‘Mirror, Mirror on the W all, Who’s the Fairest of them All?’ Thoughts on a Monograph about the Traditional Clothing of Lithuanian Peasant Men
The author of the review discusses the debatable aspects of Vida Kulikauskienė’s
monograph ‘Traditional Clothing of Lithuanian Peasant Men’. First, he highlights
the value of the book. He notes that the book is the result of Kulikauskienė‘s longterm
research into traditional peasant men’s clothing, and the reconstruction and
creation of the Lithuanian national clothes in relation to it. Ethnographic fieldwork,
which began in the 1960s, took place within the context of the preparation
of the ‘Historical Ethnographic Atlas of Baltic National Clothes’. Until then, research
into women’s traditional clothing, which had been carried out for several
decades, and the well-established picture of their regional sets, contrasted with
men’s clothing as depicted mostly in a variety of fragmentary literary texts.
After a few years, the ethnographic information covering the entire territory
of Lithuania began to appear in Kulikauskienė’s articles published in various local
monographs. After supplementing the data gathered during the ethnographic
field-trips with literary material, and researching in museums and archives,
Kulikauskienė wrote and sucessfully defended her doctoral dissertation. At the
same time, an introductory text for the ‘Historical Ethnographic Atlas of Baltic
National Clothes’ was written, and maps were compiled. The atlas was published
in Riga in 1985. Before that, Kulikauskienė published a series of articles on
clothing, and wrote a manuscript for this monograph. The ethnologists Dr Irma
Šidiškienė and Dr Dalia Bernotaitė-Beliauskienė took the initiative and prepared
the final version of the manuscript, selected illustrations, and wrote footnotes
and explanations.
,,Ar iš balos tas gražumas mano prigimimo?” Mintys, kilusios skaitant tradicinei lietuvių
valstiečių vyrų aprangai skirtą monografiją