A Festival For Locals or For Tourists? The Ritual Year in Three Southeastern Lithuanian Settlements

Abstract

This article deals with the ritual year in the famous historical settlements of southeastern Lithuania – Trakai, Kernavė, and Medininkai. My aim is to show how newly created commercial holidays are perceived by local populations and to show the locations of these holidays in their ‘personal ritual year’. In order to achieve this goal I have analysed the current state (non-working days), parish church and newly created local ‘historical’ festivals, analysing their duration, seasonality and how they are appreciated by local populations. The main source is ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2017 and 2019 within the framework of the Lithuanian Institute of History’s Leisure, Celebrations and Rituals in the Vicinity of Vilnius: Social and Cultural Aspects programme. Online ethnographic sources were also used. In the article I come to the conclusion that the formation of new holidays is a rather complex process.
Even the mobilisation of cultural heritage, the introduction of a commercial character, the longer duration of the holiday, and the right season cannot guarantee that the local people will really appreciate a holiday if it is not linked to a specific date with valuable content. Such holidays are St. John’s Day, as a symbol of resistance to Soviet ideology, and the day of the coronation of the first Lithuanian king, i.e. State Day.