Lietuvių liaudies medinių memorialinių paminklų apsauga: pastangos ir rezultatai
Protection of Lithuanian popular wooden memorial monuments: endeavour and results

Summary/Abstract: For ages, the traditional Lithuanian landscape could not be imagined without crosses, roadside pole chapels and roofed poles scattered all over small villages, homesteads, churchyards, and cemeteries or simply by the roads. Local and foreign ethnography researchers admired their abundance as well as the unconventional shapes and decoration already in the 19th century. The traditional craft of cross-making was listed among UNESCO’s masterpieces of Verbal and Non-tangible cultural heritage; a large number of extant objects were listed as fine art monuments. However, in the course of the 20th century this segment of cultural heritage was rapidly languishing. There were different factors for that, namely the natural decay of wood under the atmospheric influence, territorial reforms, migration, melioration under the soviet regime, as well as stealing and vandalism. The article discusses the protection of Lithuanian popular wooden memorial monuments, its evolution, preconditions and results. As a matter of fact, the state emerged as a protector of this heritage very late. Systemic academic stocktaking of popular wooden memorials started only in 1960s, and the first lists of protected fine art works were passed in 1971–1972. At that time, the problems of preserving and restoring the monuments became very relevant; yet there was a lack of expertise and specialists to be able to solve them. After Lithuania has regained independence in 1991, many of the crosses destroyed in the soviet times were rebuilt and some new were made, but the situation of the ones listed as fine art monuments has not changed much: we witness continuous losses, and church’s art works are usually prioritized in the programs of preservation and conservation, whereas popular arts are usually put aside.

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