrew and Yiddish as the languages of instruction. That kind of schools soon appeared in different towns in Lithuania: in 1919 such schools were established in Kaunas, Marijampolė, Virbalis, and Vilkaviškis; in 1920 – in Skuodas, Kaunas, Ukmergė, Panevėžys, Šiauliai, Telšiai, Kalvarija; in 1921 – in Jurbarkas and Raseiniai; in 1922 – in Ukmergė, Kėdainiai and Alytus. The number of those schools was steadily growing as new schools were established: in 1923 – in Kaunas, Šiauliai, Utena, Mažeikiai, and Kretinga; in 1925 – in Panevėžys, Kaunas, and Tauragė; in 1926 – two schools in Biržai and Kaunas. In the period under discussion, 30 new schools were founded. In later years, the situation was gradually changing as the number of newly founded schools decreased, and some existing schools had to close for certain reasons. All the afore-mentioned Jewish schools, both gymnasiums and progymnasiums, followed three different ideological directions, and thus three networks of Jewish schools had been formed: Tarbut (a worldwide network of schools with Hebrew as the language of instruction), Yavneh (orthodox school with instruction in Hebrew), and the Culture League network (secular school with instruction in Yiddish). To some extent, those different school networks pre-conditioned differences in the approaches to the teaching content in the school curriculum. The study has revealed that as the subjects taught in private Jewish gymnasiums and progymnasiums focused on Jewish identity, the mother tongue was given top priority. In most Jewish schools, Hebrew took this position, and only several schools chose Yiddish as the first language. There were cases of disagreement and even conflicts arising over the language of instruction and its influence. As religion played a very special role in Jewish identity, several Jewish identity-related subjects were taught at schools: “The Bible”, “The Talmud”, “Torah”, “Mishnah”, and the like. Subjects of religious education were given several weekly contact hours and occupied the key position among other subjects in the curriculum. Jewish history was the second in importance. The present study has revealed that the syllabus of history comprised three subjects: world history, the history of Lithuania, and Jewish history. Up to 1924, school head teachers were authorised to design school curricula independently and to assign a certain number of contact hours to each subject. Within the context of history teaching during that particular period, the greatest number of hours was allocated to the teaching of Jewish history. From 1924, school curricula did not distinguish Jewish history as a separate subject any longer. However, in reality, the segment of Jewish history remained strong, except that it came under the subjects of world history and the history of Lithuania. The findings of the present study suggest that the content of Jewish history included materials of the period from the end of the fifteenth century up to the beginning of the twentieth century. Most attention was given to the issues of Jewish history in Europe and the surrounding countries. Among the topics of the teaching content, the emphasis was placed on the issues of the study of the Judaic tradition, the most prominent rabbis, outstanding philosophers, and renowned figures of Jewish culture. In the 1930s, it became common to focus more on the issues of Jewish emigration of the end of the nineteenth century and issues of Zionism. Teachers Jews sought to achieve enhanced teaching of Jewish history in their gymnasiums and progymnasiums whereas education officers of Lithuania sought adequate teaching of the history of Lithuania to ensure an adequate education for the young Jews to become dedicated citizens of Lithuania, the country they belonged to.

TRANSFORMATION OF PROTECTED URBAN LANDSCAPES

Protected urban landscapes are usually perceived as old parts of a town or old towns. Such historical hubs are found in Vilnius, Kaunas, Klaipėda, Kėdainiai and other towns in Lithuania. Perhaps such landscapes can be found in each state of European or the world; the most valuable are included into the UNESCO World Heritage List. History of these cities or towns lasts for centuries; however, even on these territories the transformation as a process shaping the woven fabric is inevitable. A city or a town is exposed to changes; therefore, the old parts of cities or towns should be adjusted to the life of a particular period. Because of that reason city or town centres were being rebuilt, reconstructed or regenerated. A relevant present-day problem deals with the creation of new architecture in historical environment which makes an impact on the valuable properties of old towns.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.18.1.16260

Specific features of dialectal regional self-consciousness in cities and towns of Lithuania (based on sociolinguistic data)

