Cultural Heritage and Social Environment Coherence in the Ethnographic Villages of Lithuania

Abstract

The records of the State protected cultural heritage objects in the preserved ethnographic villages of Lithuania; the survey records on their assessment; the guidelines on their potential use are considered to comprise a very significant part in the field of culturologic assessment. It is closely related to the needs and demands of the currently developed agricultural produce in these villages and the prevailing public services infrastructure as well as the social environment. When working out the issues related to the future heritage preservation and possibilities for the adaptation of these historic ethno culture-oriented rural settlements, the most decisive appeared the economic potential of the population in those villages. The state and conditions of the heritage objects in these ethnographic villages reflect not only the cultural attitude and provisions of the local communities, but the unregulated changes of the social economic environment.

The related project was carried out in 2012 called ‘The assessment of the state and conditions of the prioritized ethnographic villages as well as the relics and objects of the immovable cultural heritage in those villages, by means of the analysis of the historical development and photo-fixation of the valuable objects and by the studies of the social environment of the local population’ (Inventory... 2011). There was made an attempt to find out the current conditions of functioning of the prioritized preserved ethnographic villages, to determine the measures for protection as well as the prospects for future development. Based on the ‘Inventory of the criteria for selecting the prioritized ethnographic villages’ (Inventory… 2011) compiled from 38 villages which are included into the List of the Folk Art Valuables on Architecture, there were selected 10 prioritized villages. The assessment of the state and conditions of the immovable cultural heritage objects and social environment was performed in the following ethnographic villages of Salos, S. Katinautiskes, Kretuonos, Mikalajunai, Kasetos, Ziogeliai, Zervynos, Darguziai, Ciziunai ir Skirvytele. From the total number of 386 farmsteads, the detailed research study was performed in 188 farms. The findings of the study clarified the changes in the planned and spatial structure, the current state of the heritage objects of urbanism and architecture, the compositional characteristics in the landscape as well as the needs of the local communities and economic potentials for further protection of the ethno-architectural heritage.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.sace.9.4.7546