Liturgijos ir bažnytinės muzikos klausimai XX a. lietuviškoje spaudoje
Issues of liturgy and church music in the 20th-century Lithuanian press

Summary/Abstract: Lithuanian twentieth-century publications which deal with religious music or issues of church music and liturgy may be divided into three groups by turning points in history: until 1941, émigré and Soviet times (1945-1987), and the last decade of the 20th century. Much attention is paid to the issues of the professional level of organists and church choirs, documents of the Catholic Church and Gregorian chant in the press of the first period. Two ideologically opposite tendencies can be distinguished in the second period. In occupied Lithuania, all activities (including scientific research) connected with religion were banned. However, the greater part of the Lithuanian intelligentsia who withdrew to the West from Soviet occupation continued scientific and cultural activities to the extent possible. Both in Lithuania before the Second World War and later among the émigré, Catholic Church documents that were important for the development of church music were translated and published; however, there was very little serious consideration on the issue of church music. After the Second Vatican Council, the Lithuanian émigré had to take on the responsibility of translating liturgical texts into the native language and to try the renewed Catholic liturgy as it was impossible to do it in occupied Lithuania. Serious discussions about church art were held only after the restoration of Lithuania’s independence. At that time research into various religious rituals, music accompanying them, and composers’ individual expression was undertaken. The tradition of Lithuanian church music had to be recreated after fifty years of occupation.

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