Šiandieninio lietuvių tautosakos mokslo literatūrinis estetinis užnugaris
The Literary Aesthetical Background of the Modern Lithuanian Folklore Scholarship.

Summary/Abstract: The article focuses on the development of attitude maintaining that literary and folklore phenomena are closely related, as well as an inclination to highlight the artistic qualities of the folk poetry. The beginning of this tendency should be attributed to the praise for Lithuanian folksongs, expressed by the figures of German Enlightenment in the 18th–19th centuries, philosophers and poets like E. G. Lessing, J. G. Herder, and J. W. Goethe. Lithuanian authors of the 19th century, e.g. L. Rėza, S. Stanevičius, A. Baranauskas, V. Pietaris and others also praised the Lithuanian folksongs and their beauty. Expressions of pride and delight in Lithuanian folklore were quite common in the course of the 20th century as well. During this period, through the school handbooks the notion became entrenched that literature and folklore are phenomena closely related by nature, and therefore they should be analyzed in similar ways. The literary aesthetical background of the Lithuanian folklore scholarship became consolidated thanks to the efforts of B. Sruoga, J. Ambrazevičius, D. Sauka, K. Grigas, P. Jokimaitienė and many other researchers and writers. These criteria still seem relevant to the younger generation of scholars. The close proximity to the literary scholarship did not obscure the original character of Lithuanian folklore studies, which is shaped by such qualities as anonymity of the folk poetry, its conventionalism, multifacedness, panchronicity, synthesis of different arts, the nature of performance, etc.

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