Kultūrų sankirtos viduramžių Lietuvoje; Alfredo Senno požiūris
Intersections of Cultures in Medieval Lithuania: Attitude of Alfred Senn

Summary/Abstract: The Swiss philologist Dr. Alfred Senn (1899-1978) came to Lithuania, when he was a young, but already mature scientist, and worked at Kaunas University in the 1920s. Most of the works he published in the Lithuanian periodicals were related to linguistics. The scientist regarded his main area of interest – linguistics – as the part of humanities. In the article “Language and the concept of some of the adaptations” Alfred Senn provide insights into the phenomenon of language from philosophical point attempts through the civilizations of history, ethnography, biology data to understand the language meaning and purpose of human culture. Investigating the phenomenon of Christianity in Lithuania scholar describes it as a complex process of interaction between different cultures as a progressive acquaintance with the new forms of religious life. The scheme of world civilization’s evolution presented by the evolutionists was not acceptable to Senn. In the scientist’s opinion, such attitude humiliates the language as cultural phenomenon and cultural as the historical factor groundlessly. According to the scientist, it should change the well-established attitude to the meaning of civilization and culture in the world history. In the 1920s it was quite topical, because the effect of the positivism of the second half of the 19th century was still felt. Senn concluded, that new linguistic data, which prove richness of languages of already extinct or isolated ethnical communities (in the meaning of grammar forms), should be compared to the researches on material culture of these ethnical communities.

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