In the world which globalizes and levels out the differences of language dialects, their usage becomes an expression of a natural ethnic identity. The studies of their actual changes can reveal the ongoing processes in society. Unfortunately, studies of this kind are very few. To the authors’ knowledge, there has been no research focusing on regional patterns of dialect usage. Based on the data provided by the research project Sociolinguistic Map of Lithuania: Towns and Villages, the authors analyse the use of dialects in 67 towns of Lithuania with the population exceeding 3,000 people. The aim of the article is to determine regional peculiarities of sociolinguistic use and attitudes towards dialects, i.e. the distribution patterns of regional identity.The first section of the article is devoted to the opinions about the links of the distribution of the most beautiful, most common, most prestigious and hardly understandable dialects to the ethnographic regional structure of Lithuania. It has been determined that in smaller Lithuanian towns, especially the ones situated in the regional kernels, the usage of the dialects is still vital and regional identity is still very strong, whereas the residents of big towns, except Klaipėda, value the dialect of the region of their origin more than the dialect of their current region. The Žemaitija and Aukštaitija regions are dialectically strongest in Lithuania. Their dialects tend to spread. Meanwhile, the positions of the dialect in the small region of Dzūkija and regional identity of its population are weaker.The second section analyses opinions about the value of dialects and the necessity to preserve them. The residents of regions and towns with homogeneous ethnic structure are more determined to encourage the younger generation to use their native dialect. The same attitude is also characteristic of the population residing in kernels of regions.

MIESTO KOMPOZICIJOS SAMPRATOS KLAUSIMU

Summary A city nowadays has become a really complex and multi-layered structure containing the features of a phenomenon. It is a formation that has transformed or forced to rethinking many “standardized” urbanistic theories and approaches. By its shape and content it is a dynamic, constantly changing and multiple system related to other larger urban structures forming larger-scale urbanized networks. Due to such peculiarities, the city and its aesthetic qualities can no longer by judged and defined by the categories of the 19th and 20thcenturies. Its issues and problems have long ago trespassed the boundaries of a single scientific discipline. Nevertheless, the issue of urban aesthetics and composition still remains very relevant, especially bearing in mind recent global socio-cultural conditions and the related urban unification, as, following the intense wave of urbanization, many Lithuanian towns, with the capital Vilnius preeminently, have changed a lot, both on “the outside” (cityscape) and “the inside” (local visual perception) within the last decade. Many examples of such recently transformed towns in Lithuania just testify the fact that the issue of aesthetics and composition has been almost or totally ignored in further developing or newly shaping the centers of such towns. By exploring quite a large number of foreign and Lithuanian sources of urban theory and examples of urban space and composition analysis (these are presented in the attached bibliography), the article author aims at reviewing and analyzing the categories of urban composition, its theoretical approaches and insights. This text is a presentation of interim results of the larger research. Some thesises and concepts have been also presented in different scientific conferences and publications, in the Lithuanian and English languages. Santrauka Analizuojant daug užsienio ir Lietuvos urbanistikos teorijos literatūros šaltinių ir urbanistinės erdvės (Urban Space) bei kompozicijos analizės pavyzdžių, pateikiamų šio straipsnio literatūros sąraše, apžvelgiamos ir analizuojamos urbanistinės (arba miesto) kompozicijos kategorijos, teorinės nuostatos bei sampratos. Šiame tekste pateikiami tarpiniai didesnio tyrimo rezultatai. Kai kurios jo tezės ir nuostatos buvo paskelbtos mokslinėse konferencijose bei mokslinėse publikacijose lietuvių ir anglų kalbomis.

MODELLING OF VILNIUS PUBLIC TRANSPORT ROUTE NETWORK

The territory of the town is divided into areas: residential, industrial and recreational. Such division of the town into areas make inhabitants increasingly dependent on the transport system. In Lithuania and in other European countries the public transport is recognised as priority transport. In the towns of Lithuania, differently from other places, attention paid to it is insufficient, and the network of routes is being changed in a chaotic and unreasonable way. Modelling of Vilnius public transport was carried out with the help of VISUM software. The aim of modelling is to guarantee higher quality of living of inhabitants by modelling a public transport route network in Vilnius. A three‐level public transport network was formed: main, service and feeder routes, which facilitated rational provision of Vilnius inhabitants with the public transport services.

Economic analysis of the renovation of small-scale district heating systems—4 Lithuanian case studies

This paper describes the renovation and replacement problems of small district heating systems (DHS), which are characteristic to small towns in Lithuania and other Central and East European (CEE) countries. These problems have been scarcely investigated till present and are still the subject of acute energy policy discussions. The focus of this paper is economic analysis of heat generation costs with the aim to get an answer to the question: whether existing small DHS should be renovated or replaced by individual heating systems. The paper gives an economic analysis of heat generating costs for various technological solutions and capacities suitable for the needs of heat consumers in small towns. The analysis includes long-run heat generating costs in natural gas and biofuel boiler houses and CHP installations, including individual buildings and small DHS. Four small towns in Lithuania with the population below 40,000 were selected for the economic analysis. The economic, financial and technical state of DHS operated in these towns is different and reflects the diversity of DHS in Lithuania. The least cost heat-generating solutions for individual and district heating were investigated. The barriers for market penetration of new technologies were disclosed under Lithuania's conditions. The findings can also be useful for other CEE countries with similar problems.

