THE PROBLEM OF LEISURE TIME IN LATE 19TH AND EARLY 20TH-CENTURY LITHUANIA: THE WORKING CLASS CHALLENGE TO THE MIDDLE CLASS
In the late 19th century, leisure time became an important and publicly discussed topic in modernising Lithuanian society. This article examines how the topic of leisure time was discussed from a wide range of political positions, and how the factor of leisure time became increasingly important when considering the future scenarios of society. At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the topic of leisure time, its meaningful activities, and appropriate leisure time-related issues were intertwined with
discussions about the development of civilisation, new cultural standards, and challenges to the most important principles of social cohesion. The reason for the debate at that time was inseparable from the main features of modernisation: rapid economic growth, industrialisation and urbanisation, changes in the social structure, apparent features of individualisation, secularism, and the burgeoning of consumer
culture. In this article, the author focuses on singling out the most important features of modernising leisure time, when work and leisure become binary categories. From this perspective, the conflict between two important social groups, namely the working class and the bourgeoisie, is highlighted. The article demonstrates how these two groups sought to establish themselves ideologically, not only by showing their right to leisure time, but also by shaping what that leisure time should be. The first
group consisted of the defenders of workers’ rights (and in rare cases, workers themselves) presenting leisure time as a precondition for a better life. This assessment was seen as an instrument incorporating workers’ daily life into the rest of modern society. However, with leisure time becoming a universal human value and norm, many leisure practices that workers in the late 19th and early 20th century opted for were problematic for members of another prominent group, the bourgeoisie. In this article,
the bourgeoisie, or the middle class, is defined by means of Peter Stearn’s observation that it is useful to include cultural experience, not ‘just change in political or economic structure’. Thus, emphasising the cultural rather than the economic aspect of this social group, it can be stated that, for members of the middle class, ideas of ‘decent leisure’ and ‘appropriate use of time’ were based on the values and skills of self-discipline, order and efficient organisation. In this case, leisure time was recognised as a means of the partial reform of society and national consolidation. Consequently, the issue of leisure
time in late 19th-century Lithuania became an intersection where two major social groups, opinions and practices met. On one hand, the question of leisure time is indistinguishable from a utopian, sometimes paternalistic, harmonious vision of the working class and their leisure; other ways, cultural and political attitudes about the dangers of the working class (and, of course, it is most dangerous after finishing
work), arose from seeing how many late 19th-century workers chose meaningless, harmful and violent leisure activities. In both cases, the culture of leisure time in late 19th and early 20th-century Lithuania could be seen not as a routine or a temporary escape from social norms, but rather as a process for modern culture to appear in everyday life, contributing to the emergence of new social and cultural identities.
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