CONSISTENTS OF CAR'S PARKING IN LITHUANIAN TOWNS

Large towns of Lithuania should especially focus on the solution of the parked cars; and modem technologies should be employed for that. The research methods have been substantiated and the recommendations for the technical regulations of the short-term and long-term car parking near different objects of attraction have been worked out on the basis of selective natural research, which is significant when issuing technical specifications to investors on the way the surroundings of the objects being built should be arranged and on what rearrangement of the urban streets is necessary. With a high level of motorization, the organization of the car parking process is a complicated problem of urban planning. The accumulated experience and the carried out analysis show that car parking problems can be positively solved even with a high level of motorization by: making use of the urban area as reasonably as possible so that the spaces could take the greatest possible number of cars; limiting the duration of parking so that the greater number of cars could use the same parking space; promoting car sharing; differentiating the entrance possibilities for different vehicles with regard of time, space and fee size. Solutions related to the determination of the parking space should be achieved in the context of the strategy of total urban development, area and traffic planning, traffic safety improvement and preservation of unique environment.

APPLICATION OF MULTICRITERIA DECISION METHODS IN RESTORATION OF BUILDINGS IN THE OLD TOWN/DAUGIAKRITERINIŲ METODŲ TAIKYMAS VERTINANT SENAMIESČIO PASTATŲ RENOVACIJOS INVESTICINIUS PROJEKTUS

The largest part of old towns in Lithuania are to be regenerated. Sociological evaluation made in 1998 in Vilnius showed that the main problem of the Old Town are falling buildings. Nowadays investment into real estate is evaluated according to a single criterion. That's why it is so complicated to review the whole investment process. The object under investigation is the buildings in Vilnius Old Town. Condition of building constructions was evaluated. The location of building and possibilities of building usage are being€ evaluated also. Vilnius real estate market data was collected from Vilnius general plan. Values of building at various stages of reconstruction are calculated. There are 5 different alternatives of marketing. The scheme of building marketing is presented in Fig 2. There are schedules of the reconstruction work made (Figs 3 and 4). An estimation of different alternatives of building reconstruction is calculated (Table 3). Alternatives of building regeneration were evaluated in accordance with 14 criteria: profit of the project, life-time of building, price of the maintenance, perspectives of business, comfortability of building, price of building sale, insulation, possible losses because of accidents, cost of the building acquiring and reconstruction, location of building, price of the rent, term from the building acquiring till realisation, place for car parking and appearance. Decision matrix is presented in Table 4. Rationality of alternatives was calculated using TOPSIS method. Ranking of alternatives is presented in Table 5. We suppose that multi-criteria evaluation of the investment options creates new possibilities for investors and helps to choose the best variant of the building usage.

APPLICATION OF MULTICRITERIA DECISION METHODS IN RESTORATION OF BUILDINGS IN THE OLD TOWN

Summary The largest part of old towns in Lithuania are to be regenerated. Sociological evaluation made in 1998 in Vilnius showed that the main problem of the Old Town are falling buildings. Nowadays investment into real estate is evaluated according to a single criterion. That's why it is so complicated to review the whole investment process. The object under investigation is the buildings in Vilnius Old Town. Condition of building constructions was evaluated. The location of building and possibilities of building usage are being€ evaluated also. Vilnius real estate market data was collected from Vilnius general plan. Values of building at various stages of reconstruction are calculated. There are 5 different alternatives of marketing. The scheme of building marketing is presented in Fig 2. There are schedules of the reconstruction work made (Figs 3 and 4). An estimation of different alternatives of building reconstruction is calculated (Table 3). Alternatives of building regeneration were evaluated in accordance with 14 criteria: profit of the project, life-time of building, price of the maintenance, perspectives of business, comfortability of building, price of building sale, insulation, possible losses because of accidents, cost of the building acquiring and reconstruction, location of building, price of the rent, term from the building acquiring till realisation, place for car parking and appearance. Decision matrix is presented in Table 4. Rationality of alternatives was calculated using TOPSIS method. Ranking of alternatives is presented in Table 5. We suppose that multi-criteria evaluation of the investment options creates new possibilities for investors and helps to choose the best variant of the building usage.